Touch
“One touch of nature makes the whole world kin”
“‘The human body has built all its models based on touch received from caregivers,’ says Dr Katerina Fotopoulou, a professor of psychodynamic neuroscience at University College London. ‘We’re utterly reliant on the caregiver to satisfy the body’s core needs. Little can be done without touch.’ The need for touch exists below the horizon of consciousness. Before birth, when the amniotic fluid in the womb swirls around us and the foetal nervous system can distinguish our own body from our mother’s, our entire concept of self is rooted in 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.
“Touch is where we know where we end and the other begins.
By creating a safe environment – being in touch with patients’ needs – we enable them to go in to darker areas. That is what Michael Balint (psychoanalyst) refers to as ‘benign regression’.”
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.
“Two spheres on meeting may so softly collide
They stay, as if still kissing, side by side.”