Your Hands Are Communicating: What Happens Between the Steps of a Treatment Matters
Take a moment and imagine you are lying on a treatment table.
Your eyes are closed. The table is warm. You've stopped thinking about your day and you're no longer trying to figure out what the practitioner is doing.
Then suddenly their hands disappear.
A few seconds later, cold product touches your face.
You're back.
Maybe only for a second, but you are back. Your conscious mind has reentered the treatment and is trying to figure out what is happening.
Now imagine the same treatment differently.
Before the practitioner's hands leave, they pause. There's a slight hold at your shoulders or temples, almost as though they're saying, I'll be right back.
You hear movement beside your left ear. You feel the slightest depression in the table letting you know they're there. Their hands return to the same place they left before slowly transitioning into what's next.
Nobody said a word.
But somehow, you knew.
After 22 years as a massage therapist and years of working as an esthetician, I've come to believe that some of the most important communication we have with our clients happens exactly like this.
Without words.
And it may be one of the most overlooked parts of a hands-on treatment.
We Spend a Lot of Time Learning What Our Hands Should Do
As practitioners, our education naturally focuses on technique.
We learn massage strokes, anatomy, protocols, products, modalities, facial techniques and treatment sequences.
In esthetics, we learn to cleanse, analyze, exfoliate, massage, mask and apply finishing products.
All of those things are important.
But when I became an esthetician after already working as a massage therapist, I brought something else into the treatment room with me.
Massage had taught me how to touch people.
Not simply where to put my hands or how much pressure to use.
I had spent years paying attention to what happened underneath my hands.
Clients would often tell me that I somehow knew exactly what to do, when to do it and how to do it.
I don't think there was one moment when I suddenly learned that skill.
For me, it developed over time.
I noticed patterns. I listened closely when clients gave me feedback. And when they told me something worked, I became interested in understanding why it worked and where else I could improve it.
If I felt tissue allowing me to work more deeply, I could respond.
If the body had reached its limit, I could stay where I was or lighten my pressure.
If one area was holding more tension, I didn't have to continue through a routine simply because that was the next step.
The treatment could respond to the person on my table.
Eventually I realized the same awareness applied to details that had nothing to do with the massage technique itself.
The temperature of a product mattered.
How I approached the body mattered.
How quickly I moved mattered.
How I broke contact mattered.
Nothing needed to be jarring enough to unnecessarily pull the client out of the deeply relaxed state we had created.
When I carried that awareness into esthetics, I began thinking about facials differently.
Breaking Touch Doesn't Have to Break the Experience
In massage, it is often possible to maintain contact with the client for long periods of time.
In esthetics, that's simply not realistic.
We have to break touch.
We need products. Towels. Tools. Water. A different position. The next step of the facial.
So the goal isn't to never take your hands off the client.
The question becomes:
How do you break touch without breaking the experience?
This is where I believe our hands can communicate in much the same way our words do.
Imagine you had to explain everything you were doing during a facial without speaking.
How would you tell the client:
I'm going to leave for a moment.
I'm still right here.
I'm coming back.
I'm going to begin on your left side.
I'm moving to your shoulders now.
This part is finished.
You would have to find another language.
Touch can become that language.
Before leaving the body, I may pause at a safe point such as the temples or shoulders. I hold there just a little longer.
To me, that pause says:
I'll be right back.
When I return, I can come back to that same place before beginning the next movement.
Here I am again.
If I'm going to begin massage on the left shoulder, there are ways to communicate that before my hands ever make contact. The client may hear my hands rubbing together near the left ear. They may feel the slight depression of the table as I position myself on that side. Then I can slowly approach and begin contact at a safe, predictable point such as the shoulder.
Their eyes never had to open.
I never had to interrupt their relaxation to explain what I was doing.
But information was still being given.
The Body Is Paying Attention
When I talk about communicating with the subconscious, I don't mean that we need to make this mysterious.
Think about patterns.
Our bodies are constantly taking in information from touch, sound, movement, pressure and our surroundings.
When our treatment has consistency, the client begins to recognize those patterns.
A pause means something.
A certain point of contact becomes familiar.
The way we approach begins to feel predictable.
The way we return becomes recognizable.
Over the course of the treatment, we're telling a story.
And when the story makes sense, the client doesn't have to consciously follow along.
They can let go.
That, to me, is one of the goals.
I don't want my client lying there wondering where I went or what I'm about to do next.
I want the treatment to give them enough information that they don't need to think about me at all.
What Happens Between Techniques Is Still Part of the Treatment
Transitions became another important piece of this for me.
Think about how different the steps of a facial can feel.
Cleansing feels different from exfoliation.
A warm towel feels different from massage.
Massage feels different from a mask.
Tools, temperatures, textures and products can all change throughout one treatment.
It would be very easy for those steps to feel like individual pieces:
Start.
Stop.
Next technique.
Stop.
Next product.
But what if the transitions themselves became part of the technique?
How do your hands move from the scalp to the shoulders?
How do you move from one side of the body to another?
How do you finish one movement before introducing the next?
How do you introduce a different temperature without it feeling abrupt?
How do you layer each part of the facial into the next so the client experiences one treatment rather than a collection of steps?
Clients don't know our protocols.
They don't know what movement is technically supposed to come next.
But they absolutely notice when the experience feels continuous.
Being Heard Can Also Be Communicated Through the Treatment
There is another part of touch that I think goes beyond relaxation.
Clients want to feel heard.
Sometimes what they need us to hear has very little to do with the treatment they booked. They may need a moment to talk about their life, and our role is simply to hold space.
But when we're talking about the physical treatment, I believe feeling heard means the experience should reflect the reason they came to us.
If a massage client tells me their right shoulder is bothering them, I start there.
That doesn't mean I only work on the right shoulder.
I'll explore.
What else is happening in the tissues? What might be influencing what I'm feeling? Is there another area that deserves attention?
But before the treatment is finished, I come back.
Even if we've moved from prone to supine, I can touch upon that shoulder again or finish with a topical there.
There is closure.
The treatment has communicated:
I heard you. I didn't forget why you came in.
I think about skincare similarly.
It can begin in the conversation. What is their concern? What are we hoping to accomplish today? Why am I choosing a particular product or incorporating a certain modality?
Then I want the treatment itself to reflect that conversation.
Even the finishing products can bring us back to the original concern.
Our hands aren't only communicating what's happening next.
Sometimes they're communicating:
I was listening.
This Is a Skill You Can Learn
I don't believe someone either has this ability or doesn't.
I believe it can be learned.
In fact, I believe even our intuitive skills can be developed when we become interested enough to pay attention to them.
First comes awareness.
Then interest.
Then intentional practice.
Eventually, many of the things you're consciously thinking about today become second nature.
If this is new to you, don't try to change your entire treatment tomorrow.
Start with one question:
What am I trying to communicate?
Pick one moment in your treatment.
Maybe it's your first touch.
Maybe it's leaving the table.
Maybe it's returning.
Maybe it's transitioning from the face to the shoulders.
If you couldn't use words, how would you communicate what is about to happen?
Could you use touch?
Sound?
The movement of the table?
A pause?
A familiar point of contact?
Start small.
And don't beat yourself up if you don't immediately know the answer.
Sometimes the answer will naturally show up as you begin paying attention.
Sometimes you need to talk with other practitioners and ask, How do you do this?
And sometimes one of the best ways to learn is to get back on the table yourself.
Receive treatments.
Pay attention.
What allowed you to let go?
What brought you back into your conscious mind?
What felt abrupt?
What made you feel safe?
What made you feel heard?
What did another practitioner's hands communicate without saying anything at all?
Technique Is Only Part of What Our Clients Remember
Of course I want practitioners to understand technique.
I want us to understand anatomy, products, contraindications, tissue, skin and the modalities we're using.
But I don't think exceptional hands-on work ends there.
There are details happening all around the protocol.
There is the way we enter the room.
The way we approach.
The way our hands first make contact.
The way we respond when the body tells us something.
The way we leave.
The way we return.
The way one technique becomes the next.
And the way we demonstrate through the treatment itself that we heard what the client told us before they ever got on the table.
Those details may never be written into a protocol.
But I believe they're some of the details that allow a client to completely let go.
So during your next treatment, don't only think about what your hands are doing.
Ask yourself:
What are my hands communicating?
And if you had to tell the entire story of your treatment without saying a single word, what would you want your client to hear?
Want to Go Deeper Into the Hands-On Work?
This way of thinking about touch is woven into how I teach the Functional Circulation Method.
We aren't simply memorizing a sequence of movements. We're thinking about tissue, circulation, intentional touch, transitions, sequencing and how the entire treatment comes together as one experience.
If this is the kind of hands-on education you've been looking for: