Healing Touch
Human beings need touch – to grow, to develop, to mature, to survive, to thrive.
How do we know this?
During the 1930's, Renee Spitz, a Hungarian born American psychoanalyst studied infant deaths in foundling homes and in long term hospitalizations. His research clearly showed that humans need touch to survive just like we need air to breath. Somewhere between 50 to 100% of children raised in orphanages died during the 19th and early 20th century (Field, 2001).
Research in orphanages overseas has demonstrated that infants who are deprived of touch will show severe delays in development. The children of Romania are a case in point.
In one study conducted at Simon Fraser University, psychology Professor Elinor Ames compared three groups of a total of 120 Romanian children who had spent at least eight months in an orphanage. The study revealed that one-third of the Romanian orphans adopted in British Columbia, have developmental, social and behavioral problems.
Massage Research and Pre-term Infants
Dr. Tiffany Field, Director of the Touch Research Institute in Miami, Florida, first began studying the effect of touch on pre-term infants. The results were astonishing. The preemies who were massaged three times a day, for as few as five to ten days, had a significant increase in weight gain compared to those who were not massaged.
Touch and Culture
One could argue that we have become a culture that questions even our most basic of instincts from which to care and nurture our population. How old is massage? Some say it dates back to 3,000 B.C., but perhaps massage is as old as civilization itself. If we need touch to survive, wouldn’t we have instinctively known this all along?
In North America, we are still pretty awkward about touching. We make fun of our peculiarties around touch. Just watch the sitcoms, Friends or Seinfeld.
The reality is, that it can be very alienating not to be touched. Perhaps this is why we, particularly in the West, seek out what Diane Ackerman (1990) calls professional touchers such as hairdressers, cosmeticians, esteticians and massage therapists. She even goes so far as to say that people go to their physicians even when they know their doctor cannot do more for them. The doctor will listen and pat us on the back. It makes us feel better. These professionals play a significant role in meeting the touch deficit in North America even without being conscious of that fact.
Massage Therapy: Healing Touch
Massage therapy's acceptance is growing. A survey taken by the American Massage Therapist Association showed that 13 percent of Americans received a massage in 1998 (up from 8 percent in 1997). People use massage therapy for a variety of health-related conditions and to enhance their health and wellness.
Through healing touch, massage therapists provide a lot of people, both young and old, with a sense of connection, nurturing, and care.
© Copyright, Sylvia Carlson, February 2007. Reproduction without permission prohibited.
