I had a long overdue deep tissue massage the other day. You know the kind – like a meal with just the right amount of chilli, it’s verging on painful without being punishing and you don’t want it to stop.
The parallel with a therapeutic conversation was striking, where touch and pressure replaced words. Even if we prefer a particular style, the actual experience is a unique blend of what both practitioner and client bring in a dynamic interaction of mutual adjustment and flow.
The practitioner’s skill set will be informed by a range of influences in and out of the massage world. They have the body they have – they can’t switch up to a larger pair of hands just because a bigger person walks in. They will vary in what they pay most attention to, and how responsive they are to what each body tells them. Likewise, each client responds differently, as do different muscles, resisting, yielding and everything between. The tolerance for pain or challenge can fluctuate from session to session, from moment to moment.
The best massage therapists I’ve met have all had their own style, there was a clear sense of flow from beginning to end, and no two massages have been the same. And each incorporated gentle check-ins – they clarified expectations at the outset, asked if the level of pressure was OK as we went, particularly in more intense moments, and there was full permission to stop or change the approach if it got too much.
In conversation there is so much room for assumptions to creep in and words to take on a momentum where these opportunities for recalibration can get lost. Like a good massage therapist, we can tune into the rhythms of interaction and intensity running beneath the surface to foster a deeper experience of partnership.
Helen Mentha 