Living touch is one of the most powerful sensations that is undeservedly neglected and avoided, especially now, during the period of universal social distancing. Psychiatrist and philosopher Nick Burton reminds us of the importance of tactile contact.
Life-sentenced murderer Peter Collins has died of cancer after 32 years in a Canadian prison. By then, he had become a respected prison authority and made a short film, A Fly in the Balm, about life in solitary confinement.
“Once it seemed to me that my wife was stroking my leg with her fingers. Surprised and excited, I opened my eyes and found that it was just a fly. I yearned for human touch so much that I closed my eyes and imagined that they were fingers. I lay, afraid to move, so as not to frighten away the fly and again not be left alone. After that, Collins bit his cheek and smeared the skin with blood and saliva to lure the flies: after all, only they gave him a living touch.
As families have shrunk, it has become easier to move out of their homes, the flow of information has increased, and life expectancy has increased, modern people have physically moved away from each other. But we need food when we’re hungry, sleep when we’re tired, and just as much need to be touched when we’re lonely. Because being alone means being vulnerable. Human touch is not a luxury or a weakness, it is a basic need, like sleep and food, but it is increasingly being met by outsiders: masseurs and even professional huggers, for example.
When I was a wine taster, I often thought that the sense of smell was the most underestimated sense in the world. With touch, everything is much sadder. In the 1960s, University of Florida psychologist Gerard Sidney observed international couples in coffee shops.
It turned out that in Puerto Rico partners touch each other 180 times per hour. 110 times in Paris, only twice in Florida, and never in London. Gerard also noted that French parents touch their children three times more often than American ones.
The fear of touch in Anglophone countries has deep roots. In Victorian England and America of the 1928th century, they used the language of flowers, because it was indecent to express feelings otherwise. In a book on parenting published in XNUMX, prominent American psychologist John B. Watson advises: “Never hug or kiss children, never let them get on your lap. If necessary, kiss them on the forehead before going to bed. In a week you will understand how easy it is to be fair and at the same time friendly to children. You will surely be ashamed that before you were gentle and lisped.
Many people still flinch when a clerk handing out change accidentally touches their palm. By the way, men are especially afraid of involuntary touches. It’s too soft and weak, and they prefer to seem, if not macho, then at least more severe.
As soon as the boys let go of their parent’s hand, they try to make up for the lack of touch in skirmishes.
With women it is even more difficult: they are worried that they would not see a sexual connotation in their touch. What if the man immediately begins to pester or consider her obsessive and turn away, and even, what good, she herself will be pleased. With children, the third story: many schools have introduced a non-contact policy, because otherwise they will be suspected of pedophilia.
It turns out that men — with the exception of handshakes and awkward hugs — should generally refrain from touching, especially warm and gentle, just to prove to everyone, including themselves, that they are real «courageous men.»
As soon as the boys let go of the warm hand of their parents, they try to make up for the lack of touch in rough skirmishes with their peers. As they get older, they, mostly out of desperation, get involved in romantic relationships and put their bodily needs into the hands of an equally inexperienced person. Attraction weighs on both partners. It draws an ambiguous parallel between touch and sex.
However, libido can be satisfied with the hand, but the thirst for touch remains. After all, every sex worker knows very well that people only think that they are driven by sexual hunger: in fact, it is a burning desire to feel the living skin. But it is possible to separate one from the other, even with those for whom we have a passion.
To break all taboos, let’s look at touch from a positive perspective. Touch is the most primitive sense. It develops first, as early as the eighth week of pregnancy. The skin is the largest organ: its area in an adult is about two meters.
In the 1950s, psychologist Harry Harlow conducted a dubious experiment: he slipped baby rhesus monkeys taken from lactating females into two surrogate «mothers» made of wire and wood — one naked, the other in soft clothes. The monkeys were drawn to the warmly dressed «mother» even when the other was holding a bottle of milk.
In 1994, psychiatrist Felton Earles and Harlow’s former student, neuroscientist Mary Carlson, traveled to Romania to study the effects of deprivation on understaffed orphanages. All were marked by muteness, social autism, unnatural rhythmic movements. They behaved exactly like the unfortunate isolated macaques.
Recent studies have supported the conclusion about the importance of tactile contact in childhood. It is directly associated with better cognitive and physiological test scores, stronger immunity, and reduced aggression. Premature babies who are prescribed a course of massage gain weight faster and spend less time in the hospital.
The benefits of gentle touch for adults are invaluable: they reduce current stress levels and protect against future stress, increase mood and self-esteem, increase mutual affection, improve cognitive abilities and strengthen the immune system. The multiple effect is due to hormonal changes, in particular, a decrease in cortisol levels and a surge in the “love hormone” oxytocin.
Touch relaxes, lets the person know they are being seen and heard, and builds trust.
Touching benefits both the giver and the recipient, because it is impossible to touch someone and not feel anything. People who give out «free hugs» in public places are sure to get them in return.
Even self-massage reduces stress, which is probably why we constantly touch ourselves: we interlace our fingers, rub our forehead, stroke our neck, pull our hair, and so on. Even masturbation is more about releasing tension than carnal desire. 39% of office workers in a recent TimeOut New York survey confirmed they masturbate in the workplace — and those are just the ones who confessed.
Compared to children, adults are not as dependent on touch. But older people are often alone, vulnerable, and self-absorbed, and seem to be more in need of tactile contact. Nursing homes are increasingly using animal therapy, and despite all the topical prohibitions, patients are advised to hold hands or rub each other’s shoulders.
Language and gestures are means of communication, but so are touch! You can say «I love you» with words, but a touch will tell you how much. And in the same way: “I respect you”, “I miss you” and “Thank you”. Scientists have long believed that touch only reinforces the verbal message. But now they realized that it also carries a message, often more complex and subtle than speech or gestures, and at the same time more intelligible.
Touch can convince and motivate, if, of course, it is natural and appropriate. One study found that two-thirds of women agreed to dance with a man who touched them lightly on the arm. But when he kept his hands to himself, the chances were halved.
Students who touched the librarian’s hand when returning a book said they were very happy with the library and life in general, without even realizing that they had been touched. NBA teams that tend to touch each other — clapping their hands or hugging during a game — win more often, and the most tactile players are the best.
Students who have been touched by a teacher are more active in the classroom (shame on the contactless policy!), customers who have been touched by a waitress leave more generous tips, customers who have been touched by a sales assistant spend more time in the store, and so on…
As a psychiatrist, I try to shake hands with every patient and give a comforting pat on the back when things get tough, and that always works. Touch relaxes, lets the person know that they are being seen and heard, and builds trust. It makes us human.
About the Author: Neil Burton is a psychiatrist, philosopher, writer, and author of several books, including Heaven and Hell: The Psychology of Emotions.