One person's ideas/opinions. I had a group therapist who worked hard with me on hugs (starting with handshakes :-) because that was what I needed. I wasn't "allowed" to leave each week without touching. It wasn't that which helped me though, the hugs didn't "connect" with me until I was rubbing my stepmother's back when she wouldn't/couldn't get out of bed one morning, just taking it easy and got all sorts of flashbacks to being little and her rubbing my back, etc. I had to connect to that physical part of myself that was real before the hugs were "real" and could help heal. I think I agree with the quote; it's a physical fantasy to have one's therapist hug one before that part of us is operational and once that part is operational, we don't need the "therapist's" hugs anymore. I've never realized that wholly until now, that T is part of my fantasies on many/all "levels" not just feeling/heart or thinking/head.

I think when I first terminated with my T in 1987 she touched my shoulder as I was leaving the room that last session. It was symbolic to me for a long time (I cherished the memory) and I joked about never washing my shoulder ever again. But when we terminated in 2005, we didn't even shake hands, the session ended like any other session and the only times we touched in 9 years was sometimes when I was handing her my check for payment and the first termination touch feels like a dream/I imagined it or made it up; a storied touch.