for some people outside of therapy, any touch between two adults who could be sexually attracted to one another - stereotypically a man and a woman - can be intensely sexually charged. personally i think there is a huge danger using touch in therapy. for some people, a brief hug will mean "friends", but for other people it will mean "maybe we're more than friends". honestly, i don't see how the other forms of touch are "worse" than a hug, but possibly the therapist sees them as a venture into unknown territory, where the client might interpret things in a different way, beyond the brief "friendship/we get on" hug. touching more and in different ways is like expanding a relationship, which is also how a friendship expands into something more than a friendship.

to me it doesn't make sense why therapists touch clients beyond the necessary - eg: handshake first time you meet - but it does make sense that the therapist does not want to add to the touching repertoire. almost all of the therapists i have been with have had great boundaries re touching - only handshakes, if anything. the only one who did hugs, actually had terrible boundaries in other ways, and i am now having to work through issues that came about as a result of that.