The Conversation

To talk or not to talk? Should a therapist talk while giving clients massages? There’s only one answer to this question—for most of us. I found out, however, that there is more than one viewpoint today, while having lunch with a massage therapist friend. I was firmly of the belief that people don’t like to talk while being worked on; that it’s a distraction of such enormous proportion as to wreak havoc on the peace you came specifically to find. But Julieann made a great point. She said that people often LOVE to talk, even need it. She says there could be a variety of reasons for it but probably the most prevalent in her travels being that for many it takes off the edge of awkwardness that the intimacy of the massage room creates.

It makes perfect sense, and it was a real eye opener for me: Just because I like or need something in The Land of Spa doesn’t mean everyone else feels similarly. I compared it to Julieann with the foot-in-mouth sense I've occasionally felt when I've met someone and assume, perhaps by something as surface as their looks, that they share my political or social views—and then find out they don't.

But! As my friend was quick to point out, a good massage therapist will never initiate the conversation, won't harp on the weather, or her upcoming vacation. Rather, she will listen not only to the needs of her client’s body and individualize her work accordingly. She will also be alert to the emotional comfort level of each individual and help make them relax to the best of her ability.

So I’m not going to go around making those blanket statements anymore about the massage room needing to be a sacred space. That might be too much for some people, too precious for others. There are those who simply want to good kink-reducing rubdown and are happy to jaw on, well, just about anything. “I talked sports with a guy for 45 minutes yesterday,” my friend said. “I don’t even know where that came from.”

Then we laughed about how her husband had been providing a steady stream of sports-related material that she’d been collecting by osmosis, just waiting for the opportunity to download as needed . It paid off and everyone was happy.