Massage Therapy Journal Winter 2025

30 • Massage Therapy Journal

Nunez: Relationships are everything in life. And the relationship that a massage therapist has with their client is an incredibly important aspect of a successful massage. We feel the same way, and we are extremely focused on the perspective from the user experience. Human contact will never be replaced. Our goal is not to replace human touch, but to expand the opportunities for people to receive massages . We have to remember that there are many barriers for people getting massages, whether they are economic, geographical or personal. Being in the spa industry for years, I have heard so many reasons why people do not feel comfortable getting massages. Many have told me that they don’t feel comfortable being touched due to trauma, trust issues or personal privacy concerns. What I am the most excited about is removing a lot of those barriers for people so that they can finally have a massage on their terms, without fear of feeling unsafe or judged. “AI/Robotic massage as a machine is unable to replicate any human-like characteristics such as empathy and intuition. It will never have the true healing capabilities that a human massage therapist may have, whether it be physically, mentally or emotionally. It would only be but a temporary short-term fix for the client/ patient causing them to return to the clinic more often for treatment. As human massage therapists, we use our empathy, intuition and other capabilities such as energy work (e.g. Reiki) to aid in the healing of the client/ patient’s body, mind and spirit. AI/Robotics has no place in the massage therapy industry as they will never be able to achieve and apply certain characteristics or therapies like Many massage therapists wonder if a robotic massage will feel cold and lack empathy.

Photos courtesy of Aescape

Stephenson and Nunez respond: Stephenson: It is a fair point, and I’d like to

suggest that the control and empathy is self-guided during the Aescape experience. In other words, there are many massage experiences I have where I walk away a highly-satisfied client—loving every part of my massage. Still, I’ve also had many dissatisfying experiences, wishing the therapist had listened to me, paid attention to my requests, and stayed present and attentive with me during the massage. With Aescape, I have the ability to control pressure levels in real time, as well as be sure that the robotic experience is not going to talk too much during my massage, not protect my modesty with sloppy draping techniques, impose pain on me with excessive pressure levels, or massage me with ice cold hands for the first 15 minutes . These are all very common themes that have happened in my quarter century of human touch experiences. Nunez: People and massage therapists have been using tools to alleviate tension in the body for a very long time. Think of massage therapy tools like Hypervolts and Theraguns that are used every day. There is no relationship involved with those, but there has been an explosion of their integration into daily life. Why? Because they feel good and they work.

a human massage therapist can.” —VANESSA TIMMONS, LMT/MASTER BODYWORKER, MASSAGELUXE

amtamassage.org/mtj