Is Reiki fraud?

[crazyem]

I didn't say the therapist can't break contact. You are overexaggerating here. I have had a therapist who constantly adjusted the sheet, walked around the table, adjusted the radio, talked, and spend a lot of time NOT massaging. What I can't stand is when I say in the intial conversation that I don't like reiki, yet during the massage at certain points the therapist will just lay her hands on me, for minutes at a time, without any movement. Maybe some with emotional problems or some other problem like this, but for me, it makes me uncomfortable and I feel like massage time is being wasted. Maybe that is not reiki, but what is it then when a therapist lays her hands on you through a sheet for minutes at a time, just listening to you breathe? Maybe it works for some, for me it is uncomfortable and a waste of time - I get nothing out of it.

 

[JtR]

Ok, I think in the heat of conversation you seemingly have contradicted yourself (I don't mean that offensively, just an observation) because you made it sound in your first post that all the breaking of contact and time spent not massaging was time spent hovering their hands over you (at least how I read it ... and again words can be misinterpreted).

Now, as the thread progressed, we find out the majority of the stopping had nothing to do with possible "reiki" being done and more to do with the therapist being a disorganised mess. Now there could be explanations (not acceptable, but at least reasons), for example, if you have a hairy back, then you would require more lotion and the therapist can't really judge that until they have done a few strokes - and they can't very well drench you in oil or lotion just in the offchance you are a client that has a body that absorbs all the product (just giving 1 reason as to a therapist needing to get more and more lotion).

Sounds like this therapist could be a "newbie" or the workplace s/he is working from is new so s/he isn't quite comfortable with their technique, how much oil to begin with or the music they are playing-perhaps they didn't anticipate a sudden crescendo and heavy drumming in their newly purchased "Relax" cd and tried to adjust the volume so that you would remain relaxed and undisturbed. As for holding hands over you listening to your breathing...my physiotherapist did that to me only a few days ago, he had me sitting on the edge of the bed, my back to him and he hovered his hands just inside my scapulae for what felt like ages but was surely no more than 30-40 secs, why did he do this? To listen to my breathing, and he found out through that, that my right side was working slower than my left, and overall, my breathing was incredibly slow (he wondered if my husband ever woke me up in a panic, afraid I was dead! ) ANYWAY, that is besides the point, this is a technique I hadn't had done before or learnt (I am a sports massage therapist, and do swedish, indian, chair and prenatal) and being an overthinker, I just sat there wondering what in blazes he was doing and being a little skeptical of this new "hippy dippy" healing physio I had before me (or behind me ) but he was then able to palpate certain areas that reacted strongly and lightened my breathing and allowed me to take deeper breaths.

I have rambled on quite a bit but to sum up:
*Sports Massage is one of many massages that DO break contact (Although I was taught even in SM contact breaking should be minimal as client reassurance and trust is built through touch and ... "if in doubt, stroke it out" ie. in between those advanced techniques, stroke and effleurage your way to the next site; switching side? keep one hand always on the client) but obviously it is a little more understandable that SM is not something you are going for to get pure blissful relaxation from (unless bruising, elbows in your back and nausea to the stomach is your idea of relaxation

*Swedish massage is a lighter touch ... but you can always request they go deeper

*I am curious ... did the therapist not ask you how your massage was after? Did they not ask you how the pressure was throughout?
*Did you ask them to increase the pressure? "You can go deeper, that's a little light-I can tolerate a little more I think" "Oh, see my right side, it is quite achey, do you mind using lighter pressure there, but on the left I can handle it if you really dig in!"
*Did you ask them to not talk (you can do this in a jokey way by giving them a hint "sorry if I'm not responding or talking much today myself, I'm a bit tired and not feeling in a talkative mood/I have a sore head" - most therapists should know to not ramble on but if not, maybe you could mention massagenerd.com


Essentially it is your own fault (not in a bad way) that you aren't receiving what you want (to a certain degree) because, essentially, by paying the therapist and not giving them feedback they can't know you were unsatisfied ... how can someone fix something if they didn't know it was broken to begin with - same principle, if you want your therapies to go better, you need to tell them what you liked, and what you didn't like. I would be gutted if a client left unhappy and I certainly wouldn't have wanted them to pay. That is why I actually offer a 100% satisfaction guarantee (cheesy I know) so that if you are not happy, you don't pay (as of yet no-one has availed but they have done so of my next clause) if you are not satisfied please give me as much feedback as possible and allow me to schedule a make-up massage with you in order to rectify anything that you felt was not to your liking. There is a saying in the consumer industry: A happy customer tells one friend, an unhappy customer tells everybody, pretty sure your therapist would be mortified knowing they caused this reaction in you

(sorrrrrrrry for writing such a long post, it's late, I'm tired ... thus, I ramble ... A LOT I haven't proof read that long wall of text so my apologies for spelling/punctuation & spelling grammar as well as it being ... rambley :S )

*Gina*