An MT's Deadly Serious Guide to
Therapeutic Laughter

By Robert Chute
Cartoons by Jerry King

Massage therapy is rocket science, so we’re told, so we have to be deadly serious at all times—lest we casually kill someone in a careless moment, I guess. Have you noticed that many massage therapists interact with clients like they’re selling coffins to the bereaved? For many of us, the job of massage has drained the fun out of the vocation. Any massage therapist can give a decent massage, but it takes one with a very positive attitude to keep smiling when the sixth client of the day walks in and another one’s on the way.

 How do you come across as a massage therapist? Are you comfortable in your own skin? Honest or earnest? Well spoken and knowledgeable or needy and pretentious? If you are holding forth at a neighbor’s barbeque and keep saying “scapula” instead of “shoulder blade”—warning! If you are actually laying “Proprioceptive Neuromuscular Facilitation” on them, you’ve got the disease of “dis-ease.” We’re all experts in relaxation, but many of us sure don’t look at all relaxed to our clients. It’s a barrier to communication and connectivity. It can even be a speed bump on your clients’ road to healing.

If you’ve got the familiar throb of a headache coming on and maybe a sudden stab of recognition that, “Uh-oh, that sounds like me sometimes,” don’t turn the page. It’s intervention time and a guy wearing a clown nose is already on his way to have a chat with you. Keep reading and don’t make any sudden moves. I’m here to talk you in off that ledge. This is your wake-up call to lighten up. By all means, take your work seriously. Helping people is often serious business. If you are taking yourself too seriously, however, you’re carrying a heavy load uphill while you attend to those in your care. When we’re done, you’ll get your groove back.

Desperate for Approval
Once upon a time I was massaging a client’s back. She was prone and I was in the zone. I felt a deep connection to the tissues I was working, carefully and deeply flowing through every spinal attachment with delicate origin and insertion techniques. I reluctantly swam back up from my reverie with the reluctance of someone stepping out of a warm pool into chilly air. I looked down, beneficent and euphoric, to realize my eyeglasses had slipped from my shirt pocket and dropped neatly into my client’s upturned palm.

There’s a trance-breaker. “Um,” I said. Vanity, when it hits you, is sticky, like a big wad of peanut butter that doesn’t give your tongue room to move.

“I can tell you really enjoy your work,” she said with a kind smile.
“Good thing my hair wasn’t on fire. I might not notice.”

After a pregnant pause, we both broke into giggles. I was embarrassed at my hubris and she was gracious and we both felt lighter afterward. The massage probably had a lot to do with her light feeling, but I think the shared laughter played a large part, too. I was more connected to her in that humorous moment than I had been during the treatment. It’s the neat catch of my glasses we’ll both remember.

My pet theory, pooping all over the carpet of your clinic at this very moment, is that massage therapists are, as a group, insecure and desperate for approval from mainstream healthcare. In Ontario, for instance, massage therapists are required to record, among an intimidating plethora of other details and niggles, the time of day we’re treating our clients. It’s doubtful that’s really a necessary detail, but it’s what they do in hospitals, so we’re required to do it, too. (Our motto could be, “Oh! Oh! Me, too! Take me seriously!”) It’s a zeitgeist that leads some practitioners to be overly serious in the name of professionalism, if not downright put upon and dour.

Many of us are low on the grease that helps the cogs of human interaction intersect and move smoothly. The lubricant we need to stock up on is the fun of it. Veteran therapists need to remember that this work was once play. Newbies could dial back on the earnestness by half and stop talking like they’ve just successfully separated conjoined twins when they improve somebody’s range of motion. If we aren’t having a good time, we’re shortchanging our clients because they’re picking up on our vibe. Don’t harsh their mellow. Convey buoyancy.

 I know of a therapist who, when out and about, refuses to identify her occupation. “That’s too personal,” is her standard reply. Another therapist, when asked what she does, replies, “About what?” There’s a lack of pride of membership in our profession and no little defensiveness in these answers. An opportunity to educate someone ignorant of the wonders of massage therapy is also lost. The innocent who’s doing the asking will no doubt conclude these therapists are either spies, crystal meth lab operators, or, most tragically, reformed multi-level marketers.

We’ve heard all the stupid jokes about our profession. No need to repeat them here. Most of them are sexual, homophobic, or denigrating to our healing and helping profession. People unfamiliar with our work or uncomfortable with the word massage are often the jokers throwing this stuff at you. These misguided folks aren’t your target market.

What about our clients? Where’s the boundary there? Therapists should not feel they are at work to entertain clients. Okay. But do we have to be so serious that a session is like the joke-free zone around the metal detectors at the airport? How about a light touch from time to time?

It’s not about firing out George Carlin quotes. It’s about setting a tone.

What is the rule with use of humor? Common sense really. Avoid sexual, political, and religious humor. Don’t be caustic. You’re creating an atmosphere of healing and helping to harness the power of positive expectation. Don’t take a verbal squat in your massage room.

Consider the therapist who outlines his proposed protocol for a client and ends with those imperious words, “Do you consent?” Sounds foreboding, doesn’t it? It sounds like you’re signing over your first born, if you agree. I suggest a softer approach which is no less clear, but a bit friendlier: “So how about we focus
on the back, neck, and shoulders today? Does that sound good to you?” You can obtain their verbal consent without triggering alarms in their minds. It’s a yummy massage, not a prostate exam on a tightrope in a hurricane.

In SomatoEmotional Release and Beyond, John Upledger, DO, advises, “Always go for humor near the end. If patients can laugh at any part of the experience, they are laughing at themselves. If they can laugh at themselves, they won’t take themselves and life quite so seriously. This is definitely desensitizing and therapeutic.”¹

Going for a laugh at the end proved effective in almost all the original Star Trek episodes, so Upledger must be right. We know tears drain away emotional and physical tension, but sometimes we forget laughter has the same power to release and relieve. We can deal with some heavy issues in treatment. There’s not much that’s funny about clients coping with cancer, injury, loss, or bereavement; although those individuals may have developed their own brand of humor as a coping mechanism. However, in many such cases, ending the session on a higher note than when it began is much appreciated. A shared laugh is a punctuation mark in time that hopefully denotes a more positive time ahead.

But how do you encourage laughter in your practice? I’m not suggesting a Three Stooges marathon on the television in the waiting room or Chris Rock replacing Enya on your CD player. I’m suggesting that when it’s appropriate, you laugh. Your laughter is permission for your clients to laugh. (Psychologists call it social facilitation.) In keeping things light where you can, you are fostering a healing environment, rather than a tomb of utter silence.

Look for opportunities to laugh with your clients and it will do you both good. Also, if your client shoots you a witty remark, enjoy it and resist the urge to top her. You can’t force funny and of course silence and focus are important to achieving our goals, too. If you’re laughing alone, please stop that. That’s a signal your client is working on something on her own and needs you to zip it. Talk with the hands.

Professional ethics dictate objectivity and a distance that are useful for keeping therapists and clients safe and communications clear. That doesn’t mean you have to be a poop. We are professionals, but we are also in the act of becoming part of our clients’ lives. Our clients affect us, too. How could they not? To pretend otherwise is to pervert the tenets of clinical objectivity. Our work helps people and supports how we live in the world. You aren’t required to be solemn to perform serious work. In fact, it may be getting in your way.  

 Meditate on this and consider the possibilities: a shared laugh has the power to elevate our moods and our minds. Laughter generates many of the same morphine-like chemicals—endorphins—that allow athletes and hospital patients alike to better endure pain, or even erase it. To make someone laugh is to cherish them and maybe even heal them. Norman Cousins, in his book Head First, attributed much of his success in reducing the pain of ankylosing spondylitis to watching comedies. Humor helps heal.

Humor puts a salve on stings, too. A client got quite reactive and tense when I asked if she would like me to finish the work on her back with Tiger Balm. Her concern was ecological. She was worried that Tiger Balm contained actual tiger squeezings. Tiger Balm does not contain any animal products nor does the company do any testing of their products on animals. I read the ingredients and I made sure she saw me examining the bottle carefully, too. Her worry was a valid expression of her core values, so I gave her a straightforward answer first. “No eau de tigers,” I said. “I think it would be much more expensive if they used tigers.”

“Oh,” she said, somewhat mollified. Her jaw tension loosened a quarter turn.

“However,” I said, arching an eyebrow, “you might have some legitimate moral objections to the baby powder.”

All the tension in the room and through her musculature slipped away as she began to laugh. When the tension creeps up, people want to be heard and taken seriously. If you’re saying their concerns are ill-founded, your clients want you to display transcendence and grace while you do so. Humor can defuse a conversation bomb and allow you a pause to refocus the interaction.

Refocus on this: farts happen. Your client will be much more relaxed on the table and free of burning embarrassment if you react to particularly loud, unignorable, and boisterous body music with this observation gently delivered, “No worries, mate. Suppressed laughter comes out the other end, you know.”

What kind of humor should you use? Your safest bet is gentle, self-deprecating humor. Making fun of yourself and your follies is always a safe bet because it drops the wall of pretension. Suppose you need to refer out. With a light touch carefully applied you can invite clients to feel good about being sent to the doctor, instead of scaring the cookies out of them. I might say, “I can assess you for massage, but I can’t diagnose you. How about you talk to your doc for a real diagnosis? Besides, my   X-ray vision really sucks this morning.”

Without the oil of laughter, sharp edges with coworkers can collide and create friction. Well-timed breeziness delivered on target can smooth the rough edges with colleagues and bring down the heat. I had some free time between appointments so I told my receptionist I was going to grab a nap. She looked at me scornfully. What was I doing sleeping while she still had to watch the phones? “I’m not responsible for your vocational choices,” I said, “and remember The Golden Rule?”

“Do unto others?”

“No. It’s all about me, me, me!” This works best if you have an over-the-top, master of hyperbole delivery. Add one all-purpose finisher: “Besides, you’re just jealous because my hands smell like feet.” You don’t have to hire a team of writers. Just be you, laugh, and be open to opportunities to laugh.

Does it always work? Nah. Does anything? If a client is nonplussed, cop to a bad joke ill-told. Depending on your read of the client’s disposition that could mean saying, “Ouch. Tough room.” Or, “Sorry, I was trying to cheer you up a little. You’re unimpressed and I am an utter failure. Should I change professions—animal husbandry perhaps? Or shall we try to move on briskly and not look back?” Smile when you say it and it will work. If they see you as fully human, they’ll be more forgiving when you fail to meet your highest potential. (And over time, that’s bound to occur, isn’t it?)

 What’s the risk when you dare to show some personality? You could come across as a buffoon or offend someone horribly. Minimize that risk by letting go of trying to be funny all the time. It should flow easily, or not at all. Be sensitive to setting, timing, and the shifting mood of your client. That sounds daunting, but you’ll be able to perform this mind-reading magic easily if you let them speak first, listen, and let them lead you to the atmosphere they need.

A client arrived at my clinic to de-stress after a miscarriage. No, of course I didn’t try to joke her out of her funk. We had a very quiet session, respectful of her grief. Humor can build rapport, but jokes should not be the sole basis of your relationship. Ultimately, it is your quiet, conscientious therapy your clients are seeking. It is your show of personality, care, and concern for their well-being that encourages them to come back to you, in particular, for those services. There are lots of therapists out there. Be the one who elevates them as soon as they walk in the door, not just on the massage table.

Massage therapists who lack a keen sense of boundaries and social skills, however, often believe that it is only their technique that should count. I am very good at what I do, so people should come to me for that alone, they reason. That’s a logical approach which is wrong, wrong, wrong. People come to you for your skills, but your fantastic technical expertise is never without a wider social context. If you are driving your practice on the basis of your skills alone, you don’t have enough fuel to get far. Despite all the pretenses of the human ape, we aren’t rational—people buy paint in a can and spray it on their heads and call it hair. If you relate to people only on an intellectual or technical level, they won’t give you the time to let your work take hold and make positive changes.

Talk to them as people first, not patients; I call my clients “guests.” Shared laughter results in a deeper connection through difficult times. We are humans relating to other humans in need. Maybe they need pain reduction or an increase in relaxation or corrective action for musculoskeletal disorders, but none of them are just that. Let’s not become so standardized and formal that we could be replaced by robots. If my understanding of those Terminator documentaries is correct, they will attempt to destroy the human race so I say, “No robots!”

A client came to see me for the first time. He was jocular enough while he was filling out his health history, but suddenly seemed self-conscious once he got on the massage table. I went through the usual protocols with him about communicating with me what pressure was right for him. That didn’t appear to ease his tension.
“So,” he said, apparently desperate for something to say. “Where did you get your training?”

“Prison.”

“Really?”

“Nah.”

Response: big laughs, relaxation, and positive tissue change. Really. 

Robert Chute is a massage therapist and writer in London, Ontario. If you don’t care for his sense of humor, he’s willing to consider switching to animal husbandry. However, if you didn’t even smile at the fart joke—Dude! You’re harshing my mellow!

Notes
1. John E. Upledger, DO, OMM, SomatoEmotional Release and Beyond. (Florida: UI Publishing, 1990), 172.
2. Spider Robinson, The Crazy Years, Reflections of a Science Fiction Original. (Dallas, Texas: BenBella Books, 1996-2004), 109.

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