Category Archives: Touchy Situations

Massage Mercies

Sometimes we massage therapists get our best quips quite spontaneously from our clients. I haven’t done a top-ten list lately….so…

 

          Top Ten Best Quips from Clients Mid-Massage

 

Number 10: “The combination to the safe is 35 left, 56 right and 22 left.”

Number Nine: “Do you wash your sheets?”

Number Eight:  “Ever thought about putting ads on your shoes?”

Number Seven: “I think my neck hates my job.”

Number Six: “What is the longest massage you have ever done?

Number Five: “Am I supposed to see a burning bush in the desert?”

Number Four: “Do smelly feet bother you?”

Number Three: “How do you know if you have ringworm?”

Number Two: “Do you know Amber Frey?”

 

And the Number One Best Quips from Clients Mid-Massage:

 

“Better light the candle; you pushed it out of me.”

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Therapy of a Kind

Reading the paper this morning, (I know, how old-fashioned of me!) I found myself very interested in the story of a fellow who had gone to a psychiatrist for treatment of depression. As the patient went through a few sessions, he said it became apparent that the therapist had honed in on what he felt was the real problem.
           
The patient was a gay man, and the psychiatrist told him he would become much happier if he played more sports and thought of other men as friends rather than potential partners. The patient’s complaint was, however, that he was not there to become happier by becoming more heterosexual: he was there for his depression.
           
Nothing in the psychiatrist’s introduction or qualifications gave the patient any clue he was seeing someone focused on gay conversion therapy, the patient said. The subject did not come up until he was already in therapy and feeling very uncomfortable.
           
I sat there and did a “hmmm” over my morning coffee. Are any of us massage therapists doing services other than those described on our shingle? Am I massaging or giving nutritional advice? What about those folks who talk about their relationships or troubles?
           
The big question: Am I projecting any of my issues onto clients?
           
Well, this is a tough one for any therapist to consider. We are, all about helping people, of course. We’re here to guide people to healing, right? What if our healing ideal is not their idea of healing?
I can say I have had an experience like this on the other side of the sheet. It didn’t help with what I sought help for in a massage. If anything, I felt attacked rather than soothed. It’s given me pause, now and then, when I recall how it went.
The distal portion of my right calf had been aching for a few days, and I was on vacation in San Francisco. The long city walks and hills had my calf screaming for mercy, and no amount of self-massage or PNF was fixing it. I needed some relief.
The City, as the natives say, is a complicated place. Signs glow orangey-red in many of the side-streets advertising massage services. I did not need ESP to figure out that these places catered to men only. I finally found a listing for massage by a therapist who had lots of little letters after the name. Seemed studied and professional, I thought.
This was without a doubt the worst massage I have ever had and the worst experience with another therapist. My aching calf was ignored while the therapist lectured me on nutrition. I got the feeling he intensely disliked touching me as he did some sort of shiatsu-like grope on my spine. He actually suggested I join an ashram immediately for a full-body detox. He even gave me the name and address.
I had to pop up with what about my calf? He told me working on my calf would not help.
About 58 minutes later my friends picked me up in their tiny car.
“How was your massage?” my friend asked.
“Weird. Really weird,” I told her. “And my calf still hurts.”
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Un-Couplings

Providing massages for married couples has always been a pleasure. I enjoy seeing the same people for massages and hearing from them how they are doing with life’s stresses – the kids, the business, the in-laws, whatever.
            
It’s always made business sense as well. I will do two instead of one massage at a house call, or in the office, and often couples like to have longer massages. I may head home from a couples massage having done three to four hours of massage in a single call.
            
Married folks often send referrals my way, so in general, it has always been a pleasant experience.
            
Mostly.
           
Here’s the bottom line:

When a couple is getting a divorce, which gets the massage therapist?

I had not realized I was part of the settlement issues as one of my couples wound round the full circle of life and gunned it to Splits Ville. I have seen these folks since 1996, almost my entire career. To say I have felt uncomfortable about this whole d-i-v-o-r-c-e thing is an understatement.

First, I had to deal with some bad news for my ego. Massaging together does not prevent divorce. It might even help people see more clearly that they need to make new life arrangements 

Second, I had to deal with the table talk. Listening, but not getting involved. Listening, but not taking sides. Listening, and trying to be sympathetic without asking any questions. Listening to very oddly un-alike versions of the same incidents and conversations. Do shrinks go through this?

Some of this process felt like being accidentally stuck in a coat-closet while a couple have a furious and hushed argument right outside the door. I cringed, I twisted, and I tried not to hear any of the intimate details

Happily, most couples I see for massage are not going to be breaking up very soon. They seem not only content, but bonded in a way that works for them as the years pass.

Oh, and she got me in the settlement. His nibs was embarking on a new path that apparently does not involve massage. Whew!
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How Many Repetitions Are Enough?

Clients often ask me how many times they should be doing an exercise to build strength. Often they are coming from a more-is-better place – the gym – and they are confused.
I don’t always feel comfortable answering that question, either. How many repetitions of an exercise are fine may well depend on what the point of the exercise is – strength? size? flexibility? What about function? If the muscle is a core muscle, does that change the formula as opposed to those muscles we like to see flexing in the mirror?
And what do I, as a massage therapist, really know about exercise? Do I need a course in physical exercise to answer that question? What if I say something different or conflicting from what the trainer says?
I would like to know how other massage therapists handle this question.
Of course, in the meantime, I’ll give you an idea of how I handle that question. I touch people all day, and I get a feel for muscle health in terms of its aerobic state, lymph circulation, and flexibility. Over the years I have learned to trust my hands when they tell me something. I know that granular, adhesed muscles won’t stretch or exercise very well.
After some massages and stretching, they may be ready to perform. The nervous system, truly, is in charge. If the parasympathetic system is not engaged, change is not about to take place.
If that sounds like a massage therapist’s answer to another massage therapist, it is. And it’s way too complicated for clients. I usually go simple and easy.
I tell clients like to do three slow, pain-free repetitions. Three isn’t many, but I say three because everyone ignores the slow, pain-free parts. If those reps go okay, then I’ll do something else and then do another set of three. Three reps, three sets.
That is a lot less than the standard gym advice of three sets of fifteen, done in succession. It’s so way off from what most people are told that it does get their attention.
For me the bottom line is that muscles need to be relaxed and pain-free to exercise in a healthy way. If something is too tight or hurts to move, the body will protect it by substituting another muscle or group, or the muscle will be injured. Repetitions that feel good generally are going to help. Wobbly, strained, borderline-painful repetitions are going to make problems worse.
Sometimes the biggest change I can get from people is to stop instead of pushing through a pain. Shoving through pain only works if you are in the NFL. They have a good pension plan.
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Little Women and Gentle Men

When it comes to face-down offers on the table, I thought women therapists would have the best stories. Oooh my, I was mistaken.

Well, OK, the female therapist who told me she was propositioned by the rabbi was a good one. It was during one of those long holiday weeks and there was a religious group staying at the hotel where she worked. Rabbis are pretty busy blessing food and saying prayers and other things, and then they get a break after everybody checks out. The rabbi came in for a massage and asked her what the difference was between massaging one area versus another…i.e. down there versus the shoulders…..then he tried the old “who would know?” God knows, she answered. I must say her story, for lack of another word, left me in titters.

The diaper change got me too. This lady who looked like about 70 dropped off her husband, who was 90-something, and said “Keep him here as long as you want. I need a nap.”

When the therapist came into the room to start the massage she noticed he was wearing a diaper. Halfway through what she thought would be a 90-minute to two-hour massage, the gentleman asked for some help achieving Nirvana. She told him you can’t always get what you want, but sometimes you get what you need. Tee-hee.

Heck, perhaps not so dramatic, yet it happens to pretty much every therapist. Someone hints, asks, propositions or demands items not on the menu. So I bravely asked some of my male therapist friends for their proposition stories. I figure they must have a few good ones.

One fellow who worked at a gym had a massage room in the male locker room, alleviating the need for modesty from the clients. A client asked him what he did for fun, in a way that begged the answer.

“I drill,” he replied, and he did just that for an hour.

I was shocked. “You drilled him?”

“Yes. I pushed on every trigger point in his body at plus-ten pressure. Guy didn’t even breathe.”

“Oh. I thought you meant something else,” I said.

A male therapist who worked at a spa said he had a female client asking him to come to her house. He was too afraid to say yes, knowing he could get fired. After about her fifth visit he figured she could not be a pro shopper, and he said yes.

“When I went to her house, she opened the door and laughed when she saw I had my table,” he said. “I thought she actually wanted a massage!”

It is different for men, I guess.

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Gender of-Fenders and Service with a Smile

I don’t like to think about sex in the context of massage, but I am somewhat ticked at what I see as some pretty serious whining going on amongst male therapists responding to Lynna Dunn’s recent article about “discrimination” against male therapists.
Gentlemen, please put yourselves in the place of the person at the front desk, booking massages for multiple rooms and dealing with whatever comes their way in the form of client complaints. Any front office/schedule person, after five minutes in the massage business, will learn to ask that question. Why? Because a lot of male and female clients do not want a male therapist.
Is that right? No.
Is that fair? No.
Now get over it.
I sympathize, I empathize. I rage against human nature and its folly. Why is there such discrimination allowed in this enlightened age. But that won’t change hearts and minds. People are as people do. And most don’t ask for male therapists.
Massage is, after all, a service industry. We serve the clients. If the clients don’t want such an intimate service from a male, we can’t stand there and argue. Service means their problems, unfortunately, are our problems. Our problems get to stay our problems and should not be shared with the clients.
Sometimes this problem is sexual, sometimes it is about past experience and abuse, sometimes it’s about not having a perfect body.
On the occasions when I have asked clients about their preferences, I’ve gotten some pretty strange stories in reply. They may tell me about a creepy massage they had where the therapist seemed to be checking them out. One client told me that a male therapist had slapped her copious cellulite hip and recommended a local surgeon saying “Most clients who have this problem have it removed.”
On the bright side, I’ve had clients tell me they always ask for a male because they don’t want a namby-pamby application of oil from someone with weak wrists. One such lady told me she went to the spa only because she had a gift certificate. Otherwise she had a nice man come to the house and massage her “everywhere” for only $50 – for two hours.
Gentlemen, I feel your pain. I also know that in every other job I have ever had in my life, males have the advantage in pay, promotions and perks. So butch up!
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U Stink But I Luv U

As I recall, “U Stink But I Luv U” was a single recorded by the fictional Billy and the Boingers, a musical group composed of Opus, Bill the Cat, and other characters from the cartoon strip Bloom County. Bloom County was a favorite pleasure back in the 80’s before the writer Berke Breathed refused to let it die a natural death and parts of it ended up becoming the best-never-penned Outland. But–you know–I digress.

This song title popped into my head when a therapist asked my advice on what to do when I client smells really, really bad. Well, I haven’t had that many stinky clients, really. Sometimes I think I’ve been lucky. Years ago, I overheard a post-session conversation between two therapists where one gasped, “Oh my god!” and the other asked, sympathetically, “Armpit, ass, or something else?” So apparently stinky clients show up often enough.

And really, all you need is one smelly massage to keep you reliving it vividly. One of my few stinky clients smelled so bad that after he left, I had to fumigate the room–and the hall–with citrus spray. So, I told the therapist seeking my advice that a good thing to do is to dab something under your nose that will cut the odor and get you through without gagging. I did warn her, though, to learn from my past desperate mistake and avoid using a large gob of Tiger Balm unless she wanted her lips and nose to ignite as well (a tiny smear is just fine).

So dabbing something under your nose can work quite well in these kinds of situations, as long as you’re careful of type and amount of the chosen substance. A favorite essential oil (e.g. lavender, lemon, bergamot, rose) can not only mute the odor, but flood your brain with whatever good feelings those scents evoke for you. And if you don’t want oils on your face, your shirt collar can work, or a scented hankie tucked into your shirt collar (one of the many reasons ladies used to carry handkerchiefs). As a bonus, lightly scenting your face or collar will work without exposing the client to your own new perfume. Now, you’d think breathing your lavender oil would be a good thing for Mr. Sweet-Yet-Stinky, but most of us now work in scent-free environments where ironically, in the interest of avoiding asthma attacks and migraine headaches, people still have the right to exude “armpit, ass, or something else” if they desire.

You can also get more creative, and keep a few vapor cough drops on hand or pin fresh rosemary to your shirt if you know a known stinker will be arriving. Other than that, I’m not sure there’s much else to be done. The therapist asked if therapists should talk to stinky clients about their odor problems. Mmmm, I’m going to say no on that one, unless their toes are black and you attribute the putrid stench to gangrene, which is life-threatening. While I realize that the therapist’s client had had breath that seemed life-threatening to HER (she could smell his breath even when he was face-down), chances are he would have been really hurt, offended, and/or incapable of addressing the issue without clouding emotions. On the other hand, there may be times when therapists have to speak up about odor . . . case by case, I guess. One day at a time!

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Insurance Massage: What Makes a Session a Session?


I just do insurance massages, I don’t bill for them (thank the Gods). My wonderful boss is the one who walks the labyrinth on that one. So I was perplexed last week when a regular client came in feeling a touch irritated and betrayed about being billed for entire insurance sessions at the chiropractor’s office.

This gets a bit complicated, so let me elaborate. I was the one who referred the client to this particular chiropractor in the first place, and she loves his adjustment. I see him as a client myself, and also appreciate him as a skilled and honest practitioner . . . of chiropractic medicine. Now, I knew he employed a massage therapist who did a short kind of “spot” massage or chair massage to loosen up the muscles before adjustment. But I’ve never gotten one of these massages myself–partly because I call short chair massage “tease massage”–and I guess I never thought about how they were being billed. Maybe I didn’t even think they were being billed at all, just being offered as a nice extra, like a hot towel or a bottle of water.

However, as my client found out (just by chance, in asking an idle question), these 15 minute chair massages are being charged as complete sessions. So, in other words, if my client has 60 massages through her insurance, and she comes to see me for an hour massage, then her remaining number is 59. And if she then goes to get a chiropractic adjustment and agrees to get a 15 minute chair massage beforehand, she now has 58 massages in her “massage bank.”

What??? That made my head spin. How could an hour of massage therapy on the table and a 15 minute back rub equally count as “sessions?” Isn’t that like comparing apples to oranges? I couldn’t blame my client for being upset at having “lost” about 5 sessions to 75 minutes of chair massage when she could have had 300 minutes with me on the table.

Still, this didn’t sound right to me, so I went to the wonderful boss mentioned above and asked her to enlighten me. And she said something to the effect of: “Good question. Insurance pays for ‘up to 4 units per day.’ So no matter how many 15-minute units are billed for each date of service- 1, 2, 3, or 4, that’s going to count as a session. The concept that 1 massage = 1 hour comes from the massage world, not from the insurance or medical world.”

Wow. If this is correct, then I think an ethical question has arisen for chiropractors and other potential providers: Don’t you need to explain to the client that your 15 minute massage “counts” the same as an hour at a massage clinic as far as insurance is concerned? My client had 60 sessions of massage/physical therapy/chiropractic to “burn,” but most of us have only a dozen or so (if any). So this could be baaaaaaaaaaaaddd for someone who needed their massage and couldn’t pay for it out-of-pocket.

I’m in a quandry. I wonder if I should approach the chiropracter, as I really respect him and want to think he wouldn’t mislead anyone purposefully. On the other hand, I am making an apples and oranges argument, but still may not be grasping the situation correctly, which would mean, I guess, that I’m talking out of my cornucopia. Any thoughts out there?

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Buckets O’ Stress

Well, it’s been kind of tense around my house lately, largely because my honey has spent the last three months on the jury for a creepy serial killer accused of five murders.

I must say, I ran out of jokes and quick subject changes when it all came down Tuesday with the death sentence. Not much one can do but console. A little TLC. I ignored all the crabbiness and just tried to be there for my honey.

This has been a life sentence for the jurors in stress.. they’ve had sleepless nights, nightmares from the up-close, color corpse photos and the extremely annoying defendant, acting as his own attorney, who couldn’t speak above a whisper or phrase a question right. The judge and prosecutor had to help him out a lot.

So I came home from the office last night to see my honey lying in bed, snuggled in a blanket, with a headache, a backache and an incredibly irritable mood. No, no massage. No warm bath. No ice cream. No. Leave me alone.

Here I am, a massage therapist who can pretty much deal with anyone’s barrel of stress, and I get ordered out of the room.

Around 11:30 that night, honey finally appeared, and decompressed by telling me how frustrating it had been to be a juror, to listen to all the testimony, to see the families, the testimony of two girls who survived.

“I know we did the right thing.”

Sometimes the right thing sucks, and there’s not much one can do about it.

I told honey that civic duty now being over for the next decade, we should now turn to the future and never think about Mr. Creepy again.

This is going to be hard.

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The War of the Table

Nobody would start a war over a table, right? Well, wars have started over less. In this case, the possible storm brewing involves an electric lift table, the only one in the six-room massage business where I work.

When I first began working there, I was afraid I had become too spoiled with electric lift tables to ever be able to live well without them. But as it turned out, I didn’t like the energy in that particular room, and energy matters more to me than electricity when it comes to massage. I also had the sneaking feeling that as the business grew, so might competition for that particular room and table. So I chose another room to work in, removing myself from any future territorial struggles, and brought the table way up high, the way I like it for my height and my back.

Unfortunately, I appear to have been right. The one electric table — originally installed in the largest room to be available to clients with mobility and other issues — is now being vied for by two or three therapists. As long as these people don’t work the same shifts, all is well. But if, for example, they overlap, there is a problem. Yesterday, one therapist was running over slightly, and the therapist waiting to inherit the electric table for the remainder of the day almost started her own massage late because she was unwillingly to work on a “regular” table.

Being a team-player, I’d like to think of a solution to this issue so that everyone can be as happy as possible. Some of the therapists who prefer the electric table, cite back issues as a problem, and that’s understandable. But buying five more tables is a terrible expense, and not likely to happen. Perhaps one more, or one more at used price is an option. I’m really not sure. I have my own physical issues, but as long as the table is at the height I need, whether the table is electric or not doesn’t really matter to me that much. If any therapists out there have had to address the electric vs. non-electric table issue in the workplace, please comment on how you would handle it.

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