The Power of Touch

Never underestimate the power of touch. And do not underestimate its importance, either. Without appropriate touch we cannot grow into healthy, fully functioning adults. Researcher Lionel Taylor says that, “The greatest sense in our body is our touch sense. It’s probably the chief sense in processes of sleeping and waking; it gives us our knowledge of depth and thickness and form; we feel, we love and hate, we touch and are touched through our skin.”

To be in touch is to be in active connection with others and life. Touch signifies a direct contact relationship with that which is beyond our physical being. Touch assures us that we are not alone. As infants, touch is our primary means for coming to know and making sense of our world. Being stroked and cuddled helps build a healthy self-image and nurtures the sense that we are loved and accepted.

Research suggests that our sense of how and how much we are touched is inseparable from our sense of personal value and self-esteem. Those who are not touched, those who feel they are “untouchable” are those who feel worthless. Our need to touch and be touched is as primordial and primary as our need to love and be loved. Touch is what we trust the most in the communication of caring.

I remember one of my clients in counseling, and his opening volley during our first session. After an awkward pause while describing why he came and what he wanted to work on, he began weeping. Quietly supportive, I let him continue, until at last he forced out the words: “Nobody has touched me in years!” He felt acutely untouched and unvalued.

Much of the current research on touch comes from the University of Miami’s Touch Research Institute. Created in 1991 by the University’s school of medicine, it is the first center in the world for research into the role of touch in human development and health. Among this Institute’s research findings:

–Infants born premature or of crack addicted mothers who were not developing well were massaged for fifteen minutes three times a day. Their weight gain was 47% faster than infants who were not massaged. Eight months later, their mental and motor skills were also advanced beyond the babies who were not massaged. Their hospital stays averaged six fewer days.

–Strong links exist between touch and healthy emotional development. Infants of the Netsilik Inuit Tribe of the Canadian Arctic are very calm and cry little. This may be due to their being constantly carried on their mother’s backs, so they can constantly communicate with their mothers through touch. Dr. Ronald Barr of Montreal Children’s Hospital asked a group of mothers to carry their infants for three hours a day, as opposed to the average of one to two hours. As a result, their babies cried significantly less than those not so carried.

–Fifty-two depressed and emotionally disordered children and adolescents received thirty-minute back massages daily for five days. Nurses determined that they were less anxious and more cooperative. The quality and length of their sleep increased. They evidenced lower saliva cortisol levels, indicating less depression.

–Twenty-six adults suffering migraine headaches were randomly assigned to a massage therapy group, receiving thirty minute massages twice a week for five straight weeks. They reported fewer distress symptoms, more headache-free days, less pain, fewer sleep disturbances, a need for fewer analgesics and increased serotonin levels.

We can live without sight, hearing, smell or taste. But we cannot live without touch, nor can we grow comfortable in our world.