I felt the pressure wasn’t firm enough for me, did I just waste my time and money?

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Tuesday, 03 May 2022

Sometimes, it happens… a therapist just doesn’t touch the required spot or lightens the pressure prematurely before you can exhale that release of bliss. In an ideal world our therapist would be able to read our mind and find the exact spot to hone their pressure upon. And some therapists do magically seem to possess this radar vision or sixth sense. 

Realistically though, it normally takes a couple of sessions, clear client feedback, two-way reflective communication, and trial and error before the non ‘magic’ therapists learn your wishes, pressure tolerance, and tissue responses. Other clients may feel that the exact same pressure you received is too much for their body. It is important to give such feedback. Ideally during the session, but if not, at least at the end or before the session starts the next day. 

We instruct our therapists to waive the fee or reduce a fee to an acceptable value point for any client who is unhappy.

Reasons why a therapist may apply the pressure too light…

• 1) Your therapist may have missed the cues or got it wrong. Therapists are trained to sense your tissue response and gauge your breathing when sinking into a deeper touch. They should watch for possible client bracing if the pressure is too deep. It is possible they misunderstood your desire for MORE pressure, misread your tissues’ responsiveness and erred on the side of caution – applying a less risky touch.

• 2) Perhaps it was inappropriate to apply a deeper layer of touch? It’s common that we are surprised with how tense and sore our body is when we come for our first massage to resolve a symptom.The issue causing pain is usually a long time in the making and our brain’s coping mechanism is to disconnect from the achy body sensation and thus preserve our sanity. For your brain to experience constant ache all the time it would be overwhelming. It’s only when pain gets nervy enough, it forces us to re-act and book in a much-needed massage. The difficulty is that sometimes the symptom, muscle tension, or underlying muscular imbalances are in a state of mess. Your therapist may be trying to get into your tissue one layer at a time so as not to erupt a healing crisis volcano or worsening of condition. 

• 3) The most common reason that your therapist chooses to apply lighter pressure is when their client has indicated that they are attending for a once-off relief session. It is irresponsible for a remedial massage therapist to risk ‘opening a can of worms’ in instances where a treatment is a once-off relief session. Symptoms or muscular imbalances exist because of dysfunction and deep tissue treatment risks making pain worse before getting better. Remedial massage provokes changes in the tissue structures and should always be viewed as a course of treatment to enable tissue function to improve while reducing muscle imbalances and causing effects. Hence why it may have been inappropriate to dig deeper without the security of future appointments to put side effects right.

If you would like to arrange a conversation with a clinic director to better explain how massage works and what your options are by choosing to take your massage care further, then please call our reception team on 02037949760 or send us an email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. 

Thank you for your trust in using our service.

Agata and team.

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