Touch
Touch also helps us separate and individuate. The provision of maternal empathy allows the infant – initially ‘merged’ with mother – to attain their own ability to survive independently. Therapy provides a ‘transitional’ opportunity with the analytic patient, who may have entered therapy extremely disturbed. This, in time, will help forge the patient/child’s way forward, gradually independent enough to further explore deeper, possibly darker issues. In that case, over time, the connection provided by being ‘touched’ by another will have been internalised – the infant’s helpless merge will instead have turned into the growth of a new and distinctly separate skin. Physical touch moves to a metaphorical ‘being in touch’, having then shifted from separation to a new psychic integration.
Language is rich with ‘touch’ references. Something is ‘touching’ (poignant); (we must stay) in touch; (I’m sad we’ve been) ‘out of touch; touché (I have been touched). Psychoanalytic writing often refers to being ‘in touch’ (with the one’s feelings); or (the therapist is) ‘out of touch’ with the patient.