qualities of touch

touch – memories of the present

When I was a teenager, I used to be part of a dance theatre group. We spent a quite intense time together – regarding the physical training, but also including the emotional aspects. Today, nights in old factories, where we trained dancing, many controversial performances, physical exhaustion and festivals all over Europe belong to my memory, especially to my physical one.  Five years after leaving the group I still consider myself being a person connected to my body, lucky to be raised in this creative environment, allowed to join a universe, which many people in our society might never discover – the universe of touch. 

This month, a participant of the theatre group randomly joined for a contact-improvisation jam, where I was also dancing. We haven’t met or seen each other for five years. 

I remember him entering the space. He had changed, grown, become more mature and stronger, still radiating out the same positive spirit, he always kept. We used to dance together in theatre times, but being with him after five years did not feel different at all. It didn’t take us more than one second to reconnect and dance together. We played like children, as we always did, including the aspects of two humans, who nevertheless grew up. I felt safe and protected, trusting this person without any hesitation. 

This is the reason, why I believe physical memories to last longer and clearer than verbal ones. In this moment of dancing, I realized that my friend has left invisible traces on my body during theatre times, like a stamp and instinctively I would react in a precise and accurate way. I am sure, that talking to this person wouldn’t have the same effect as dancing with him again. Our bodies had learned to trust each other years ago – there was no need to ask about today again.

This inspires me to think that touching has a greater impact on our physical memory – more than many of us would assume. 

And the other way around – we can influence people more by touching than by talking. 

But what is this thing called ‘touch’?

There are three things in life we constantly do without necessarily thinking about them: we breathe, our hearts beat and – we touch!

We breathe and touch the first day we are here on earth. But even though these aspects accompany us every day, we aren’t always aware of them.

some science beyond touching

My skin is 1,62 square meters large and the biggest organ in my body. It never stops working, which implies, that I am always touched.

What happens during touching? If a person touches me, sensory cells transform the stimulus into an electric signal, to be sent towards my medulla and from there – into my brain. There, a region we call the “thalamus” filters the information and forwards it towards an area called primary motor cortex, where signals can be analyzed.

Some of this information doesn’t need to be processed so far – reflexes. Imagine you touch something hot or have to react really fast; it would take too much time to send the signal to your brain, so the medulla itself deals with the signal and decides about the reaction.

This is just a short introduction into neuroscientific pathways – but it might help us to imagine how touch is flooding our body in every second of our life.

But touch can be more, than only physical touch.

environmental touch

The world we live in has a greater impact on us, than we might think. Imagine you are walking through a forest. The fresh air touches your face, while your feet have to conquer an unstable underground. The temperature changes if you leave a house and go outside. There are so many stimulus around us, we can’t control.  Nevertheless they have an impact on our perception, decisions we take and feelings we have. 

physical touch

When we touch someone we enter his intimate zone, we can sense the smell of this person, the temperature of the other body and many more impressions. Being so close to someone else prevents us from the possibilities of protecting ourselves. Our body might then trigger a “fight or flight” response. This might be one reason, why we don’t feel safe to touch strangers – but enjoy touching people we love.

Touch offers us a different, clearer option to communicate with each other. Words have to be interpreted and have a different meaning for each of us. On the other hand, the signals your body sends out are always honest. Imagine a situation in which you have to deal with fear. If someone asks you about how you feel, you might say “I am not afraid”, but your body would still send out the signals of a person who is afraid: shaking knees, stomach aches, pale face etc. Focusing the body signals might help us to receive a more precise image about a person’s intention.

emotional touch

I can be touched in many ways, also in mental ones. Watching an emotional movie can touch me, a love confession or just a situation I observe on the street. To be able to be touched is one of the greatest gifts we could receive, because it makes our life more colorful and creative. In contrast – some people who suffer from depression have trouble to experience these feelings caused by their outside world.

future perspectives//unintentional touch

Touch is one of the most important experiences of our life, for children it symbolizes the connection to their mothers and for lovers or friends it might create an intimate and private sphere. Regarding today’s society, touch however is a rare phenomenon to observe. We excuse us, when we accidentally touch strangers, for most people only two ways of touching exists: shake hands or have sex. Many are unaware of the options in between such as hugging or stroking. Studies found out, that there are correlations between psychological problems and people’s missing physical communication.

Another aspect is: many people learned to touch in order to receive a physical answer not because they enjoy the process of touching itself. Unintentional touch is the way of touching we grew up with and feel safe about. As we grow up, we learn to judge touching as sexual or unappropriated, which creates unhealthy borders for those who are touched and those who touch.

I hope that this idea of reinventing unintentional touch might spread. It is not abnormal to cuddle with friends, hug a colleague or hold someone’s hand. For us, touch offers the possibility to enjoy a communication, not only dedicated to our brains, but being processed by our entire body.  

more: Trautmann-Voigt, S., & Voigt, B. (Eds.). (2012). Grammatik der Körpersprache: ein integratives Lehr-und Arbeitsbuch zum Embodiment; mit 18 Tabellen. Schattauer Verlag. (p.107ff)

A hug against isolation

Aspects of isolation and sensory deprivation

-        introduction into body-therapy methods

Have you ever thought about your fears? Probably yes! So let me state mine. As I am a person, who really enjoys movement and touching, one of my biggest fears is that I won’t be able to move or touch anymore. The second one focuses the social aspect. As many people, I fear being alone, rejected or even worse – isolated for a long period of time. 

For me, being involved in sports and social activities, this thought is pretty fictional. But regarding demographic changes in our society, including the improvement of medical conditions, we can subjectively sum up, that the number of people being isolated or immobile increases rapidly. Our major problem is: we don’t see them!

My personal anxiety towards this subject might also explain my passion for the field of space psychology, which focuses on aspects such as isolation, sensory deprivation and confinement. 

But we don’t have to go to space to understand those problems. Specific environments on earth provide useful examples, which help us to draw conclusions. Just imagine long term isolated people in hospitals or old retirement homes, or just think about the increasing number of singles in big cities. 

Regarding space, being on the ISS doesn’t seem to be such a big problem, but as soon as we start to imagine a long trip to Mars, all these circumstances might possibly occur. 

Therefore it is unavoidable to understand these issues, and furthermore to focus the methods we use in earth conditions to help these people. Maybe we can apply some of them for special environments. 

I used to work with an old man. He lived in an retirement home, suffering social isolation but also the results of confinement. Which conclusion could I draw from my work there?

My first observation addresses sensory deprivation. This describes the removal of stimuli from one or more senses. It is hard for us, to imagine this. However, for people who live in long-term isolated and sensory deprived conditions, it can have severe impacts on their perception.

To help you imagine this aspect, let’s create an example. Imagine your morning routine. Brush teeth, shower, drink coffee, dress up. How many things did you already touch just in order to fulfill you daily routine?

The biggest organ in our body is the skin. When we touch things, all the incoming information has to be processed and analyzed by our nervous system and our brain. All these sensory impressions are normal to us: Touching, feeling different temperatures, listening to different sound, voices, smelling, watching – all this causes so much neuronal activity. 

Now, imagine my old friend, or the astronaut in his space habitat. No change in temperature, no sounds, no wind, no smell.

The biologic organism possesses a high flexibility towards new environments and adapts as soon as there is as need to survive. Leaving our loud and demanding world, also charges us to change and readapt. 

In hospitals I could observe that long-term isolated people reduce their activity, sometimes to a minimum. A person, who has been isolated for one month, maybe still reads a book or watches TV. A person being isolated for 5-6 month maybe just stares.

Some psychologists refer to the topic of “Embodiment”. The term Embodiment points out the idea of our body and mind having an impact on each other. To know that physical processes change our psychological status, is important to know and helps us applying therapy methods. 

The first, and the most important we need to focus on are personal resources. Maybe my old friend suffers sensory deprivation, but he still has an imagination. This is something very important, and we use it in therapy. 

Maybe he can’t leave the place to touch things, but I can bring them to him! This is what I did! I build a touch-box. Usually children use it, but it also works for old people. 

With my old friend I did a lot of drawing and touching. He was a marine soldier in his younger years, and we tried to awake this memory and let it live, using painting. 

This all sounds nice, but should astronauts start to paint now? No, but we can learn out of it. Regarding the technological development, I am dreaming of things like a touch-glove. That would be a glove which could simulate touching things like grass, water or wood. And this is something astronauts and people in hospitals could use.

In my introduction I talked about my fears. To finish this article I want to declare my hopes. So, reading this text will not improve the situation for astronauts trying to fly to Mars of course. Nevertheless this small text can have a positive impact on you regarding the aspects of isolation in our daily life. As I said, the biggest problem is that it is invisible to us. But we can change it doing small things.

 If you live in a city, just knock your neighbor’s door. Ask more private questions to the people you work with. Hug or touch one person at least every day.

I pointed out the importance of touch for us humans. It is not only physical. The image of “I am touched” or “this is touching me” has really emotional aspects. For my old friend, this emotional aspect worked with the memory of the seaside. Even though he had to live in a confined environment, he would – through the power of imagination – be able to sense the freedom of his past. 

This text has been a talk at the SpaceUp ISU unconference/ 11.04.2015