There are professions whose purpose is rescuing. Emergency room physicians and nurses, EMT medics, fire-fighters, suicide hot-line workers, child protection social workers, and first responders of all kinds. These professionals are an integral part of a progressive society. Perhaps we can look at them to answer the question "Is Healthy Rescuing Possible?"

Lets look at a few characteristics of these professions.
1) They are specifically trained/educated to offer effective interventions to someone who needs rescuing, whether it is a medical emergency, a fire, a natural disaster, or some other situation where there are individuals whose lives would be at risk, or they would at least experience great harm were it not for the rescuer.
2) They only rescue someone once. The entire rescuing relationship is usually very brief. Even the emergency room staff passes the patient along to another branch of the hospital, or releases them, within a few hours. There is NOT an ongoing relationship between the rescuer and rescuee.
3) Emergency rescue personnel do not rescue people they know personally, at least not in their professional capacity.
4) No matter how compassionate the rescuer is, they maintain appropriate emotional boundaries with the rescuee; the short duration of the rescuing situation helps to insure this detachment.
5) Rescue professionals rescue others from physical danger and bodily harm mostly. They do not usually do emotional rescuing. Other professionals will be brought in to deal with the emotional fall-out that can occur subsequent to an accident, natural disaster, or other event in which someone is rescued.

In the next entry, we will compare these factors to the way the typical massage therapist works with her/his clients.

Tags: Rescuer