Dr. Bessel Van der Kolk in The Body Keeps the Score
“Most human suffering is related to love and loss.”
We have long known that loving touch is crucial to healthy infant development. Thirty years ago, reports coming from Romanian orphanages where children were deprived of touch showed significant deficits cognitively, in their emotional regulation, and their social skills. In fact, children will not only fail to thrive when untouched, they will literally die. In my early work in Africa, I saw the opposite—high mental health resilience where young infants literally touch their moms 24/7 for their first year or two of life.
But loving touch is also essential for well-being in adulthood. In Touch Matters, British psychologist Michael Banissy writes, “The relationships that touch facilitates are essential because social connections are vital for our health and well-being. The proven benefits of strong social connections include increased longevity, a strengthened immune system, and positive mental health.”
With many of us replacing in-person relationships with digital ones on social platforms of all kinds, it is likely that many of us are touch deprived. And in workplaces the pendulum has swung all the way to becoming touchless with new antiharassment rules. Same in our schools and school buses. Less and less people are part of a faith community where hugs, a hand on the shoulder, or handholding used to be common. And Covid-19 drove us into our own corners.
Now of course touch can go awry very quickly when driven by unresolved inner turmoil such as anger or sexual lust. Ironic though, it is highly likely these very people left their adolescence touch deprived and unloved.
Similarly, those with unhealed trauma may misinterpret touch and other social cues secondary to trust deficit and hypervigilance.
“Studies suggest that over half of us long for more touch in our lives.”
Michael Banissy in Touch Matters
Why touch matters
Touch matters because we are designed with special nerve endings called C tactile fibers. These nerves are mechanoreceptors and designed to sense light touch and pressure. They are especially sensitive to stroking touch and they have been known for many years to help close the “pain gates” of other nerve fibers carrying acute pain.
What do you do when you wack your thumb with a hammer? You take your other hand and rub back and forth above the injury. That has been shown to reduce pain. And what does a mom do when her child scrapes his knee? Hugs and kisses, and gently strokes her boy, as she intuitively learned when he was an infant.
Not only have these nerve fibers been shown to reduce pain, but they also stimulate the release of oxytocin. This has been dubbed the “love hormone,” and promotes social bonding and trust. It also has anti-stress effects, such as reducing blood pressure and reducing the cortisol stress hormone. These nerves also stimulate the release of the other feel-good hormones, dopamine and serotonin.
This all helps explain why childhood trauma is so harmful to health both as youngsters and later as adults. These same nerve fibers under chronic stress conditions can sort of backfire and do their exact opposite—become a source of very painful skin touch. This is known as allodynia and at its worst is known as CRPS (complex regional pain syndrome). A similar version of that happens in chronic nerve pain conditions such as fibromyalgia.
Many commentators and authors have decried the loss of community in our culture. As well as the abdication of parents, particularly fathers in reported parental alienation syndrome and fatherless daughter syndrome.
Even in healthcare, particularly after the Covid-19 pandemic, actual touching of patients in an examination, or a hand on a shoulder, or the handing of a Kleenex, has diminished with virtual encounters such as Maple and increased reliance on testing.
Now that we understand why our touchless society is obviously contributing to sickness and suffering, and ultimately increased demand on our health system, it is time to ponder a better way forward as a society.
Healthy touch in community
You may have heard the expression, “As we are hurt in community, we also heal best in community.”
I have been contemplating the power of circles. And reinventing safe, soothing touch.
Indigenous cultures everywhere have always met in circles. Jesus also encircled himself with the twelve disciples. Early churches met in circles in homes (they only celebrated at the temple three times yearly). Touch such as laying on of hands, greeting one another with a holy kiss, and anointing with oil, were all parts of early church spiritual community and healing.
Church buildings and auditorium seating found their way into church life following the Edict of Milan in AD 313 by Constantinople when Christianity became the state religion of the Roman Empire. The edifices from prior non-Christian worship became the model for churches. According to James Wilder and Michel Hendricks in The Other Half of Church, this has resulted in “half-brained” church (the left side, not the touchy feely right side!).
Work outside the faith community by James Maskell has also shown that healing circles can be more effective for conditions such as diabetes than one-on-one care by clinicians. This concept could be expanded to many common conditions threatening our well-being (such as metabolic syndrome, cancer, attention and hyperactivity disorder ADHD, depression, and anxiety).
Practical ways forward
Peter Block in his fantastic book Community offers practical ways of inviting likeminded citizens to form circles to create solutions together. Rather than bellyaching about problems, his invitation is to leverage our gifts together.
The invitation could simply start by faith communities to create circles (between 8 and 14 people ideally) who meet in homes regularly and share meals (break bread), support and pray for one another, and safely touch (hugs, pats, hold hands), and pray together.
I would also invite interdisciplinary circles of parents and professionals in healthcare, education, politics, justice, and business to create synergist relationships that might be transformative in workplaces, education, and in healthcare. Our political leaders need to lead this charge and empower the circles as influential “think tanks.” (Such a think tank would be much cheaper than another professionally commissioned study).
Romantic relationships with children need to be strengthened and taught tools to negotiate conflict. Every failed relationship hurts the kids, setting them up for repeated cycles of dysfunction and heartache. And confusion about their identity and purpose.
Dealing with trauma
There is so much of our current healthcare and social crises rooted in the effects of unresolved trauma. Lack of childhood loving touch by parents is one form of what we now call Trauma A ( or little “t” trauma, the absence of good things given). Trauma B (big “T” trauma) is where violence such as physical abuse or sexual abuse is perpetrated against a child. And many who suffer from mental illnesses such as anxiety, depression, or PTSD, have also encountered further trauma as adults, some in the line of military service or their work as first responders.
IHTC has partnered with Summerside Community Church to offer a world-class conference on Healing Trauma with an international keynote speaker who has had experience with teens as well as US military veterans and first responders. More information is on our events page.
A friend of IHTC has also just released a second edition of her beautifully, but painfully, written memoir, chronicling her recovery from severe trauma. The freedom she now shares can be yours. If you or your group wish to invite her to share her story in person, please contact us.
Compassionately and wishing you well-being in 2024,
Hendrik Visser, MD
