Tactile Dialogue

Tactile Dialogue is the back-and-forth communication between a giver’s touch and the recipient’s soft tissues.

Tactile Dialogue

Tactile Dialogue is the back-and-forth communication between a giver’s touch and the recipient’s soft tissues. Observing a muscle twitch involuntarily, then immediately adjusting to ensure comfort to avoid a tickle response, is an example of tactile dialogue.

Effective tactile dialogue requires considerateness.

Considerateness is being mindfully aware of and sympathetic to another person’s feelings, needs, and circumstances. It is a behavior driven by empathy, in which a person deliberately adjusts their actions to avoid causing discomfort, inconvenience, or distress to another.

An example of considerateness through touch is a concept I call “Easy-In/Easy-Out.”

Easy-in/Easy-Out

When applying and releasing pressure, be kind to the body. Move slowly and give the brain enough time to develop trust for the touch. Slow, meticulous, and purposeful movements encourage a sense of safety.

Practicing this will help you learn how to be gentle. Gentleness is patient, kind, and compassionate. As you develop your gentleness, those you adore will look forward to feeling your love through your touch.

The Goal of a Massage is to Feel Good

Ask yourself, “What do I actually want to feel when touched?” In the context of a massage, you might say that you love firm pressure, so then you must want deep tissue, right?

This isn’t really what you want. You want to feel good, whether that means no longer being in pain or experiencing pleasure.

The feel-good sensation is the same for everyone, but reaching it requires varying degrees of pressure or methods that eclipse specific neurological thresholds. Read more about Central Sensitization.

Empathy

Empathy is one of the core virtues of massage, but its definition isn’t limited to just seeing the world through your client’s eyes.

It entails imagining how they feel from the beginning to the end of the session. It means taking the time to simulate, in your mind, how they might feel as you apply each technique, and how they feel (when not being touched) between touch applications.

It is accounting for transference/countertransference, assessing how your outward emotional state may influence coregulation (or co-dysregulation), and ultimately, uncovering how they actually want to be treated.

Nuance of the Golden Rule

True empathy embodies the spirit of “Treating others as you would like to be treated.“

Ask yourself, “How do I want to be treated?”

What you want is the same thing everyone else wants, not a specific action, but a considerate thought.

Considerate Thought: Is realizing that ‘treating others how I want to be treated‘ isn’t about giving them what you want. It is about asking, ‘How do they want to be treated?’ and adapting to their needs.

At the end of the day, you want people to genuinely consider your perspective and adapt to your needs. That’s all any of us really want.

Knots

Just because you feel something that appears abnormal doesn’t mean it is. Knots are an example of this. These are the bumps, lumps, and elevated landmarks you may feel in someone’s soft tissues while massaging.

Most people, including massage therapists, lack the anatomical and physiological knowledge to accurately assess what is considered normal and abnormal. Even among people who know their A&P like the back of their hand, most lack the ability to distinguish between subjective and objective perceptions of touch.

When palpating someone, the feeling of an elevated, dense, or asymmetrical area in the soft tissues does not indicate tissue damage or pain.

Rather than assuming it is an abnormality that causes pain or referred discomfort, ask your client how the area feels when touched. Refrain from using catastrophizing words when you do. This will help avoid a nocebo response by preventing the accidental association of pain or fear in an area that might not be experiencing any.

What the client says, and the tone they use to describe how they feel, is more valuable information than the way you assume they are feeling based on your palceptive interpretation of their soft tissues.

An example of using tactile dialogue when detecting a bump, lump, or asymmetrical elevated landmark during palpation is to ask them how the area feels, then adjust accordingly.