The ex-Health Department worker has lost a legal bid to have federal workplace insurer Comcare fund the ongoing treatment, with the Administrative Appeals Tribunal finding the therapy did not constitute "reasonable" spending.

The case is the latest example of courts or tribunals backing Comcare's get-tough policy on the type of treatments it will fund for injured public servants.

The woman's case, that the treatment was the only way she had found to help with the excruciating physical symptoms of her psychiatric problems, failed to sway the two tribunal members.

The tribunal heard the woman had been working in Health and Ageing for four years when an "unpleasant relationship developed" with her boss.

The trouble came to a head with a confrontation between the two in an office lift on July 21, 2009.

She went off work soon afterwards, and a claim for workers' compensation for "adjustment reaction with anxious mood" was made in August of 2009. Another condition, post traumatic stress disorder, was accepted the following year.

The former departmental staffer had 145 massages between 2010 and 2014, most of which were funded by Comcare at cost of $7860, and another 23 sessions with a chiropractor or osteopath.

But in early 2014, the insurer decided it was no longer going to pay for the therapies, arguing they were not helping the woman get better or back to work and she has been paying for her own massages ever since.

Appealing the decision to the tribunal, the woman said the therapies provided great benefits both in relieving muscle tension and contributing to relaxation and mental well being.

She said her physical symptoms were severe, including her hands going numb, painful and swelling up, making it hard to perform everyday tasks, her jaw and face tensing up, and teeth grinding at night.

Comcare's legal team calculated the future cost of the complementary therapies to the taxpayer-funded scheme at more than $67,000, with the woman's barrister Leo Grey arguing the figure was irrelevant.

Mr Grey said his client was entitled to be compensated for treatment that allowed her to function physically while her underlying psychiatric problems were addressed.

But tribunal members Gary Humphries and Bernard Hughson found the weight of recent case law was against the former Health employee, who is considered unlikely to ever go back to work.

"An impressive body of medical literature was cited before the tribunal which we think demonstrates very amply that massage and chiropractic/osteopathy does not constitute – in the view of mainstream psychology and psychiatry – effective treatment for curing or relieving psychological injuries," the members wrote in their decision.

"We find that the massage and osteopathy treatment, the costs of which are claimed by [the applicant], though it qualifies ... as medical treatment obtained in relation to her injury, is not reasonable treatment obtained in relation to that injury."