The Soul of Touch
Analisa Lee | 12.Jun.10
One day last January, at a center for developmentally disabled kids in Ubud, Bali, an Australian volunteer told me that in her country, she’s not allowed to touch the disabled children she teaches. This came up in our conversation because I, also a volunteer, had been sitting very close to a Balinese girl who was scared out of her mind, and I had been stroking the girl’s arm to comfort and soothe her. The girl had barely been out of her family’s housing compound for most of her thirteen years, and the new world before her was understandably overwhelming; she physically clung to anyone who seemed nice enough. Because the child wasn’t verbal, and seemed to communicate mostly through tactile expression, I was using touch to communicate to her that she was safe. Since I was training to become a counselor in the United States, and had not worked much with children, I found the Australian teacher’s comment to be rather shocking. How could one not touch such an obviously touch-hungry child? “Has the Western world outlawed hugging?” I thought cynically. But I also knew all too well the Western impulse to err on the side of protection from litigation, rather than common sense, human instinct, or, even more poignantly, the impulse of the human heart.
Fast-forward four months, and I’m now a therapist intern at a homeless shelter for teens in a major American city. And, wouldn’t you know it, yesterday I was gently told by my very kind supervisor that it’s best if I don’t touch the kids, even lightly on the arm. If the teens want to hug me, she said, “sideways hugs” are okay (I’m pretty sure this is the kind of hug that Puritans gave to people they didn’t really like). These guidelines about not touching the homeless kids are founded on the truth that most of them have been abused in various ways, and haven’t known much safe or loving touch from an adult. The rationale is partly that we don’t want to re-traumatize a kid by causing a flashback or cellular memory. In other words, no need to make more energetic or psychic work for a child than she/he already has going on. While I understand this rationale, I also wonder how the homeless kids are supposed to learn what safe and loving adult contact is like, when every safe and loving adult in their life is banned from touching them.
It’s not just with kids that the United States seems to recoil from human contact. Corporate America now has company briefings about how to touch (or not touch) co-workers. The safety zone, according to my friend who worked at Microsoft Computers, is about a five-inch area around the elbow, and a brief handshake. No shoulder touching, no pats on the back, and no sideways hugs. [How are some people getting their touch needs met in the U.S.? Well, in New York City you can actually pay a cuddle “expert” to hold you for a platonic cuddle treatment of an hour; I think it costs about the same price as a massage, which is no small coin in the Big Apple.]
In my recent experiences in Bali, I found professional standards for touching to be quite different. For instance, a Balinese woman who ran a local beauty parlor put her hand on my stomach and felt my belly fat to demonstrate something in conversation, even though I had only just met her in the salon’s waiting area. And, more significantly, a Balinese doctor who gave me a tour of the mental hospital touched a client so warmly in their encounter that I wasn’t sure if the woman was the doctor’s client, or her friend.
I can’t help but wonder about the deeper origins of why we Westerners seem to keep our distance from others, even when someone is hurting. It’s an important and interesting issue, because I think that it is at least partly rooted in the same set of values that have created our foreign policies, and driven us to claim hordes of material wealth, while remaining largely spiritually bankrupt.
In the West, the ego—the “I”—is of course paramount. [In contrast, socio-centric cultures (almost all indigenous cultures are socio-centric), value “we”-- shared experiences, community, and togetherness.] By not physically touching each other much, we in the United States and other Western countries are symbolically acting out a separation that is deeply rooted in the Western psyche: “I am all-important, and I am ultimately alone.” This point of aloneness is key, because the more existentially alone one feels, generally the more anxious one becomes. If we were to interpret the vast number of Westerners seeking treatment for anxiety (and its cousin, depression), it seems that many people in the West feel isolated, disconnected, and like they’re not part of anything sustainable that matters. Descartes said, “I think, therefore I am.” It is notable that he did not say, “WE live [or dance, pray, create], therefore WE are,” which, in my imagination, is what someone in a socio-centric culture might answer if pressed with the question “How do you know you’re alive?”
Before I go on, I want to note that socio-centric cultures also exact something from their members. For instance, the disabled kids in Bali who had been confined to their family compounds for their whole lives were kept hidden because of rules about shame in community (having a disabled child is traditionally shameful in Bali). The individual right of a disabled child—the right to be able to experience the outside world-- can be trumped by community mores and there is no legal or social recourse for the child. While we in the West have lost a deeper sense of existential connection to the earth and each other, our esteem of the individual has birthed helpful things like civil rights, feminism, and ideals of social equality. So clearly, both ego-centric and socio-centric cultures have their benefits, and both have their costs.
Since I mostly live and work in the West, and I’m now charged with the privilege of trying to help homeless kids heal their hearts and relationships, one of my questions is, “Yes, and how can any of this negative ego-centrism change?” Isn’t the Western “me first” paradigm an unstoppable dragon that is swallowing its own tail? Hopefully yes, and it will swallow its own tail to transform into something like a bird, the next evolutionary stage after reptile. And for those of us in the dragon’s belly right now, what do we do? How do we proceed to change culture for the better, from the inside out? Do we go around touching people who aren’t expecting it, breaking social rules of conduct, standing too close and hugging like mad? Actually that sounds like fun, and I’m a great fan of stirring things up as a support to change, but simply breaking social rules seems to me like approaching things from the outside. And I’m interested in approaching change more deeply from the inside; from the heart, and spirit.
There is a psychological theory based on “attachment” that says, among other things, that people who don’t have close relationships have higher anxiety, and to manage that anxiety they shut down to the feelings and responses of other people. They live in their own metaphorical fortresses, walled up and safe, and act accordingly, albeit with great underlying psychic costs. These internal fortress walls are frequently constructed of rigidity and numbing. And when one is rigid and numb, it’s hard to get close to other people, so this perpetuates a cycle of isolation.
One of the key concepts in healing attachment disorders, as I understand it, is “softening.” To change this existential aloneness, the isolated person softens his/her inner walls, rigidity, and attachment to a desired outcome (in other words, stops seeing things in stark polarity). And because the source of the problem lies in feeling isolated, the person then moves toward another person. In essence, he/she finally touches someone else, and is touched. An awakening begins from this new experience of intimacy, and as one becomes more vulnerable within one’s self, then more can be shared with another, and more can be perceived about another’s experience of life, love and suffering.
As a larger tolerance for intimacy and empathy gradually grows in a person, other people begin to be included in the healing, widening heart. Ultimately this process enlivens the nuances and beauty of life, and connects one to the vibrancy of intimacy and community, as well as to the myriad possibilities of being. This kind of healing, it seems to me, is just what the West needs more of, which is why when I first heard about “attachment disorder” I thought to myself, “Can a whole society suffer from this?” Certainly a whole society can be in need of the attendant healing. Because creating true intimacy, and opening our hearts to the experiences of others, seems to me a large piece of the great inner, soulful work that Westerners (particularly in the United States) are now called to, if we are to really live. Why does one ultimately and continually help other people? Because one is, on some level, invested in the fact that the other person is not separate.
I think of the beautiful guidance of the Dalai Lama: “The new guru is community.” For myself, in my personal life of family and friends, and in my work with homeless teenagers, creating true community has become a rigorous and also soft spiritual teacher. To relax my inner walls, and to touch and be touched through relationship, is what continually leads me deeper and deeper into compassion. And to have compassion is to truly touch the heart of the world. For me, this personal and collective softening of the ego-centrism of the West is one creative way that the dragon will turn into a bird. I invite you to meet me in it.
Fast-forward four months, and I’m now a therapist intern at a homeless shelter for teens in a major American city. And, wouldn’t you know it, yesterday I was gently told by my very kind supervisor that it’s best if I don’t touch the kids, even lightly on the arm. If the teens want to hug me, she said, “sideways hugs” are okay (I’m pretty sure this is the kind of hug that Puritans gave to people they didn’t really like). These guidelines about not touching the homeless kids are founded on the truth that most of them have been abused in various ways, and haven’t known much safe or loving touch from an adult. The rationale is partly that we don’t want to re-traumatize a kid by causing a flashback or cellular memory. In other words, no need to make more energetic or psychic work for a child than she/he already has going on. While I understand this rationale, I also wonder how the homeless kids are supposed to learn what safe and loving adult contact is like, when every safe and loving adult in their life is banned from touching them.
It’s not just with kids that the United States seems to recoil from human contact. Corporate America now has company briefings about how to touch (or not touch) co-workers. The safety zone, according to my friend who worked at Microsoft Computers, is about a five-inch area around the elbow, and a brief handshake. No shoulder touching, no pats on the back, and no sideways hugs. [How are some people getting their touch needs met in the U.S.? Well, in New York City you can actually pay a cuddle “expert” to hold you for a platonic cuddle treatment of an hour; I think it costs about the same price as a massage, which is no small coin in the Big Apple.]
In my recent experiences in Bali, I found professional standards for touching to be quite different. For instance, a Balinese woman who ran a local beauty parlor put her hand on my stomach and felt my belly fat to demonstrate something in conversation, even though I had only just met her in the salon’s waiting area. And, more significantly, a Balinese doctor who gave me a tour of the mental hospital touched a client so warmly in their encounter that I wasn’t sure if the woman was the doctor’s client, or her friend.
I can’t help but wonder about the deeper origins of why we Westerners seem to keep our distance from others, even when someone is hurting. It’s an important and interesting issue, because I think that it is at least partly rooted in the same set of values that have created our foreign policies, and driven us to claim hordes of material wealth, while remaining largely spiritually bankrupt.
In the West, the ego—the “I”—is of course paramount. [In contrast, socio-centric cultures (almost all indigenous cultures are socio-centric), value “we”-- shared experiences, community, and togetherness.] By not physically touching each other much, we in the United States and other Western countries are symbolically acting out a separation that is deeply rooted in the Western psyche: “I am all-important, and I am ultimately alone.” This point of aloneness is key, because the more existentially alone one feels, generally the more anxious one becomes. If we were to interpret the vast number of Westerners seeking treatment for anxiety (and its cousin, depression), it seems that many people in the West feel isolated, disconnected, and like they’re not part of anything sustainable that matters. Descartes said, “I think, therefore I am.” It is notable that he did not say, “WE live [or dance, pray, create], therefore WE are,” which, in my imagination, is what someone in a socio-centric culture might answer if pressed with the question “How do you know you’re alive?”
Before I go on, I want to note that socio-centric cultures also exact something from their members. For instance, the disabled kids in Bali who had been confined to their family compounds for their whole lives were kept hidden because of rules about shame in community (having a disabled child is traditionally shameful in Bali). The individual right of a disabled child—the right to be able to experience the outside world-- can be trumped by community mores and there is no legal or social recourse for the child. While we in the West have lost a deeper sense of existential connection to the earth and each other, our esteem of the individual has birthed helpful things like civil rights, feminism, and ideals of social equality. So clearly, both ego-centric and socio-centric cultures have their benefits, and both have their costs.
Since I mostly live and work in the West, and I’m now charged with the privilege of trying to help homeless kids heal their hearts and relationships, one of my questions is, “Yes, and how can any of this negative ego-centrism change?” Isn’t the Western “me first” paradigm an unstoppable dragon that is swallowing its own tail? Hopefully yes, and it will swallow its own tail to transform into something like a bird, the next evolutionary stage after reptile. And for those of us in the dragon’s belly right now, what do we do? How do we proceed to change culture for the better, from the inside out? Do we go around touching people who aren’t expecting it, breaking social rules of conduct, standing too close and hugging like mad? Actually that sounds like fun, and I’m a great fan of stirring things up as a support to change, but simply breaking social rules seems to me like approaching things from the outside. And I’m interested in approaching change more deeply from the inside; from the heart, and spirit.
There is a psychological theory based on “attachment” that says, among other things, that people who don’t have close relationships have higher anxiety, and to manage that anxiety they shut down to the feelings and responses of other people. They live in their own metaphorical fortresses, walled up and safe, and act accordingly, albeit with great underlying psychic costs. These internal fortress walls are frequently constructed of rigidity and numbing. And when one is rigid and numb, it’s hard to get close to other people, so this perpetuates a cycle of isolation.
One of the key concepts in healing attachment disorders, as I understand it, is “softening.” To change this existential aloneness, the isolated person softens his/her inner walls, rigidity, and attachment to a desired outcome (in other words, stops seeing things in stark polarity). And because the source of the problem lies in feeling isolated, the person then moves toward another person. In essence, he/she finally touches someone else, and is touched. An awakening begins from this new experience of intimacy, and as one becomes more vulnerable within one’s self, then more can be shared with another, and more can be perceived about another’s experience of life, love and suffering.
As a larger tolerance for intimacy and empathy gradually grows in a person, other people begin to be included in the healing, widening heart. Ultimately this process enlivens the nuances and beauty of life, and connects one to the vibrancy of intimacy and community, as well as to the myriad possibilities of being. This kind of healing, it seems to me, is just what the West needs more of, which is why when I first heard about “attachment disorder” I thought to myself, “Can a whole society suffer from this?” Certainly a whole society can be in need of the attendant healing. Because creating true intimacy, and opening our hearts to the experiences of others, seems to me a large piece of the great inner, soulful work that Westerners (particularly in the United States) are now called to, if we are to really live. Why does one ultimately and continually help other people? Because one is, on some level, invested in the fact that the other person is not separate.
I think of the beautiful guidance of the Dalai Lama: “The new guru is community.” For myself, in my personal life of family and friends, and in my work with homeless teenagers, creating true community has become a rigorous and also soft spiritual teacher. To relax my inner walls, and to touch and be touched through relationship, is what continually leads me deeper and deeper into compassion. And to have compassion is to truly touch the heart of the world. For me, this personal and collective softening of the ego-centrism of the West is one creative way that the dragon will turn into a bird. I invite you to meet me in it.
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1. Posted on 17.Jun.10 From: David
Analisa,
Such a wonderful essay. "An awakening begins from this new experience of intimacy, and as one becomes more vulnerable within one’s self, then more can be shared with another, and more can be perceived about another’s experience of life, love and suffering." This awakening is not, as you point out, only a physical thing- it is existential and transcendent.
Simply touching people who don't want to be touched is a violation of their dignity. To transcend this kind of barrier the first change, as you point out, must be a psychological change. Only when these internal barriers are replaced by a genuine feeling of interconnectedness does touch take on a new (and potentially healing) meaning. Forced or unwelcome touch would likely reinforce the feeling that other people are a danger, are and potentially damaging to the self. “No-touch” policies are undoubtedly hazardous and stigmatizing; forced touch is also just as hazardous.
Every hug/touch is not a sign of a genuine feeling of interconnectedness. Touch, even when well intentioned by one, can be a very bad thing for the other. Touching in an attempt to heal a disconnection, to attempt to bridge a real psychic gap, by merely bridging the physical gap is, in essence, abusive touch. Genuinely transcendent interpersonal experience does not need to be reinforced by touch- but doing so is nice!
Thanks for your great article. Keep them coming.
2. Posted on 16.Jun.10 From: Antoinette
Such a thoughtful commentary springing from your experience in healing. Interesting too, in contrast to the very tactile essence of your work as an aesthetician. A profound balance of humanity, insight and intelligence is expressed in this essay, and I am looking forward to reading more. With love, Antoinette
3. Posted on 12.Jun.10 From: Jason Miller
What a beautiful manifesto for living in the true flow of love and compassion. Your words strike a chord deep within, Dear Analisa. Thank you!
4. Posted on 12.Jun.10 From: Dorbe
Opps my touch pad is too sensitive. Ha ha. I sent my last log by mistake.
I look forward to the possibility of the reptile transforming into a bird. This inspires me to develop my awareness of my own touch with family and friends and strangers. Community is where it is at. I will also be with my community, developing new community and allowing the separateness I feel to guide me into the belly of the community.
You are a gifted, heart centered woman Analisa. Thank you for your insights. I miss you. Big hug to you.
Dorbe