"How do you put love on the SOAP note?" a massage therapist asked during one of my recent training workshops. While it may sound like an unusual inquiry, there is, in fact, a legitimate scientific rationale for documenting the cultivation of love and positive emotional states on a SOAP note.

As massage therapists know, a SOAP note is the standard format for documenting a client visit. It includes sections to objectively record the client's Subjective information, Objective observations, Assessment of the situation, and treatment plan. Traditionally, these notes focus on physical assessment and the technical massage techniques utilized during the session.

However, emerging research reveals that bodywork practitioners should also account for the profound mind-body-emotion connection and their own state of being during a session. Studies from leading institutions like the HeartMath Institute have demonstrated the wide-ranging benefits of positive emotional states like love, appreciation, and care. These elevated emotions yield physiological impacts like reduced stress, lowered blood pressure, and improved immune function and healing responses.

Perhaps more surprisingly, research shows that a person's emotional state can be transmitted to others through therapeutic touch. Multiple studies indicate that the client perceives a practitioner's emotional experience via the subtle, energetic communication that occurs through touch. In other words, the state of being a massage therapist embodies affects the state of being they help induce in the client.

This phenomenon reveals that documenting one's skill in cultivating loving, peaceful interior states of consciousness is actually highly relevant information to include on a SOAP note. After all, the note is intended to capture the full therapeutic approach and interventions applied in service of the client's wellbeing. As scientific evidence affirms, a bodyworker's emotional mastery and transmission of elevated emotions like love may be just as significant as the physical techniques deployed.

Expanding the scope of SOAP notes to include the therapist's emotional skill development can help us embrace a more holistic, integrative approach to massage therapy. Recording the efforts to embody love, gratitude, and other high-vibrational states enhances self-awareness and reinforces their therapeutic value. Clients receive the compounded benefits that occur when a practitioner's physical techniques harmonize with the transmission of emotional nutrients like warmth, care, and acceptance.

Some may initially be skeptical of "putting love on a SOAP note." However, the scientifically grounded rationale is clear – by documenting our growth in skills like heart-centered presence and emotional self-regulation, we expand our treatment impacts and honor the unification of mind, body, and spirit that massage therapy can catalyze. This innovative perspective invites us as practitioners to be multi-dimensional channels for healing on all levels of the human experience.

The SOAP note is simply catching up to this holistic vision.

The Case for Love on the SOAP Note

"How do you put love on the SOAP note?" a massage therapist asked during one of my recent training workshops. While it may sound like an unusual inquiry, there is, in fact, a legitimate scientific rationale for documenting the cultivation of love and positive emotional states on a SOAP note.