Massage Therapist: What does your Massage Therapist really think? Inside the mind of a licensed MT

So you’re lying on the table, naked or close to it, and you are paying money to a complete stranger to rub your body with cream or oil and remove any tension you may have.  Sounds a little bit fishy to me how about you?

Well, in a nutshell, that is massage therapy and you pay good money for it.  To become a massage therapy client also takes a lot of courage, considering how vulnerable you are and how trusting you are of your therapist.  A therapist does have to have a certain amount of schooling and in most states be licensed with insurance and pass a criminal background check.  But still, it takes courage on the part of the client to trust a complete stranger with their body. 

So, like I said you’re lying there on a table almost naked and have you ever wondered if your massage therapist is thinking weird thoughts about you or is not too happy to be massaging you for some reason?  Well, I can’t speak for all therapists, but I would say that the majority of them do not care about any of the following:

1. We see and feel only body parts and the muscle under the skin and if there are any adhesions, hypertonicty or knots.
2. We don’t care that (ladies) you haven’t shaved your legs or that (men) your back is super hairy or if (men or women) you have back acne.
3. We don’t care if you are super skinny, super heavy, or somewhere in between.
4. We don’t care if you have a skin condition such as psoriasis or eczema, although we may not massage that area. It’s not because we don’t want to touch your psoriasis or eczema it’s only because your skin may be inflamed or irritated we don’t want to cause it to flare up even more.
5. We don’t care if you don’t get completely naked, it does not matter to us, we can massage through clothes.  It is only a suggestion to completely undress so that all body parts that need to be massaged can have lotion or cream applied to them for a better massage.  For example, if you have low back pain, I may want to massage part of your buttocks since those muscles can affect low back pain and may have trigger points in them. If I can massage that area and can work out any knots then your pain my be minimized or alleviated altogether.

 So what are we thinking about while giving you a massage?  Well in most cases we are trying to remember how a particular muscle moves and where it’s insertion and orientation points are and what muscles work in tandem with it especially when we are trying to release a knot within that muscle.  Or we think about different techniques to use if the knot is not releasing.

 

I will be honest though, if I have a client that doesn’t have any knots or does not want the knots worked out then my mind may start to wander since I have done so many massages and know my routine by heart.

 That is not to say that I am not trying and if I do run into an adhesion or knot somewhere I snap right out of my “daydreaming” and come back to the present and I am totally thinking about how to work it out.

What I daydream about it nothing shocking.  It’s what I have to do when I get home.  What I feel like writing about next.  What class I may take next to update my skills as an MT.  Sometimes, it’s as mundane as what to make for dinner that night or this week.  I am never thinking about my client except to wonder if I am doing a good job and to “listen” to their signs to make sure my pressure is not too deep or not deep enough.

So, that’s it, nothing too mysterious and not all that interesting. Oh and sometimes I am just zoning out and not thinking anything, that music we use to help you relax is very effective and hard to resist.