Newspaper Stories
Good Touch Is Essential To Good Health
By: Mimi Vanderhaven
The human body is highly sensitive to touch. Our skin can detect the slightest change in temperature, and even the pressure of a downy feather can “tickle” us. A single hair out of place becomes a major annoyance as it brushes against a cheekbone, and who doesn’t stop to remove even a grain of sand from inside our shoe. A mother’s soft touch against her child’s forehead can be more comforting than a 10 h.p. whirlpool bath, and a hug at the right time can change your life. But we don’t touch each other much anymore, darling, let alone hug each other. A seemingly innocent hug or shoulder rub at the office is now “dirty” and will have you hauled into the HR department before lunch. But the appropriateness of how we are touched is based on intent, and these days, particularly in the corporate world, we must assume the intent is inappropriately sexual -- maybe because we don’t know another kind of touch, maybe because we want to be safe, or maybe because we just don’t want to be sued. According to Bill Hansen, massotherapist and founder of Strongsville’s Today’s Touch, there is “a good touch and bad touch. The difference is both the intent of the person doing the touching and how it makes the other person feel,” explains Bill. “We all know that ‘icky’ feeling we get when someone touches us inappropriately. That’s bad touch. We know intuitively by the feel of their touch and by their body language that the intent is inappropriate. But we also all know that wonderfully comforting feeling we get when someone touches us out of true love, care and concern."
When it comes to the subjective world of intent and body language, Bill Hansen is an experienced guide. For eighteen years he worked in the field of loss prevention for major corporations, particularly retail chains. His job was to stop shoplifters and uncover embezzlers. And he was good at it. “With the right training and experience dealing with body language,” explains Bill, “you know right away who in the store is considering shoplifting. The same is true with embezzling.” Bill claims he could sit in an introductory staff meeting and by simply looking around the table, identify the culprit. And he was right about 85% of the time. “I’m not necessarily proud of it,” says Bill. “I didn’t like my job. I was always the bad guy. I was always focused on trying to catch people doing something wrong. It wasn’t me.”
As early as 1974, long before his training at Akron’s National Institute of Massotherapy, Bill was doing massage for friends who commented, “You should get paid for this.” But like so many, darling, it took Bill decades to walk away from the wrong career and follow his true path, but his early career experience was not wasted. Bill’s knowledge of body language and his honed intuition makes his Today’s Touch one of the most popular spas in northeast Ohio. Among the clients filling the massotherapy rooms are professional athletes, truck drivers, school teachers, stressed-out retail salespeople, disease-related pain sufferers (like arthritis patients) and those with old or new injuries.
It seems to be a warm, friendly place, filled with real people. And you can tell by the shirt Bill is wearing on Mimi’s front cover, it’s a casual place. “Because we genuinely care,” explains Bill, “we don’t want to create a clinical environment where you feel rushed. Nobody’s wearing lab coats here and some clients show up early and stay late just chatting with us. Others want to get in and out. It’s up to you.”
