reevaluating my position on touch in therapy

Adel, thank you for starting such an interesting thread! I'm glad you're getting a variety of supportive and thought-provoking replies. The issue of touch in T is a little triggering for me, but it might be helpful to post my experience anyway, for those who don't already know it.

I have seen 5 Ts, and my current T is the only one who allowed touch. Part of the reason may be because touch in therapy is something newer, and I was in T in the 1980's and early 90's. I think Ts are practicing in more innovative ways since then. My most recent former T said touching wouldn't be good for me because of my having BPD.

My current T told me from day 1 that she hugged clients but I was afraid to hug her for a long time. I crave touch but at the same time I'm afraid of it. We did Internal Family Systems therapy and at some point the child part felt needy. My T encouraged me to tell her what that part needed. It took me a long time to say that she wanted T to hold her hand. What she really wanted was to be held, a fantasy I always had in T but of course no T would ever do that. I felt totally safe holding T's hand, and she thought it was healing, so we did it whenever I asked. It was not every session, maybe every few weeks or so. I started liking hugs, too.

For a couple of years the touching was fine, except for one time during EMDR that she touched my knees and it felt "too good". So she didn't do that anymore. Only this year did she decide that holding her hand wasn't good for me. She thought it was se*ual, and maybe it was. In any case, she wanted me to comfort myself, not use her that way anymore. It's part of making T be about ME, not about HER. So, she said she will not hold my hand again. Hugs are still allowed.

I thought I NEEDED the hand-holding because it felt so safe, and so good. I felt loved like I never had before. I wish I didn't have to stop. But my T told me she knows that I know it's not good for me. It makes me feel "too good", and makes me want more from her--more touching, more intimacy, more intensity. I realize that I WANT those things, but I don't NEED them. Or, I may need them but she can't be the one to satisfy those needs.

So, I think Ts have to be careful with touch. Just because it felt good and I wanted it, and asked her for it, doesn't mean it was good for me. What we want is not necessarily good for us. On the other hand, it sometimes IS good for us. I think, in your case Adel, it could be good for you, but it's also smart that you understand the need to be able to comfort yourself. Unfortunately our Ts can't be there touching/holding our hands, forever. We can, though, internalize the comfort they DO give us so that we have something inside of us that helps us to cope in our daily life.

I think you're doing a great job of sorting out the pros and cons of touch in therapy. I hope you find the perfect T for you soon!

I wish you luck finding a new therapist. I've had to do it and I don't enjoy the process (although I ended up learning some interesting things)
I've done art therapy and my experience is that
1. the art piece of it is very helpful and
2. if the therapist is controlling, thinks she knows me better than me, we don't have rapport, etc, it's not worth the art piece.

So what I did was take some crayons and paper to my IFS therapist (I love IFS) and sometimes I just pull it out and start drawing and see what happens. I don't get the interpretation part, but that's a plus and a minus. We just talk about it and I like doing that sometimes.

I hope things work out for you.

Thanks for your response Adel34. I like your idea of asking more about how people are feeling. I see a lightbulb going off in my head.
I think the part that confuses me most is I don't know what level of touch is good for me. When does it shift from comforting & supportive to dependency, or transference.
I totally understand how touch would be even more important to someone who can't see body language, which doesn't answer the question of when and how and where.

Hi Syra,
Yeah I hope I find someone I'm comfortable with soon.
I'm sorry about your experience with the art therapist. Interrpriting the drawings or art without the client's input, and thinking they know more than the client about the hidden meanings of it is an old philosophy of art therapy. At Lesley university where I went to school, the art therapy process is really about the client expressing what's inside and the client and therapist partner together to discover what the art means to the client. So if you were interested you could probably find another art therapist with a different style.
Yeah, this is what confuses me too, where the line is between touch being supporrtive/ comforting and where it becomes dependency or transference. Even for someone who's blind. The reason why I'm not putting much weight on the "I'm blind so need touch more than the average client" is that I realized the other day that much as I'd like them to, and some maybe think they should, not all mental health professionals will adjust their boundaries/ way of working/ thoughts on what's right for the client even with this reasoning. I explained to both the caseworker and the therapist that didn't work out about the blindness issue and they were still very much unmoved. It reminds me of a ninth grade teacher who made me get pictures off the internet for a project, when in the past other teachers would have adapted the assignment. She said not everyone is gonna be able to, or want to try to fit into my world and it's something I need to learn how to deal with.
Just as a quick update, I did talk with T from mA about this issue, as we had a skipe session today! She said to do what felt right to me, and that it would be important to have conversations with the ts I go to see to figure out how they feel on the issue. She said she didn't want me feeling bad about wanting or needing touch even in therapy. I kept saying that it was totally good that she offered what she did for all the time we were working, and maybe this is teaching me that now I don't need that anymore.
She was concerned about the lack of people I have in my RL who do offer me touch, really it's just one male friend, and even then he wouldn't be offering the touch in response to me being upset as I try to not get upset in front of him. He lived a military lifestyle growing up and for a lot of his life and so he honestly doesn't get people having strong emotional reactions to even things like family members or pets dying. But honestly, he is actually a compassionate guy in lots of other ways.
Anyway, she was concerned that this is the only person I have outside therapy thatis comfortable with touch. It made me sad, but also perhaps it'll motivate me to make more close friendships where touch is a part of it.
I asked her what I did you guys, about how to get my emotions to cathc up with the neew insights that I've wrapped my head around. She said that really it's a matter of time, that our thoughts can often jump ahead of our feelings. She also said to try and hold the thought that it's ok to want touch in therapy, and I'm also wanting to learn ways to soothe myself. I honestly don't feel it's really ok to want it in therapy. I mean if a t offered it now after everything that happened I'm not sure how I'd feel about accepting it, and I think I'd worry about how much was too much ETC.
But it was a good session and I got to let myself cry for the loss of touch as a part of therapy is, as I've done it for so long. But I try to tell myself that therapy without touch would just be different, and I'd get different things out of it.
Rainbow, I also liked what you said about carrrying the feelings inside of the comfort t gave me. I do. Those memories and inner feelings are so important as I felt so safe and cared about through the really scary process of allowing myself to start to have my feelings. I'm hoping one day I can feel solid enough to really be able to calm myself down as she did for me and not feel like I need to rely on others for this.
Good discussion everyone.

It bothers me that you said your caseworker implied that touch with your former t in MA was not good for you. It's clear that you're very self aware and it was good for you. It bothers me that she's not hearing your experience accurately. The "clinical persona" thing bothers me too. I tend to think of training and practice with therapy as leading to a more genuine persona, but, given that you said your t has a background in psychology, perhaps it's more often just a personality or personal ability thing for a mental health professional to be able to be genuine.

I really admire your ability to adapt to your situation and make the best of what you are able to get right now, Adel. I have a feeling that your caseworker could learn a lot from you if she lets herself.

As much as I usually agree with Anne, I do not agree with anything that leads toward Adel or Anne comparing themselves to abusers. I do not think there is anything wrong with appropriately asking for touch, and Adel was very appropriate with asking and not pushing it. Like Adel, I'm on the touch-deprived side, and I think that want-need is pretty powerful, just as is the want-need not to even be asked for touch. I do think it would be legitimate to push the caseworker's ridiculous reasoning that touch is bad for Adel, contrary to Adel's experience. If the caseworker can't give touch for whatever personal or professional reasons, that's one thing, but twisting the reason for denying touch so that Adel's own experience is denied is a whole other thing. However, given that Adel isn't in a position of having a lot of choices about caseworkers, I respect if she is choosing to appreciate what the caseworker can give and not fight battles that the caseworker may not be ready or capable to understand or deal with genuinely.

Hi Learning,
Yes, the clinical persona of the therapist at this center that didn't work out, as well asthe clinical persona of the caseworker do bother me. Yes, you would think training in psychology would make someone more genuine, but it also depends on the person and how much of themself they feel they can bring to the interaction. There was a professor at my school who seemed rather distant and unapproachable. Some people liked her but others didn't. She was a therapist as well as a psychology teacher. Someone else majoring in counseling pointed out to me that she really thought this person was the way she was because of caring so much about others, her students and clients, that she had to have very firm boundaries and keep an emotional distance in order not to get too attached or emotionally sort of envolved in their lives in a way that would be hard for her. So maybe it's the same with the therapist and caseworker at this place. Maybe they do care very much, and just feel they have to keep a certain distance in order to protect themselves.
Just to clarify, I did explain my work using touch with t from MA, my family history of lack of touch, the blindness thing ETC. She did listen and did say it sounded like this was something I had really missed out on, and that had been helpful to me then. So she wasn't denying my experience. She was just saying that firstly, she was uncomfortable with the idea in spite of all this, and that also she felt it was important for me to concinttrate on coping skills/ ways to calm myself down. As I've said several times I am just still learning about expressing strong feelings and how to deal with that. I sometimes do SI by scratching myself. Often I don't allow myself to get as upset as I got in the car with her and just try to push away my feelings. So she's right that I have a lot to learn in this area.
I don't feel that I was being compared to an abuser or anything. I would never ask anyone to do something that was beyond their boundaries because that would be insensitive. And yes I think the want for touch is powerful, but as I kept saying to MA t, it's important for me to get this met outside of therapy. It also just affirmed for me (though I don't think I have a huge problem with this, though we all fall into fantasies I think,) that TS, caseworkers, ETC are professionals. Their job is to help us find resources, do our treatment plan, learn skills and work through issues. Their job isn't to hold our hands or hug us. That's for friends and family. I love the relationship I have with T from MA. I honestly think we'll always be in each other's lives, because we have a deep caring for one another that goes beyond the therapist client relationship. I think she filled a mother role for a long time that I feel I really needed at the time. She joked with me once that I "collect good mothers," and that this is ok.
But maybe the experience was good in that it showed me that that type of close relationship can't be possible with every professional, and you can't force it.I'll always have my stuffed animals to hug and cuddle me no matter what! (smile)

Thanks for the very thoughtful response, Adel34.

I've thought about finding another art therapist, but they are a pretty small community where I am and several of them are unavailable for various reasons. IN the meantime I've found someone who does IFS and I'm very happy with that. sometimes I bring drawing into it and he's okay with that, although doesn't work with it the way an art therapist would. I'd love to find that perfect person with all the various things I like, but it's probably not worth the journey to find the perfect fit when I have found a very good fit that is helping me now. I do think about it sometimes anyway. and I'm pretty sure there is no perfect fit and searching for it would be like Even finding someone that was better than "good" was hard and took interviewing a lot of people who wouldn't work for me and some said hurtful things in the process.

What is MA?

Your comments about recognizing the people in your life who touch you really made me think I'm going to ponder that some more. Along with the idea that ideas precede feelings oftentimes.

I had a therapist who touched me to comfort me a lot. And then there was a large rupture. And I miss it. And I'm afraid to let the new therapist touch me, even one time when I was really upset and missed her touch. I don't know if it was because of the prior experience, or whether a lot of boundaries came down for me before I let her comfort me, and I haven't been with this new therapist long enough for those boundaries to come down. I didn't agree to the xT touching me very quickly.

I hope this works out for you.

I made it very clear in my post that I was talking about my own experience. I did not implicitly or explicitly imply anything about Adel nor did I imply there was something wrong with her asking for touch. I was talking about my issues, and while I don't particularly care whether you or anyone else agrees with me about what is true for me, I did not appreciate your imputing things to me that I did not state.

I think I understand what you are saying, Anne. I have a similar feeling and experience. Whether it's touch or bumping another person's boundaries, I have this intense, rage, shame and fear reaction. I detest the thought that I have done to someone else what was done to me.

I think for some people touch can be beneficial. I don't want the therapist near enough to me for it to even be physically possible. I think one of the harder things here for the OP is some of the lack of choice in therapists to choose from.

I think MA is Massachusetts, IL is Illinois.

Hi Again everyone,
Yes, stopdog, the issue is about that I do have a limited selection of ts to choose from, and also that the whole experience did make me question my previous conviction about touch in therapy being good for me right now. So even if a t did say it was ok, as I said in another post I'm not sure how I'd feel. I think I'd worry about how much was too much or becoming dependent or something.
As an update, met with my RC (caseworker, and I'll call her RC from now on because it's easier to type) today. She was half out of it. She told me that for the past week she hasn't been sleeping at night at all. She said she had wanted to call her supervisor and let him know she was coming in late but didn't want to get in the pattern of sleeping late. I was like, who knows? In my head I'm like why is she telling me this?
Anyway, so as she was completely zoned out she did ask me about the topic we had been discussing last week where I got upset. I told her things were fine in that area because they are. She didn't mention or bring up the more important issue of me getting upset and our conversation around that, but then again I guess I didn't expect her to.
Oh and the other thing I thought you'd get a kick out of is for all she talks about boundaries, she did blurt out in the conversation we had last week that she's had four jobs in the past year. For me, I might feel comfortable as a t or caseworker hugging a client, but I wouldn't tell them that about how many jobs I had in the past year! Makes me wonder how long she'll be staying at this place. I've been coming since October and have seen a couple caseworkers move on and new ones come in. So yeah. I had a calm unemotional meeting like I had hoped for.

Sorry my post upset you. I appreciate that you didn't explicitly compare Adel to an abuser and you talked about yourself. I didn't mean that I think you were saying anything wrong, I was just saying that my understanding of the situation is that the implications of your post don't fit Adel's situation in some ways.

For example, you said "we are not entitled to have what we want from others." Surely that isn't always true. We're entitled not to be killed, abused and tortured by others when that's what we want from them. We're probably entitled not to be forced to starve to death (entitled to food or a way to earn or grow food from others). So it's a matter of degree or situation or something. "We aren't entitled to what we want" comes across to me as a rather negative way to refer to Adel's situation (and since you were quoting her, I think one could reasonably believe that there's an implication you were referring to her situation) given that she is asking appropriately for something that clearly has been beneficial for her. The way people define "need" on this forum is often more than just a need to sustain their life (air, water, food). I think people use need to mean something that would help them improve psychologically. Going by that definition, touch could be a "need" for Adel. No one is saying anyone has a right to have their needs met or to have touch from a particular therapist, but I think it is legitimate to be comfortable asking for it appropriately, and to seek out a therapist who will do it.

I think there's a very huge difference between asking an adult therapist this question very carefully in a therapy situation compared to what happened to you as a child, and so one does not have to suppose that the therapist would have a reaction like a child who is being abused would have.

These are the most bizarre examples I could possibly imagine. Their bizarreness speaks to the fact that there is something off in the logic of your post. But I'm just not willing to consider this absurd conversation any further. And I still believe that no one is entitled to have what they want from someone else, no matter what the circumstances. It's fine to agree to disagree or disagree altogether, but I'm not interested in engaging this particular discussion any further. You are of course free to take it in whatever direction you like.

Hi Again,
Ann I agree, they do seem like kinda strange examples. Of course no one is saying anywhere that it's ok to kill people or have them starve to death. It would be a horrible horrible world is that happened!
To be honest, in the past I might have perceived Ann saying we are not entitled to what we want as negative or even critical somehow. But this time I don't. I was basically saying the same thing, that I'd realized with my RC that just because I deeply wanted touch at that moment and may have felt I even needed it, that still doesn't mean others will feel ok about giving it to me for whatever reason. So though I said it in different words, yes I think learning that I'm not entitled to what I want, (even with the reasoning that because I'm blind I should get it,) does cover what I learrned and am trying to still intigrate from last week.
I don't think people are talking about needs on the forum as water or air or whatever. This is a forum on psychotherapy so we're talking about psychological issues. I think the discussions often come about with people trying to sort out whether something they want from the therapist is really something they need (that they and the therapist both agree on this) or if it's just something that the client thinks they need. Or sometimes a therapist will do things in therapy that clients could be hurt by, like make remarks that seem challenging and critical, keep a distance, ETC. And they believe this is what the client needs or they wouldn't do it.
Another layer of this I think is the issue of whether the thing we want or need could better be gotten outside of therapy rather than with the therapist.
I believe that working with t from MA (that's Massachusetts, thanks Hankster!) I did need touch in order to do the psychological growth that I did. I never thought I'd need it, in fact before working with her I would say I didn't like to be touched. But we sort of fell into using it and it had powerful results. I truly believe she did the right thing in this case.
But do I really need it now? I think that's the big question at least for me. I had thought I needed it in the car with my RC but did I really? I survived the conversation without it. I didn't have a breakdown. I did SI by scratching myself a little but I may have done that whether there was touch or not. I did stand my ground through the conversation even while so upset and say how I felt. Which something I don't think I could have d done a year ago. So in the end I think I came out sttronger.

To me, the original statement first came across as exaggerated and even bizarre, but perhaps it's a traditional saying that's familiar to some people in therapy circles or something. I imagine it's useful in some situations but it doesn't make sense to me to say it's always true. I'm not sure exaclty what one's personal perception of bizarreness has to do with the logic of it, but if you are feeling too upset to discuss it, I understand and it's probably better not to discuss it. I was very surprised that you reacted the way you did and I'm sorry it's upsetting.

Adel, the question about needs is interesting. I actually don't call anything related to therapy a need because I don't know how you decide what is a need other than a physical need for food, air, etcetera. But from reading on here it seems like therapists and clients do talk about needs a lot and it seems like it means something that would help improve the client psychologically or something that would keep the client from getting worse or having a crisis in the short term. For example something that would prevent a panic attack or SI or dissociation. I guess that's like what you were saying when you were deciding whether touch was a need based on whether or not you SI'ed. I really admire your ability to adapt to your situation and become stronger by realizing that you can function well without touch, even though you might be able to improve more if you could find a therapist who could offer touch. To me, the word "need" is very fuzzy and so I just don't use it at all, but if I was going to use it I guess that anything that has a strong chance of helping me improve might be a need. You never know ahead for sure what will help you improve I guess, so that makes it even harder to define need. But I don't know if it matters whether it's called a need, it's still a question of deciding how much effort to make to try to find something that may be helpful.

Her reasoning does not strike me as persuasive. By this line of reasoning we should not talk to each other either, because what if no one was there?

"Entitled" is a heavily charged word that means different things to different people.
To some people it's about rights, to others it's about dependence.
It might be safer not to use that word at all.