Touch In Therapy

I relate to this. I was in therapy for a long time with a t who hugged me every session and I became very dependent on it. I spent the whole session just wanting the physical contact. As wonderful as it was, and as hard as it was to admit at the time, it wasn't really helping me move on.

My current T has actually just told me she wants us to talk about my need for the hand contact we have occasionally had rather than giving it to me. While I'm distressed about this and on the face of it it may seem sort of cruel, I completely understand and respect where she is coming from. I can't bring myself to address why I want the contact after all this time but there is definitely something that runs deep and it feels a terrible deprivation if I do not have it. Yet when I don't have any touch with T I can function from an adult place. It is needing and having the contact that sends me back into a dependent child. If I have some contact it can put my healing back a long way.

So my view on touch is that it can be helpful but it can also be a hindrance. It needs to be handled carefully and talked about. I recognise there may not be 'universal rules' when it comes to touch but my opinion is that the therapist and client need to be willing to at least communicate about what the touch means for the client and to keep track on where it is taking them. It can be all too easy to fall into a pattern of having a hug at the end or hand held or whatever, and it is never talked about. I know that words can be an interferance at such times but I do think it's important the therapist recognises the need to talk about touch, if not during a decision to offer it but soon afterward and on a regular basis.

How did you know that? My T with her got terminated prematurely for other reasons - that don't speak well of the T'ist but largely unrelated to touch. I still wonder whether it was good for me or not. I know it felt wonderful. and I felt very very lucky.

I understand about feeling a deprivation at not being allowed the touch that feels so good, even if the touch is something that sends you backwards instead of forward. Hmmm. I never thought about it that way before. I think I will meditate on that some. THanks.

Yeah. I told the new T about it, and he did what was very approrpriate particularly under the circumstances, and talked about parameters and guidelines. And I have come to very much trust him. But because of what happened with the other T, I'm afraid to get dependent on him, afraid he'll be afraid of me, and afraid to talk about when I think I want a touch because I don't want him to be afraid of me and get uncomfortable because maybe I'm hinting and going trying to go through the back door, and I don't want to hear him tell me why it can't happen when I haven't asked (he actually doesn't respond this way - it's just my fear). I have told him all this - so it's not him. But I just feel damaged and afraid - like her harm to me is carried forward. And one time I was very very upset, and he did offer to touch me (just on my arm) and I wouldn't let him because I was afraid. And I'm not generally afraid of touch with friends and family.



I think I agree with you. Talking about what it meant I think might have been really, really helpful and perhaps avoided some of the problems. I sometimes worry with the new T that that isn't enough.

Thanks for the response.

I know that words can be an interferance

I suspect that this is crucial.

Psychotherapy is words. It's a process of putting words to emotions and thoughts that often seem impossible to verbalize. But it's through engagement with that process that insight and healing occur. I'm thinking only of therapy with adults here.

The process itself brings up its own thoughts and feelings that run the gamut of human experience.

I think touch can push that process forward or retard it. It can clarify felt emotion, incite new emotion, or shut down emotion, or override a painful, but perhaps necessary, emotion from emerging.

I think it's very difficult for an empathic T to discern whether touch would help or hinder the process at any given moment. And I think it's very difficult for an empathic T to withhold touch in the best interests of the client when the client wants it. It takes a strength of character and a foundation of training to hold trust in the process at those moments.

Many times, I think touch can shortcut psychological growth, and therapists' engaging in touch can represent an empathic failure. And routine touch as a habit, divorced from the emotional process of the moment, seems like a failure of the therapy process to me.

This is always a very debatable topic. I think that it does depend on each individual client. From my point of view.....I have therapist who holds my hand , holds me, sits on the floor with and lets me cry on her shoulder. None of this has had any negative impact on the therapy process. I believe there is no greater healing comfort than that of another human being who truly cares for you in moments of distress. I am so glad I have a therapist who allows this as I know so many of them don't. I think it has been very beneficial and played a great part in the healing process.

How did you know that? My T with her got terminated prematurely for other reasons - that don't speak well of the T'ist but largely unrelated to touch. I still wonder whether it was good for me or not. I know it felt wonderful. and I felt very very lucky.

Well, for two reasons. It wasn't clear to me at the time but I didn't move on from the child place. Like you described, I started to make things seem worse than they were so I would be hugged and cuddled. The rest of the therapy seemed immaterial because touch was all I wanted. T and I never discussed it apart from that it was 'to give me what I needed'. Don't get me wrong, it was wonderful to have it and I would never regret it. She was a t in a million who cared deeply about me. I don't think I'd have come so far without it. But it did keep me in that place. It also stopped me from connecting emotionally because in my childhood I got my needs met through inappropriate touch and this T might have inadvertently acted this out.

I started seeing another t a few years later who didn't use any touch whatsoever and while I initially started off desperately needing it, I adjusted to this and my therapy moved along much quicker. I started to connect emotionally to another human being and really FEEL my feelings in a way that having a cuddle didn't allow me to. I realise now that with first t I would reach for touch at times when I was upset but this didn't allow the emotion to flow.

I understand about feeling a deprivation at not being allowed the touch that feels so good, even if the touch is something that sends you backwards instead of forward. Hmmm. I never thought about it that way before. I think I will meditate on that some. THanks.

I think I'm functioning at different levels. At a primal level I desire the touch. On an adult level I know going back to that place sends me completely backwards but this doesn't stop the child wanting it. That is why I think my T is keen for us to talk about the want.

Yeah. I told the new T about it, and he did what was very approrpriate particularly under the circumstances, and talked about parameters and guidelines. And I have come to very much trust him. But because of what happened with the other T, I'm afraid to get dependent on him, afraid he'll be afraid of me, and afraid to talk about when I think I want a touch because I don't want him to be afraid of me and get uncomfortable because maybe I'm hinting and going trying to go through the back door, and I don't want to hear him tell me why it can't happen when I haven't asked (he actually doesn't respond this way - it's just my fear). I have told him all this - so it's not him. But I just feel damaged and afraid - like her harm to me is carried forward. And one time I was very very upset, and he did offer to touch me (just on my arm) and I wouldn't let him because I was afraid. And I'm not generally afraid of touch with friends and family.

My advice would be to keep talking about your fears, hard as it is. It sounds like your T understands. I think this is what my T is trying to do. She has offered hand contact and we very nearly fell into a pattern although she is on the ball and has often tried to talk to me about it as well as offer it. I admitted to her I was scared of where touch could take me and she said there are two of us in this looking together at what I need from touch so I don't have to make decisions alone. This has helped to especially given my history.

I hope you find a way through this as I know it is hard.




I think I agree with you. Talking about what it meant I think might have been really, really helpful and perhaps avoided some of the problems. I sometimes worry with the new T that that isn't enough.

Thanks for the response.[/quote]

I completely agree with all of this based on personal experience.

With a prior t, the touch definitely kept me from feeling my emotions fully. I didn't know this at the time because it was so normal for me to look for contact to avoid feeling, but once I started therapy with a strictly anti-touch t my healing really began - and it hurt. I suspect that touch CAN (not always) keep healing from taking place because it's akin to 'there there, don't cry' when the client needs to cry. Obviously at times touch can faciliate emotion so the same doesn't apply in every case.

I believe it's incredibly hard for my current T to withhold the contact. I could tell that refusing to hold my hand really upset her. As horrible as it can sound on the surface, sometimes Ts are doing the right thing! Likewise I think it took her a while to understand what the touch was about and the fact it wasn't helping me. It is trial and error most of the time.

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Thanks so much for your response. It's helping me process things.

I think the thing I don't like the most is that I've been damaged and I wonder if my new T would touch me more (not as much as the prior T), or at least is more cautious with me. Although I don't think it would even be an issue for me if it wasn't for the prior T (long story). So she messed me up while I was there, and the damage continues after it stops, sort of like survivors of sexual abuse (although there was nothing sexual in the touch, it was more maternal than sexual).

Thanks again.

I have had a touch experience in therapy. I am a very nervous anxious type of person and almost constantly knead or rub my hands or pick at my nails, things like that. One session my T says she wants to try something and reaches out and takes my hand, as if we were going to shake hands, and we just sit there for a minute. She said she wanted to see if she could feel my anxiety. She asked how it was for me and I said some bland comment like "It was nice." and then "I don't know. I'm not touched very often." But really it meant a lot to me and still continues to mean a lot to me. We have hugged once as well in connection to being able or unable to ask for what I need but the hug did not have as much of an impact as holding my hand did because I knew the hug was coming.

I can definitely see how this can complicate the therapeutic relationship but I also strongly believe in the healing potential. Maybe I believe in the healing potential because I feel it is something I want from my T. I don't think we have really addressed the transference stuff mostly because I am too embarrassed about needing a replacement parental relationship and seeing her, my T, in that role. I know about the..."irrationality" of the transferential relationship because I am a psych student as well. I am embarrassed to discuss what I think I want and need from the relationship. The touch question therefore either plays into or plays against my inner conflict. I am afraid to feel the transferential feelings and I try to reason myself out of them. But if I don't let myself feel the total therapeutic experience, if I continue to fight against it, then am I setting myself up for a longer "recovery?"

Sorry this is kind of off topic.

I have touch in therapy and it is very healing. I have even learnt to hug her back. I have to initiate it, but I often find it accesses emotions I can't get to any other way. We also spent a long time discussing touch as she is very aware that I have an internal battle going on and part of me doesn't want it. I was referred as I have such extreme reactions to touch and after collapsing at osteopath she persuaded me to give body psychotherapy a go. I can now see the osteopath without collapsing but still have big issues surrounding touch

I have found touch one of the most healing things in therapy. And my t and i are both touchy feeling huggy people. So we get along quite well. As an administrator and former teacher , touch was a big thing in my special needs classroom as well, and with the kids at my school now.

The first time There was touch, my therapist was leaving for a six week vacation. It had never occurred to me that We might hug. He asked me and i think i leaped into his arms. I was starting to experience transference towards him so this felt incredible to me. I was kind of shocked. Since then We may have hugged half a dozen times, usually before his long trips. It feels totally appropriate but i can't help but derive pleasure from his touch. and i can't say hugging him doesn't increase my love for him. But somehow it feels human, and healing .

...and wanting to hug to "fix" anf fix isnt heal

I think this is key -thanks, Mouse.

We hug at the end of sessions.

The first time he touched me was when I showed him scars on my wrist that have an infinity symbols tattooed over them. He reached out and touched my wrist and scars.

Otherwise he may put his hand on my shoulder if I'm really upset. I do kick his foot if he teases me too much. And he sometimes does taps my hands for emdr.

I enjoy the bit of touch. I'm a bit touch starved and he is very gentle.

I am very resistant to this idea.

What a topic! It is incredable how a small thing can have such significance. How it can be so complicated, wanted and hated at the same time. I´m scared of it yet I crave it.....what a chaos this is.
Touch the sensation of two people that could be so healing and yet so harmful. Which one is it going to be this time? And is it ever going to be?
I wish it could be such a small thing with no significance!

Ick. Just ick.

(for me)

I don't want it. I don't see the point. I would not find the touch of a stranger to be useful and it possibly might distract/take away from me doing what I need to do for myself. And that is, for me, a truly horrible idea - that of being kept from protecting or taking care of myself.

What is relevant is that I don't view my T as a stranger, and I know I'm not alone. She's most definitely NOT one. She and I have a close relationship--not friends. It's unique.

stopdog, just wondering. Maybe therapy would be more productive if you and your T were more than strangers to each other?

I don't consider or call what I do in my own therapy as non-productive.
And to consider the therapist as other than a stranger would, to me, just be lying to myself.

I'd love touch, purely because I was denied it a lot as a child. But I'm worried it will become a craving that can never be satisfied

I have often recognized that my t is in many ways a stranger. I've told her that and she tries to get me to think of all the things I do know about her from our interactions. I still feel like she's in all actuality a stranger to me. And my therapy has been very productive over the years. This is off the thread topic but I'm reacting to the "t as stranger" idea above.

The one and only time my T touched me was he gave me a brotherly tap on the knee and I freaked out. But I really crave a hug from him.

I wouldn't want touch to be a regular part of my therapy because I'd start to rely on it or crave it. I'm more a fan of emotional holding.

My T did touch me once, though - I had regressed to a very young state and was crying, freaking out and not hearing anything he said, and he held my hand briefly. It was the right thing to do in the moment and I was actually really happy about it. We've talked a lot about it since. Later that day I kind of held my own hand in the way he did, which is a bit pathetic...

I hear you on the feeling pathetic, tinyrabbit. My T also held my hand once when I was feeling totally trapped in my head and having huge difficulty getting back from the horrible place in my head. He also hugs me fairly often. For me, touch has been hugely healing. I feel that I am so horrible, disgusting and repulsive, particularly if someone KNOWS things about me. Him touching me after I tell him disgusting things has been very reassuring that he doesn't find ME disgusting despite the things I tell him.

My T touches me all the time as after the speaking therapy bit of the session, I have a massage by her. She's hugged me a few times over the years also. She's a biodynamic psychotherapist/ somatic body therapist.

Touch in therapy: http://wp.me/p3qCCk-1U