or about the benefits of touch and body contact in life and in therapy.
Touch and skin-to-skin contact is an art and great bliss for some and horror for others. The need to receive and give it exists throughout our lives. Its quality shapes the quality of our relationships. The value of physical contact when communicating with children and loved ones has been proven by more than one scientist and confirmed by life.
For each of us, regardless of psychological state, touch is very important. Sometimes no words are needed; by touching a person, you can say much more. They have a beneficial effect on our well-being, help us calm down, reduce stress, improve metabolic processes and blood circulation in the body. It's safe to say that touch is a basic human need. To the point that their absence can lead to deterioration in physical and emotional health.
The vital need for touch and skin-to-skin contact for children in the first year of life.
The need to touch another person or the feeling of a reciprocal touch is inherent at the level of instincts. It begins at the stage of embryonic development and lasts until old age. Throughout the entire intrauterine process, the baby lives in a common rhythm with the mother’s body. Accordingly, after birth, he also gets to know the world through his mother’s hugs. It is important that this connection does not break for as long as possible. Touching and hugging in this case is one of the main components of the child’s emotional state.
Animals lick their young, so nature made sure that the basic instinctive programs were turned on, helping them navigate in space, eat properly and hunt, i.e. survival programs.
The affectionate touch of parents also influences the health and proper development of the human child. Scientists have proven that in the first year of life, the need for physical contact and touch is vital for the baby, as well as food, water and warmth. Through him he receives care and attention. So, from the point of view of psychologists, we gain the first knowledge about ourselves, our boundaries, space. This is how our main program “I am” and the program “Me and You” are launched.
Body contact promotes the development of the most important feelings. For example, from a physics point of view, carrying a child in your arms helps to train the vestibular apparatus, stimulate brain functions, and stabilize the respiratory rhythm. From the point of view of feelings, it balances the emotional state. What a feeling of delight, satisfaction and trust a baby experiences when sitting in his mother’s arms or looking out at those around him while sitting on his father’s shoulders.
One day I came to the pediatrician with my youngest five-year-old son. We stood in line, he was very tired and afraid of the doctor. Entering the office, I took the child in my arms and hugged him so that he would not worry and would rest. An elderly woman doctor instructively, and most importantly, absolutely seriously, told me that boys should not be picked up after three years, that this, firstly, spoils them, and secondly, there is a danger of developing “wrong sexual orientation.” I did not argue with her in order to speed up the reception, but this greatly upset me.
I’ll tell you why: if I weren’t an “advanced” mother and a physical psychologist, I could believe the doctor, since many mothers believe and do what they say, because for many young parents the doctor is an authority. Once upon a time they said that children should be fed only according to a schedule and not pay attention to the fact that they scream, they say, let the lungs develop, they swaddled babies tightly in “columns”, which caused irreparable harm to the child and traumatized the growing psyche. Thank God this has now been abandoned. As a psychotherapist, I now help my clients overcome the trauma of such “upbringing” and understand the harm they caused to an entire generation.
Statistically, children who were touched frequently as children have a better ability to survive. They have high immunity and are less susceptible to emotional problems, they are better able to build relationships with a partner and trust themselves and people more. Many scientific studies prove that sexual abusers in childhood did not receive the necessary amount of warmth and affection, felt loneliness, and were subjected to physical and mental violence.
Do adults need touch?
The need for touch does not disappear throughout our entire lives. Skin contact is important not only for the child, but also for the parents. Thanks to him, mothers and fathers learn to accept nonverbal signals from their child, understand him without words, and therefore feel and love each other. The process of touching is the first lesson of love for parents and children, and the basis for a healthy attachment between them for the rest of their lives.
With a lack of physical contact, a fear of expressing feelings and emotions towards another person may develop with age. As a result, a person’s contact with himself and with the world is lost, he ceases to instinctively understand the language of his body, the ability to feel and understand the mental and physical pain of himself and others.
Children from “non-corporeal” families in the future also experience fear of touching other people and their children. Experiencing “physical hunger,” they also feel “emotional hunger.” It becomes difficult for them to establish warm and deep relationships in adulthood. Bodies become tense and inflexible, and feelings become deadened. When the body and emotions are not involved, then all the energy is directed to the head.
The role of touch in personal relationships.
In the process of communication between a man and a woman, in addition to words, there is another special language - the language of touch, which conveys the quality and depth of their relationship. Through physical contact you can convey warmth, love, support, confidence in safety and protection. This applies to both men and women, since the physical need for contact exists regardless of gender.
Thanks to physical touch, the sensitivity of the soul develops. For most people, this is the main love language, because... helps you feel loved, needed and important. Otherwise, the relationship becomes formal, callous and uninteresting, there is no cordiality and trust.
If your partner does not mind such treatment, do not refuse him this. If he is not ready for them, be patient and gentle, give as much as he can accept. After all, touch allows you to get to know and understand each other as much as possible. Gentle, caring touches towards those close to you express support, friendship and acceptance of the person.
About the benefits of touch.
In the modern world, stress is, unfortunately, one of the components of life. If it lasts for a long time, it can lead to a decrease in the level of the body's natural defense - the immune system. Touch and bodily contact can neutralize the effects of stress in the form of anxiety, apathy, insomnia or panic by stimulating nerve endings on the skin. In this case, the emotional benefits of touch and bodily contact are undeniable. They help to establish emotional contact with a loved one, bring peace and tranquility.
It is also important that touch and bodily contact can have personal benefits, because... allow you to remove most emotional blocks, increase self-confidence and restore clear thinking.
The benefits of touch and bodily contact are obvious, so they are increasingly being used in traditional medicine. Touch affects the body and consciousness of a person, producing an impact on the physical and emotional levels simultaneously. With the help of touch, you can relieve tension, restore strength, reduce pain, relieve discomfort, and improve the functioning of all body systems.
There is a wide variety of classical and exotic massage techniques to restore bodily and mental comfort. This massage is called therapeutic, restorative. It is aimed at relieving muscle tension, improving blood circulation, removing toxins and more. At the same time, the touch of hands restores emotional balance and helps overcome psychological stress, forming an invisible connection between the body and hidden emotions.
Today, such procedures are carried out in spa salons or fitness centers, where specialists in relaxation techniques work. Thus, the physical benefits of touch and bodily contact can be traced - this is not only an inexhaustible source of pleasure, but also health. The production of the hormone oxytocin helps relieve stress. Serotonin helps reduce depression and anxiety, while dopamine increases concentration.
In addition, gentle touch reduces the risk of cardiovascular disease and strengthens the immune system. But it should be emphasized that relaxation massage is not therapy, although it has an indirect therapeutic effect.
It is no longer a secret that physical ailments do not come on their own; as a rule, they are caused by psychological problems. And it is not massage therapists who help to sort this out, but body therapists who are trained to connect various bodily blocks with psychological problems and personal or traumatic stories of the patient. This type of therapy is one of the areas of Western psychotherapy and has many different schools. It is aimed at working with the body through touch.
In addition, breathing and sometimes functional movement are also means of bodily therapy. In the process, it is assumed that a person must completely get rid of tension, gain a charge of energy and strength, throw off emotional blocks and increase the internal abilities of the body. The only limitation for going to a body therapist may be the fear of touch or bodily contact, because it is the basic channel of interaction between the therapist and the client.
What, you ask, is the difference between touch and bodily contact. The fact is that touch is predominantly given to any part of a person’s body using the palms of the hands, and bodily contact with any other part of the body or the whole body to the partner’s body.
Dance movement therapy.
Dance and movement therapy in world psychotherapy is recognized as an independent method; it includes bodily and creative therapies, which exist both as separate methods. She has more means in her arsenal than the physical, and touch is only one of many. The main mediator between the client and the psychotherapist here is such bodily manifestations as movement and dance, as well as creativity.
Dance therapy is recommended in the presence of psychological and psychosomatic problems, loss of contact with oneself, to restore dialogue with one’s body, personal integrity, self-acceptance, development of spontaneity and creativity, resolution of conflicting relationships with children or loved ones. The effectiveness of therapy is high in the treatment of nervousness, psychological trauma, stress and depression. I would especially like to note her unique ability to work with mental disorders, mental retardation and autism. No other method works as effectively with babies as dance therapy. But let's get back to touch.
Having 17 years of experience as a dance-movement and body psychotherapist, I often encounter a person’s inability to accept touch, but with the desire to develop the bodily aspect of their personality, to make friends with themselves through the body and movement. Despite the “understanding of the need,” such work often evokes strong resistance from a very rational client or student. If a person is still highly motivated, I help him gently overcome this resistance and then he receives a valuable resource in the body, in creativity and in movement. He returns home - to his Real Self.
People deprived of physical contact are most often rational people who find it difficult to trust not only others, but also, above all, themselves, their body, and spontaneously respond to internal and external signals from the surrounding space. It is difficult for them to decide on a physical one, where the main contact channel is touch or dance and movement work, where the basis is free movement, creativity and body feelings.
For such clients, it is easier to talk about feelings than to decide to experience them through dance, movement, creativity and the body. That is why verbal and analytical methods of psychology are so popular in our country. For many, physical or, even more so, dance-movement work causes fear and rejection, since this channel of communication is seriously blocked.
Over the past five years, people’s interest in bodily and motor-restorative practices has been slowly but surely growing. Many decide to take this path in order to heal their body and soul.
Sometimes we spend many months of individual and group work to ensure that a person is able and ready to accept the touch of a therapist or group members.
Dance therapy, in addition to touch, provides many other creative tools and opportunities for developing deep and honest relationships with oneself and with other people. I never force events and give time for a person to feel this readiness, and then touch or another type of self-expression will become a resource for him and will open up new opportunities in building relationships with himself and with other people.
Elena (name changed), 30 years old. It took 8 months of individual and group work for her to be able to accept the therapist’s touch: “... I never suspected that touch could be soft and supportive. My entire bodily experience is pain and corporal punishment. My father beat me and that's all I knew about touching. My mother very rarely took me in her arms... now I can dance and I appreciate your support in my arms, it’s very new, unusual, but pleasant (cries), now I’m no longer scared, although it takes time to stop afraid that this is just the way it is, that I shouldn’t “deserve” it
Quality of touch.
In order to convey certain information through the body, people have been using different types of touch since ancient times. There are many different healing techniques known using the laying on of hands, that is, touch.
Touch and bodily contact are a powerful energy channel, through which we “connect” to another person and can either restore him and our energy balance or destroy it. The quality and depth of touch depends greatly on the duration and effort applied, as well as on the emotional state of the healer, therapist or just a partner.
You cannot help a person if you yourself are in an unbalanced state. Perhaps a dentist can treat a patient with a hole in his own teeth, although, to be honest, I don’t trust a sick doctor, but a psychotherapist cannot treat a patient with a hole in his soul. It is important to maintain a resourceful state so as not to be destroyed in your work and not to solve your own problems at the expense of clients. If you are the one who goes to a healer, look at how healed he himself is, whether his relationships in the family, with colleagues and with the world in general are harmonious.
There are several types of touches that can be used to influence and balance the emotional state of a partner (client). For convenience, we call them according to the elements and primary elements; their qualities help to constructively interact with the feelings and qualities of a person’s personality.
Grounding. The earth is the most stable and constant element. Lightning rods are directed into the ground to extinguish a strong electrical discharge. The earth also helps a person to extinguish strong emotions. It gives confidence, stability, acceptance, relaxation, rest and recuperation. Therapists use this type of contact as the main one if they need to help a person “extinguish” a destructive emotion.
As a touch, it looks like this: Your hand(s), palm down, rests on your partner's or client's body.
The touch is soft, without stroking or pressure. The longer it lasts, the more soothing. Contact with the whole body or a large area of it is well grounded (back to back, hug, the body of one partner hugs the entire body of the other partner or child from behind in the “fetal position.” Contact with the ground or any other stable surface also “works” as grounding ( wall, chair, floor), when the body weight is distributed as much as possible over the surface of the whole or part of the body (feet, back, pelvis, etc.)
Air contact. Air is a fast, changeable element, which is represented in the body by touch such as breathing, waving (like a fan). This is emotionality, variability, lightness, playfulness. In therapy it is used to regulate the emotional state, relief, lightness, in teaching spontaneity and unleashing creativity.
Fire contact. Fire, masculine energy, just like air, a fickle element, is used to activate vital energy, warmth, and the desire to act. Your body, breath or hands are very close to your partner's body, but do not touch him. The distance is chosen based on the feeling of warmth between you. “Close breathing” is not used in therapy, but in intimate partner relationships it is very resourceful.
Water contact. Water, like earth, is feminine energy. Calms, comforts, balances and preserves vital energy. These are sexuality, creativity, care, fluidity and intensity of experiences, from calm to “seething”. The touch used is stroking or soft “point” touches with the fingertips.
Metal contact. These are strong, but not painful pressure on the body, as in a massage. They are used when working with body blocks, to soften and relieve spasms in muscle tissue.
The ethics of therapeutic touch.
If in everyday life we more or less understand when it is necessary to touch a person, although this is not so easy and understandable for everyone, then in body and dance therapy this issue is also important from the point of view of the quality of professional influence. To this day, discussions continue in the global therapeutic community about whether it is possible to touch a client, when and how to do it. Despite the fact that body therapy has been used in practice for many years, there are still no clearly defined rules for the use of therapeutic touch.
Any psychotherapy is a combination of structure and improvisation, it is broad knowledge and always a path into the unknown. You know what to do and you don't know what you will do every time. Since you never know to what depth of the subconscious your client will fall and how his stories are intertwined there, how much a person feels his body, whether images and movements are accessible to him, etc. Therefore, as a body or dance movement therapist, you must have a rich arsenal of knowledge and skills, understanding and awareness of where you are leading a person, why and how. You monitor the client’s resourcefulness (how ready he is to go there), your own personal and emotional balance and readiness for touch or bodily contact.
So, in order for touch to have a therapeutic effect (work on the client and his emotional stability), it is important to comply with the following requirements:
- the touch should be unambiguous, interpreted by the client as intelligible, open and understandable. With indistinct touch, the client (and the therapist too) may lose a sense of their own boundaries, which can lead to mixed feelings, anxiety, confusion, imbalance
- Touching should never be sexually charged. The therapist must be aware of his own sexuality and manage his feelings or stop therapy if this is impossible.
- The therapist categorically cannot use rough or violent touch that offends the client’s dignity and destroys his personal boundaries.
- It is not recommended to use touch without studying the patient’s medical history (life and illness history), i.e. You should use touch very carefully or refuse it altogether if the client has experienced sexual violence or complex shock trauma inflicted by other people, if he is prone to addiction or regressive stuckness until his healthy part of the personality is restored to a resourceful state.
- We must not forget that for each person there are boundaries that allow the use of touch. In any case, you first work with the client’s boundaries, help him develop a resource, and only after that make a decision on whether or not to use touch or bodily contact.
- determining the acceptable boundaries of working with each specific client is the main indicator of the therapist’s professionalism and a matter of professional discussion.
In order to consciously conduct therapeutic work and be as environmentally friendly and correct with the client as possible, the therapist must understand the intricacies of bodily and motor work:
- undergo the necessary high-quality training in the appropriate method, - have a psychological education and your own body-motor experience, - receive a qualification certificate from a legitimate organization, - have supervision and intervisions of colleagues, especially at the beginning of training, - since touch in body therapy is the main principle of work, an intervention tool and the type of contact channel, and in dance therapy one of the important methods of work is that the therapist must be able to establish kinesthetic contact with the client, develop his own bodily and motor sensitivity, freely communicate with his body, understand and accept it, “be friends” with movement.
Bodily contacts include touching, handshakes, hugs, sometimes shoving... - everything where physical contact between people occurs, not entirely by chance.
Accustoming to body contact
Everything is the result of habit. Many children in the family, especially boys and girls, are more comfortable with hugs - they are very physical, kinesthetic, and they like it very much; boys, especially in adolescence, begin to be afraid of contacts. But good parents insist on this and teach children who are not even accustomed to contact. This is called “catch up and fall in love,” and then you will like it. To do this you need to have: methodicality, authority, calmness and knowledge that this is right. Without seriously insisting, you just calmly and confidently do it. Sometimes even saying in the family “Are we family? Family. You need to kiss daddy, it’s nice for daddy.”
Sometimes in a male audience or company, contacts through aggression are completely normal. When children need to become friends, first there are competitive games where you have to push, fight, and fight. And no one will say “why did he touch me?” “I didn’t touch you, I pushed you.” And little by little they begin to gain permission to make contacts, to touch.
With a girl it’s the other way around: you kiss her hand. You joke: “Madam, you are magnificent. allow me... fascinated."
Tactile contact is the secret weapon we have to create successful and lasting relationships. This is our language, given to us from birth. But over time we forget about its importance. How can we return to natural communication?
Psychologists recommend that in order to remember, tactile contact involves using your imagination and imagining yourself on a bus crowded with people. Passengers, being half asleep, by inertia continue to reproduce their thoughts and emotions with the help of tactile sensations. A couple in love holds hands, a small child seeks support from his mother - he reaches out to her and calms down.
Types of communication
Everyone knows that we can communicate verbally and non-verbally. But not many people know that with the help of movements and expressions one can convey quite complex emotions and desires. We are careful with our touch, but we can receive and transmit signals with it. That is, we have the ability to interpret tactile contact. When we touch another person, our brain displays an objective assessment.
The most accurate and not at all simple way to communicate
The researchers concluded that with the help of the voice, we can identify one or two positive signals - good mood and joy. However, research shows that sensations are a more accurate and subtle way of communicating than the sound of the voice and facial expressions.
In addition, using touch you can increase the speed of communication, that is, touch is the easiest way to signal something. Tactile contact with a man helps girls create a deeper sense of connection. Touch is also important in the mother-child relationship, as we begin to receive it even before birth. When a mother touches her baby, she gives him a feeling of security.
The importance of touch
Warm touch promotes release which increases feelings of affection and trust between people. This can explain our habit of touching ourselves: rubbing our hands, stroking our forehead, hair. Tactile contact helps us experience all the same positive sensations that the person we touch experiences. Research has shown that when we hug, we get as much benefit as the person we hug. In addition, by touching a person, we will receive information about his emotional state. Let's find out how he is configured: friendly or hostile. Is he relaxed or tense? Such information will help us choose the right tactics in communication. Therefore, we can say that tactile sensations are the easiest way to strengthen intimacy in a romantic relationship.
Tactile memory is the memory of the sensations we experience while touching an object. Let's say you once petted a snake at the zoo, and now every time you see a snake (on TV, for example), you remember how cold its skin is.
Tactile memory is not associated with the organs of vision; it is involved in it. Otherwise, we can talk about the joint work of visual and tactile memory. If vision is involved in memorization, then, as a rule, we do not remember tactile sensations.
Everyone enjoys being paid attention to. Tactile contact is an integral part of any close interaction. Of course, business relationships hardly involve tight hugs, but friendly meetings, as a rule, cannot do without them. Every person, one way or another, wants to feel needed, in demand and understood.
Tactile-visual contact helps build trusting relationships between partners, teaches them to be lenient and attentive. Only by looking into the eyes of your interlocutor can you fully verify what feelings he actually experiences.
The essence of the concept
Tactile contact is a special form of interaction in which effective communication occurs between people. Agree that it is much easier to convey some important thought to a person if you touch him. Each of us is very pleased when he is appreciated and expresses his feelings with the help of strong handshakes.
What does tactile contact mean? Most often, with its help, people express their emotions aimed at a specific interlocutor. The desire to take your hand and stroke it is associated with the need for understanding, which we all so need. If a person is absolutely indifferent to another, then he will never touch him under any pretext. Closed people, as a rule, avoid tactile contact and are afraid to show it.
Feeling safe
Look at the woman holding a child in her arms. She just glows with happiness! She is not afraid of any obstacles, nor is she afraid of the prospect of losing her individual prospects. A woman-mother always sacrifices something for the sake of her baby: work, time, relationships with friends.
In the mother's arms, the baby feels protected from all adversities. Her gentle palms will lull him, caress him. It is tactile contact that provides a child with a sense of security from everything in the world. This is the most powerful weapon in the world against any antisocial behavior. It has been noticed that many illegal acts are committed only because no one cared about such individuals in childhood. A mother’s love creates the child’s soul and forms his trust in the entire world around him.
If a mother devotes insufficient time and attention to her offspring, then there is a high chance of developing an unsociable, aggressive or withdrawn person. No one can replace a mother's love for her baby. One can only imagine how lonely and unwanted the orphans feel.
Showing love
When we touch another person, it is as if we are telling him: “I care about you.” Anyone who loves necessarily strives to show his affection not only in words. How can you express your feelings? With a glance or touch. Tactile contact between a man and a woman implies a deep feeling of each other at all levels. Sometimes it is enough to look into the eyes and say a kind word, otherwise only careful handling and tactile warmth will help. Each of us wants to feel that he is loved and cared for.
Expression of confidence
In fact, we only allow ourselves to be touched by people we can completely trust. And this is by no means accidental. This is how our psychology works. Tactile contact is a very important and significant thing in everyone’s life, so it should not be avoided or tried to be pushed away. There are people who really don’t like hugging, even with loved ones. Such manifestations indicate that not everything is so smooth in their lives, there are internal problems and contradictions in interaction.
Trust is expressed through free tactile touches and stroking. Taking a person by the hand means showing special warmth, spiritual closeness, and a desire to help. If we want to calm a friend or relative, we hug him. And this almost always has a positive effect on a person, allowing him to calm down. The fact is that hugs open the heart and help restore spiritual closeness and trust if they have been lost for some reason.
Relationships between spouses
The interaction between husband and wife is a special moment that causes many different debates. Family conflicts are the most powerful in impact. It is believed that it is in relationships with the most dear people that we learn important life lessons, without which our personality would not be fully developed. After all, no one can become happy alone. The participation of a partner and the presence of a deep relationship with him are always required. And here you can’t do without tactile contact.
The spouses know each other like no one else. It's not just about individual character, manners, habits. Each of us has our own weaknesses and ailments, and then being close to a loved one can affect our condition and attitude.
Sexual interaction
Tactile contact with a man necessarily includes touching. When two people decide to devote their lives to each other, over time they know well what their partner likes and are able to guess his mood. Physical intimacy is impossible without a great sense of trust towards your spouse. Both men and women are equally in need of sincere love. But not everyone, unfortunately, knows how to correctly express their emotions. Every person wants to feel significant and loved.
Relief from stress
When you come home after a whole day of work, it’s so nice to know that a loving family is waiting for you. A hot dinner, attention and care - this is what your partner expects. With the help of tactile contact, you can free yourself from stress, find peace of mind, and throw off the burden of problems and fatigue. Nothing invigorates a person more than the knowledge that someone needs him, his opinion is valuable in itself and important.
Tactile contact is a real salvation from stress. When we touch a person, he always feels how important a figure he is in our life. Even relationships between friends and girlfriends can be very close if there is room for mutual hugs and pats on the shoulder. Sometimes tremendous support is required and tactile contact is clearly indispensable. The more emotions we learn to show in life, the easier it will be for us to build interactions with other people.
Nobody likes cold and indifferent people for whom saying an extra word is a problem. Everyone wants to feel a certain amount of support and protection from those who are constantly nearby. Any relationship is built on mutual trust and common interests. It is difficult to imagine that friends will tolerate a nervous, hot-tempered person around them, from whom nothing but trouble comes.
Instead of a conclusion
Tactile contact is present in almost all forms of interpersonal interaction. The deeper and better the relationship between people, the more handshakes, hugs and a fully conscious intention to be close to each other in their communication. Often, a person’s self-confidence is formed directly under the influence of how significant he feels in the company of relatives, friends, co-workers and, of course, family. Happiness depends on a circumstance that allows the individual to fully express his feelings.
