Touch in therapy

Touch in therapy is a complicated, painful topic for me. I greatly desire and need it, but fear it also. I want it but cannot tolerate getting it.

Yeah that explanation does not make sense to/for me. My T and I touch a lot and we talk a lot about what that touch means , why I want it, why she gives it, etc. Its not either/or unless the T makes it either /or. If my T touches me in a way that makes me feel particularly loved ( like there is a spot between my shoulder blades that seems directly connected to my heart) we talk about why, how my body and feelings are related etc.

I suspect my T is very good at using touch in this way. She has also said that I have a lot more emotional awareness and body awareness than most people . so it may just be a fortuitous coming together of our particular abilities/experience.

But I don't understand why acting the feeling out means you can't articulate it also.

I agree Baybrony that it's important to articulate the meaning too, but that in itself doesn't need to prohibit touch, as long as both parties are willing to be explicit about their meanings.
It's a very interesting article though stopdog and I'm grateful you posted it because I was having some trouble finding skeptical articles from a therapist's perspective.

I am not advocating for or against or justifying any of their reasons - just posting what I have found on the subject (there are, of course, textbooks and articles in journals - which I can't figure out how to post as I read them through my university account). Agree or disagree with them as you will.
Here are other discussions of it
To Touch Or Not To Touch: Exploring Prohibition On Touch In Psychotherapy And Counseling and the Ethical Considerations of Touch, by Ofer Zur, Ph.D.

https://whatashrinkthinks.com/tag/ho...psychotherapy/

http://www.behavior.net/forums/gestalt/1998/1_5-120.htm

http://www.postmodernpsychology.com/...hotherapy.html

I know sd I realised that and appreciate your finding such useful perspectives.

In almost 1000 sessions, my therapist any I never touched. Not even a handshake. I begged her, sobbing, please hold my hand.

Nope, no touch, EVER.

I think it is different theories about how to do therapy.
But since there does not seem to be a real consensus, and there are many different schools of thought and approaches and frankly most therapists seem to do whatever they damn well please, it would seem to me that one could (like you have done) look around and find one who will if that is what one wants.
I would not find it useful for myself. And with all things therapy related, I do think it is a good idea to understand some of the potential benefits and pitfalls of such a thing and weigh it out before getting tangled up in it.

Echos I am glad that you and your t can look at this and negotiate what works for the two of you! It sounds like it could be very healing for you
I have avoided this thread because it kind of triggers me. I crave for my t to touch me but she never does. I send her mixed messages that I desire touch but that it is also forbidden. We discussed a lot lately about what I need when I disassociate. She always says she wants to support me but I don't tell her what I need.. I would like her to touch me but I am afraid of rejection.

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I usually like this writer but for a therapist so seasoned she seems too afraid and not willing to move on this topic. Maybe she has been burned before.

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Thanks Mona, it's the dissociation that I have been thinking about too. Somehow having his hand feels like it might be an anchor point for me, so I can explore the material that causes dissociation without getting lost, or fighting my way back out of it. Like you though, there's a bit of conflict in me about it.
I had protected myself from the rejection by never for a second considering the possibility that he would allow touch, so now that he has said he's open to it, surprised doesn't begin to cover how I feel.

I was initially very upset than Madame T refused to touch me. But I got used to it.

I agree... I think my T started using this sort of touch because I WAS dissociating so much, and she was able to help keep me "there" and grounded when she was physically right there with me. I quit dissociating all together, and learned how to talk more, and cry more....etc.

I think touch, when wanted by the client, can be very healing and helpful in therapy. However... it can also be horribly damaging if it's taken away like it was in my case. All I want in my therapy is consistency. But she took a list of things away, one by one, and I don't think, as a general rule, that T's should provide something they will take away later. Most of us in therapy have already suffered a great deal of loss. I'm forever changed, and not in a good way. I see no hope of recovering from this...although I've been trying. It sounds like T3 has some ideas to help me, so I'm eager to see her Wednesday.

Yes, I agree with this. But this is precisely why Ts give so little. Whatever they give has to be sustainable.

Thanks Lizzy. Your experience is really important to me because you've helped me to realise how important it is that I keep my eyes open if I decide to proceed with introducing touch. I don't know where it might lead me in terms of feelings and I need to be honest about that too. I will definitely have a discussion with T about what happens if he changes his mind or decides he no longer wants to offer it, and see where that goes. Like you I think I would not cope well with sudden and unexplained withdrawl. (I can't see him being that careless, but then again I never would have expected him to offer touch so who knows).

You sound very wise Echos and and like BayBrony said, there is no exclusivity between touch and the exploration of the desire and effect of it. By having these discussions you allow yourself a great opportunity. For me, I am nowhere near being able to have the discussion and therefore the touch will wait until I am ready because, like you, I see the importance. You cannot tell the future but by keeping things in the open you protect yourself to the beat of your ability and your T, from the little I know, does not sound like the careless type.

Perhaps you could tell T precisely this?

"I'm afraid if I let you touch me, you'll stop touching me later and I don't think I could cope with that."

Thanks for this, I suppose I do have faith in both myself and my T in terms of being aware of what's going on and being careful, though I am slightly fearful that if very primal needs are uncovered (the word umbilical has come up a couple of times, once from my T and once in one of the articles stopdog posted) I am slightly concerned that I might play down the intensity of the feelings in order to sustain them. In fact I might be making an insight there - that sounds like something I might have done with my mother; it plays into the insecure ambivalent attachment stuff. I guess I need to say that to T. It's easy to be honest when you're being rational but I don't know how easy that is when experiencing such deep feelings.

Yeah, this will openly stated I think, otherwise I'm setting myself up for a fall.

Thanks for posting these articles, Stopdog. I especially found the first one really interesting. It was a long read, but a very good one.

Although I am very pro touch in my own therapy, I do want to add that for me, it dramatically affected my attachment feelings for a while and made them more confusing and painful. For me, that resulted in deep exploration that eventually exposed some very painful past memories. Now that it is resolved my attachment to my T is far more secure and ive made quite a bit of progress with some stuff I never thought I'd make progress with. But it was a roller coaster for a while. And maybe a less experienced T would have panicked...

That's interesting; I wonder whether it's inevitable that such feelings occur as a result of touch. My T has been practicing for 40 years so I don't have any concerns about his experience, though I do have a bit of concern about mine!
This has emerged at a fairly good time because my academic work is done for the summer and I'm not working at the moment so if I find this consuming for a while I don't have to struggle on with assignments or anything. I think I'm going to have to go ahead and work out what is causing my attachment to grow and what is causing these 'umbilical' needs. However we do that.

Yes, thank you SD. I agree that the first one is very interesting.

THIS IS SO TRUE. gosh, I wish I could have expressed this to ex-T. I was always trying to be rational.

I found this an interesting and helpful article when I was struggling with touch being appropriate for me in my therapy or therapy in general.

http://iahip.org/inside-out/issue-68...c-relationship

Thanks so much for that article WTR. There are a lot of good points in there.