Summer fun and the Fourth of July – well this past week when a client came in with numb fingertips, a raging headache and no neck. The family had been over for the “fireworks.”
Oh, and by the way, don’t touch my hands or my neck, the client said. It’s too much.
What to do when a client is looking for relief from a massage but will not let you go near their tension?
I have seen this here and there in my massage therapy career and it is a tough one. People with headaches who won’t let you touch them above the shoulders. Or a person with old scars from back surgery warns you off the entire lumbar as off limits.
Therapists have their favorite places to go for alternate therapy, and I like toes.
Too often people are defensive about their feet, afraid of tickles or embarrassed by funny looking digits or peeling skin. But a quick pass over the toes, with the sheet covering them, and I can often get people to start to relax.
My other reflex relax favorites are the fingers and ears, but I find limited success there, I think because they are closer to the upper body and the “control” or “hands-off” zones clients establish.
Following orders, I stayed on the toes, strictly circulatory massage, for about 20 minutes. There is a lot more going on than just circulation, but keeping the boundaries with the client is important, especially after a noxious “fireworks” gathering.
As the client relaxed I was finally given permission to massage elsewhere…. Toes save the massage again.
My feet are ticklish as hell. If someone truly wanted to torture me, all they would have to do is hold me down and touch my feet.
But you’re definitely right about the whole defensive thing…
When I go to massage therapy in oakville I find that she often concentrates on my feet. I found it uncomfortable at first, but then I realized she really knows what she’s doing and now I let her do her job. Although, it did take a little bit of getting used to.