THE NEED TO TOUCH
As therapists everyday we see our clients’ need for touch, and people’s in general. What we do not recognize nearly as often is “the need TO touch”.
In Harry Harlow’s famous experiment with nursing primates, he found that they consistently choose a soft figure to touch over their food source. And, equally striking is he found that the mother’s need TO touch was even greater than the baby’s need FOR touch.
We need to touch, to give it, maybe even more than to receive it! Touch today – realize how nourishing that is for YOU.
Everything we touch is grounding to us. Even my hands on this desk that I’m at…it’s so comforting to feel touch, to be in touch. And to touch another living being with consciousness and heart – out of all the matter and energy in the universe that one life should exist and consciously touch another – what a miracle!
The need to touch is as deep as the need for touch.
