Do hugs really resolve the unmet needs?

I haven't read any replies yet to this. Do I think hugs make up for past unmet needs? Probably not. But I do think that if both parties are willing, they can be very healing and therapeutic in the here and now. I think in therapy the use of touch...within the boundaries...adds a human element to the relationship. Hugging, if acceptable for both people involved, feels good and likely it will be reciprocal on some level. It also involves trust on both sides.

I shared a hug with former T when I left therapy the first time. It was a very powerful moment of securing the bond...and then separating...for both of us.

Rainbow, I still wonder if you might benefit from some prolonged holding...that maybe you wouldn't fight yourself so much with it if it went on for a long time...and that you would just allow the love...knowing that it was there and not going to leave. But obviously with your H and not your T in that case.

They're not pseudo for me. I'd definitely be hugging Rainbow (if she allowed me to, that is) if she were here...but she's not. She's halfway across the country. I think on the boards here it's a sign of support.

Thanks for the discussion Rainbow! Really interesting...

Well, coming from the perspective of having a T who hugs, and then having another T who doesn't.... I think that both have benefits.

Where I was in my life with my first T (who hugs), I really needed that comfort and connection because of a) my age, and b) my circumstances. I was living away from home, and because of that - as well as other factors - I didn't get that "nurturance" at all. My T and I had built a relationship where the use of physical touch (at the end of therapy) was really beneficial, and probably just as important as the rest of it.

That all being said, my T that I am with now has really firm physical boundaries. At first I was, to be honest, kind of upset/hurt that she wouldn't be able to fulfill this "need" of mine, but I have come to appreciate the fact that our relationship now has these limitations. I know (for sure) that if my T had of crossed those boundaries of hers and given me a hug (even if it was something that I really needed/still need), it would have put me back in a place where my child-like needs would be reinforced. Now, I'm not saying that the child in me doesn't need to be nurtured, but rather, I don't believe it would be healthy (in my therapeutic context), as it would prevent me from moving forward.

I believe that someone else posted something along the lines that if you receive a hug in therapy that it would prevent you from searching for it elsewhere... and I believe that to be true - at least in my case. I have a history of becoming attached to older women (because of my history), and the limits that my current T has set in terms of boundaries has really helped me try and move forward with my life.

I by no means am advocating against hugs because truthfully, I would LOVE that in therapy... but realistically, I know that it wouldn't be good for my relationship with my T, and also for my ability to move past this relationship once it has run its course.

to all ..

Jacq

I haven't really heard from anyone here or in "real life" who have stated anything like hugging their T's solved any sort of problem that they brought with them into the therapy room. I can't really see how sharing a hug with a T can "make up" for unmet needs from the past. I don't really know why so many people seem to make hugging with the T central to their ideal therapy relationship. Personally, if my T tried to hug me I'd be freaked out. I know my T cares about me as evidenced by his helpful support. Hugging me wouldn't do anything for me at all (eeuw ). I don't know why so many make hugging with their T the gold standard for if a T cares or not.

I had parents who hugged me--in between being abusive in various ways. It's what happens between the hugging that matters.

Wow!! I never knew my question would bring so many interesting and varied responses. Thanks to everyone. I want to respond to some of the posts, but can't right now. Just wanted to say it makes me feel good that I started a thread that you want to respond to. That's a self-esteem builder for me. It goes to show that it's not just the hugs; it's the warmth and caring that is felt, like I feel now. I'm happy when I post something meaningful that others can learn from, too.

I think that the things we learn from that relationship serve us very well for many purposes in our other relationships outside of the room.

I don't relate with him any longer, but I'll always hold the therapeutic space that I shared with him in my heart. I always understood and respected the professional boundaries, but it was and always will be very special to me. I know he can't ever be my friend, but he still feels like one in my heart.

I think everyone has to find what works best for them and what is most healing to them.

I am on the same page as you, Simcha!

((((rainbow))))
i'm happy you started this thread. and i feel warm and glowy that you feel good about this thread taking off too. and i'm also very grateful that you posted that you feel good and why, because i do a good job of berating myself for feeling good about these things, and it's nice to know other ppl do too and that it's not something to feel stupid about.

This thread leaves me feeling cold and a bit traumatised. I've sat with the feeling most of the evening last night to see why. I thnk it reminds me of the way I was raised, the smug rightiouness of my parents, their reaction to any real caring, they use to attack the person that was open to their needs that showed their real feelings that admitted to wanting something as "simple" as a hug, yes they said they were wonderful caring people, but saying and doing are 2 different things.

I am also amazed that because some of you don't see or perhaps don't have that need gone unmet seem to feel that in that case it doesn't work for anyone.

I wasn.t cuddled then abused as a child, I just wasn't held full stop.

I'm sorry some of you are in this frame of mind, I hope you find what it is that will heal whatever wounds you have, I know for me its more then just the hug, if and when the hug happens, its the reawakening of the need to be touched by a warm figure that will be most beneficial and to be held by a safe someone that has no other agenda.

Deli, your "Im not a romainian baby and then the smile smilie next to it sent a chill through my body. I think your personal feelings toward me are more what is driving your post about thsi subject rather then any real feeling. I'm sorry you feel that way.

I'm off to therapy now, and can't wait to the day when T holds me and sob until I can't sob no more in the arms of a caring other, something I have never had experience off.

I'll come back and tell you about it when it happens, some of you will get it, others will tuc tuc in their little self rightious worlds and I will be glad I have let the cloack of denial fall away.

Melbadaze...I was going to respond about my experience with T hugs but your off putting way of responding to others here makes ME cold. Frozen, actually....
Rainbow this is a good topic for many reasons; thanks for starting it. I/we take hugs when and if they are offered, depending on the reason (that we see) behind those hugs. A hug sometimes, is only a hug.....

I can, and I do!

Just a little hard to actually physically REACH everyone from my comfy chair here in the corner of my living room!!

Hug received. And thanks Tree, I needed one. Here you go

Hi Rainbow,

I wanted to respond to your post too. But don't know what to say about hugs because it has been such a sore spot with my t. There were a couple of times when i really, really needed a hug and she knew it and didn't offer, even though i'd told her many times that i would like one. The whole subject of physical comfort became so painful to me that now, i try not to even think about hugs. I guess that's why it has taken me so long to answer your post.

My t is really caring and good, but that's one area that really damaged our relationship. I understand her reasons for not wanting to provide the hug (concern about my past SA mostly). But the experience of being in great emotional pain and not getting a sense of comfort that would provide some relief and help me get through it felt like a repeat of the past when i was a child and was in crisis and didn't get comfort. It honestly felt retraumatizing. But I think the world of my t and have had to accept that, at least for now, hugs aren't part of my therapy, and maybe never will be.

ps - I should be upfront and also say that, after numerous upsetting conversations with my t about hugs, she finally offered one. But at that point, it just didn't feel right for me to let myself have it. It felt forced, and i felt that i had bullied her into offering it when i knew she was hesitant to do so. I just couldn't take it. That was over 6 months ago, and since then, i just don't bring up the subject of hugs at all.

I have really mixed feelings about hugs from Ts. My long term T regularly sat beside me holding my hand and hugged me, and although I 'liked' it at the time in retrospect I think it confused me more than it helped.

As a child I was not hugged or held or loved, and I experienced multiple abuses from multiple perps. Later in therapy I had plenty of fantasies about 'losing control' and then being rescued by T. In retrospect I think being held and hugged by her fed those fantasies even more rather than helping me heal from the traumas of my life. on the other hand, though, if she hadn't hugged or held me I know I would have obsessed with that being the only thing that would help ease my pain.

What helped me most in the end was quitting therapy, and no longer focusing on getting those needs met by my T. What helped and finally released that inner desperation for that attention was finally facing the enormity of all I had lost and accepting I would never be able to feel that love and protection from a mother figure. My opportunity for it was lost and there was nothing I could do about it.
So I guess although I did get hugs and physical comfort from my T, even then it didn't meet the need. It was never 'right'. What I wanted was for a mother to hold and comfort the four year old me, but the reality was I was an adult woman and my T - although she loved and cared for me - could never be my mother figure.
Accepting that I could never go back and rescue that child was incredibly painful. What happened happened and nothing can ever change it. Nothing I can do will allow me to go back and magically make it all better. I needed a mother figure, an adult who would love and hold me, and I never got it. The need of that four year old child will never be met, by anyone, because I can't change history.
That is what I learned from being hugged and held by my T.
But, it is possible to move from a place of feeling that loss or deficit, to a place of acceptance. Acceptance of the loss can free you up to enjoy what you CAN have today and accept it for what it is, rather than what you wish it could be. What can be fully experienced today is so much better than what was had in the past.

Luce: My T feels the same way you do about unmet needs.

I am sorry for what happened to you as a child. It's very sad. It seems like the hugs by T didn't help in the long run, but you would have obsessed about whether they would or not. So, there isn't a definitive answer according to you. I think that's the bottom line. No one knows what will help until they try it. I was loved so I'm sure I was held and hugged as a small child, but I still crave it, or the idea of it, by my T. But, accepting that I can never go back and be that infant or child makes sense to me. The real hug by my T was just that, a hug. As 2 adults. It would be regressing to go to another T just to see if hugs would help. That's my feeling right now. Thanks for sharing.

I'm starting at the end--I'm not ignoring anyone. Or, maybe in this kind of thread no one expects responses from me? I'm never sure, and I don't want to hurt anyone. I am so sensitive that I feel bad when i don't get a response to my reply, but maybe that's just me?

Peaches, I've got to tell you that I feel bad that you are triggered by this thread. I'm sorry I didn't think of it, and maybe I wouldn't have started it. Of course I know your situation, but I wasn't thinking about it when I posted. I think it's the feelings behind the hug, not the hug itself. T hugs you with words, doesn't she? When I did that visualization that one time with my T, she said something like "Why isn't the little girl taking it in?" She was talking about comforting, or hugs. It was strange, but I think it was about my NOT accepting the comfort or hugs even if I want them so badly. I wish for you that you could get this issue resolved better in therapy. Hopefully, at some point you can.

There seems to be many conflicting feelings regarding hugs in this thread. Not that my opinion matters but I think we all have different needs and no one therapeutic relationship is the same. I'm reading a lot of unfair judgment based on what some T's can provide as opposed to others. I think we should all be open minded and welcome all thoughts and experiences. That said, I will share my experience.

When I began therapy about a year ago, I never "craved" hugs from T. I felt warm and nice when I was with T, but that's about as much as I felt. It actually took me A LONG time to allow myself to admit that i was becoming attached to T.. we're talking last week lol. As a child I was never hugged or cuddled. I was a very fearful and worried child. A lot of abuse/abandonment.. the whole 9 yards. About 6 months ago we were doing art therapy and a feeling came over me. I went home to email T and told her that I wanted to just reach over and give her a big hug. The following session, T brought up the email and T said she just ended her journey with a client and they shared a nice long hug. But why wait to the last session? From then on T and I hug on a regular basis. It feels so natural, like it was meant to happen. Are the hugs meeting my unmet needs.. maybe. I am certain that it's practice for other relationships i enter into in th outside world.

Very true and well said. I agree. And of course your opinion matters.

Thanks Brightheart!!!!!!!

That is exaclty how I feel. Even the same person can feel comflicting ways about getting a hug from a t.

I know I posted here and I cant find it. Its a good thing, b/c I think I am probably going to post something completely opposite than what I wrote before. And I think that is the way it goes for hugs and physical contact. I am very ambivalent. I want it and I dont. I crave it, yet I am afraid. I can sexualize physical contact, but not always. I often dont understand physical contact, or I can "get it" easliy. I want to hug t, but if ftt hugged me Id be uncomfortable. And I craved affection from dt, but if she came near me, Id be REAL uncomfortable with it. For me, with being inappropriately sexualized as a child, I have a lot of confusion around touch. Is it a reward, it is sex, is it comfort, is it manipulation or agression, am I being used, is my value only sex and touching? Can I touch and be touched without all of the confusing baggage?

luce - thank you so much for sharing all of that . i found your post really insightful and almost... grounding, calming. i dont do hugs in therapy, although i have sometimes craved them, but accepting the loss is (for me) the bigger picture of what i'm working towards. i am getting there, i think. intellectually, it has happened, but the emotions still run deep.

rainbow - there isn't any obligation for you to reply here, but i would love reading what you have to say if you do choose to reply . no expectations on my end, but definitely eager to listen/learn/consider if you would like to respond .

Rainbow, I don't think I have the same unmet needs for hugging of the "mother" sort that you have described before, so it's hard for me to answer. It's different for everyone, I'm sure. My mom didn't ever hug me really, but I don't feel like I want that from her. She's who she is and is not a huggy person. (She has a lot of her own issues that have nothing to do with me, so her inability/unwillingness to hug me is related to who she is, not to who I am, if that makes sense.) Very early in therapy, T and I did some ego state work in which the adult Sunny of the present goes back to rescue and comfort an infant Sunny ego state. I think it is very powerful to learn to do this rescue--picture an adult and her infant, all in one frame. The adult knows exactly what to give that infant because the adult and infant are part of a family of selfs.

My T and I do hug at the end of sessions sometimes. It is not a reward at all, and I don't think either of us has ever thought of it that way (yuck!). It is just a natural expression of affection and caring for each other. I think rather than helping with unmet "mother" needs, the hugs are important to me in part because they come from a male who genuinely likes me. So in a sense, they have more value to me than they would if they came from a female T. After a long marriage that contained little physical expression of affection, I came to think of myself as somehow damaged, like what is wrong with me that my H doesn't want to touch me or talk to me or do much of anything with me? Am I somehow defective or diseased or something? So the fact that T is nice to me, seems to genuinely like me, and offers me hugs is very healing to me. So I wouldn't say his hugs make up for hugs I never got from my husband (they can never replace that), but they help heal wounds from that long and painful marriage. When he hugs me, it helps say, "you're OK, there's nothing wrong with you." I don't know if he intends that specifically when we hug, but I think we can all abstract different meaning from the events in our lives. If I can abstract healing meaning from his hugs, then great! I have also told him that I like that he is so tall, because when he hugs me he towers over me (his greater height is much less apparent when we are sitting down during therapy) and I feel protected (like he could wupp my XH in a fight, because my XH is much shorter than T ). So lots of good things come from our hugs. I think they also help me extend my gratitude and affection to him. When I hug him, he knows he is appreciated and valued. Of course, I tell him this in other ways too, such as when I say, "thank you," or "I could have never done this without you", or whatever. The hugs help me enrich and expand that message.

I don't feel, though, that the hugs that T and I share are essential to my healing or forward progress in therapy. T has many ways of showing me affection and caring and that he is "holding" me without us touching. Sometimes he sits across from me and makes a hugging motion with his arms and says, "I am sitting here holding you," and I find that very, very touching.

When the topic of hugs first came up in my therapy, I was very ashamed of wanting a hug. We talked about the shame, and all of the 'yucky' feelings the longing for the comfort of a hug brought up.

One of the best things T told me was about a study done with baby monkeys. There were two 'mama monkeys'. One was wire, and cold and gave out food. The other was soft and fuzzy and didn't give out food. The baby monkeys would rather go with the soft and warm mother who didn't give food than the wire frame mother that gave food. That is just one study that has proven that as human beings we need positive touch for our whole well-being. T telling me about that 'normalized' my feelings, and made it ok to express them more.

IMHO, positive human touch *is* something we all need for our health, just like food and water and laughter and companionship. No, getting a hug from T does not resolve unmet needs, but what it *does* do is provide a safe place to get in touch with those needs.

Because of my work with T about respectful touch, I am much more aware of how much I need touch in my life. I have been able to ask H for hugs when I need them, or be more accepting of touch in general from the people in my life. I think of my work with T as practice, and then I take what I learn (whether it be about hugs or anything else) and apply it in my life. Having a safe place to figure all of that out is priceless.

Luce- This is very profound, yet when I read it, although I agree with every word, I find myself.....feeling....dismissed. Im not even sure what the feeling might be. Invalidated. (Please dont take this personally! )

This had been my previous t (desk-t's) direction for me. There is no returning to childhood, it is over, that is the bottom line, what you need to do now is get what you truly need from the people in your life now. From your h and from your children. I couldnt agree more. And that it would be very healing and move me along. Accept the fact that I didnt get what I needed when I needed it, feel that intense pain and then go on with my life, which is actually pretty good and there really isnt much to complain about or make me so depressed. The probelm is that If I could, I would. I want to. I really want to be able to do just that. But I cannot. I cannot chalk it up to resistence, or staying in "negativity." I invalidate myself by telling myself that. What I believe I need is to somehow, hugs or no hugs, go back and be that hurt, traumatized little girl, re-experience traumatic moments in a new way. To heal that little girl before I am able to accept that I didnt get what I needed back then, with all of the pain that the acceptance involves. It is my painful experience with endless therapy that I am just not able to accept my lack of love as a child without healing what is deeper. Maybe I need mommy-ing. Maybe that is where the hugs and physical contact comes in. For me. Im not even sure. But I cant fully move on to get these things from the people in the here and now without going back. I have tried and tried and tried and tried.....