Personal experience suggests that more and more centres are using some form of massage as a therapy approach, but there are few published accounts. In this article, we report a case study with Ms K, a lady who had long displayed severely challenging and disturbed behaviour. A simple form of massage was used as a medium of communicating positive regard with the aim of developing a therapeutic relationship. We believe that Ms K enjoyed this and became more sociable, which led to a change in her lifestyle. More should be done to enable clients with severely problematic behaviour to experience caring relationships, and we believe that a structured approach to using touch therapeutically by appropriately trained professionals is indicated.