The importance of touch

Touch And Ethnicity, Region, Class And Sexual Identity

Touch has a high degree of cultural relativity. Thus, the meaning of touch can only be understood in its cultural context (Halbrook & Duplechin, 1994; Phalan, 2009). Montagu (1971) brought together emergent studies related to the function of skin and touch in the role of human development in his seminal work, Touching: The Human Significance of Skin. Among other things, Montagu observed cultural attitudes towards touch by developing a continuum of tactility. People of Germanic and Anglo-Saxon origin were placed on the low end of the continuum. Americans ranked only slightly higher than their English ancestors, while Scandinavians occupied the middle position. People of Latin, Mediterranean, and Third World ancestry were placed at the high end. This is further substantiated in studies done by Argile (1988), Mehrabian, (1971) and Scheflen (1972). In a study done by Jourard (1966), people from different cultures were observed in casual conversation. He counted the number of times they touched during a one-hour period. Touching occurred 180 times an hour in Puerto Rico, 110 times in Paris, in London, 0; and in the U.S., 2.

Developmental psychologist, Sharon Heller, writes that what distinguishes a securely attached baby from an insecurely attached baby is "the degree to which each could feel ownership of their mothers' bodies and therefore assurance of protection" (Heller, 1997 p.58). That feeling of ownership requires touch by sensitive, attuned parents. Through sensitive parental responding, infants receive accurate feedback about the effects of their behavior and they learn that, when they signal a need, they can expect a prompt, predictable, and soothing response. This makes it unnecessary to develop dysfunctional emotional defense systems. Infants who signal a need and are responded to by a sensitive, attuned parent feel a sense of control over their lives. The importance of this cannot be overemphasized. Feeling in control, one feels greater assurance of psychological survival. Feeling less need to control, one can more easily form closer relationships and benefit from the emotional satisfaction of bonding needs. One who feels in control is less likely to commit acts of violence, will have fewer physical problems, and live longer (Heller, 1997). The converse is true as well, just as sensitive, attuned touch gets etched in our developing neural pathways enabling us to reach out and touch in that same way throughout our lifetime, touch that is absent when necessary, inappropriately sexualized, cold or abusive, gets recorded in ways that cause us to draw inward or to strike out. Most abused children do not grow up to abuse their own children but those who do abuse their own children have almost always been abused in their own childhood: Violence begets violence. James Prescott (1975), a neuroscientist formerly with the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and welfare, reviewed forty-nine societies and concluded that a lack of bodily pleasure derived from touching and stroking during the formative periods of life was the primary cause of violent behavior in adults.

Loving touch triggers the release of oxytocin, often referred to as the "bonding hormone" (Field, et.al., 1997). Studies in bonding also show that human babies who are held often and touched frequently in their earliest stages of development have higher scores on physical, emotional, and interpersonal scales (Klaus & Kennell, 1976; Field et. al., 1986). The opposite is true of abusive touch or lack of touch. In fact, the absence of loving touch has been documented to have profound impact on the will to live. Death rates for under-touched infants less than one year of age, in institutes during the 1920's ranged from 30% to 100% (Hunter & Struve, 1998). During the early 30's, Bellevue hospital in New York challenged the prevailing norms and authorized staff to incorporate physical contact in their care protocols. The mortality rate dropped on that unit from 30% to 10%, and the caregivers proposed the name marasmus (wasting away) for this disease of institutionalized touch depravation (Cohen, 1987). Developmental specialists agree that primary caretakers' attunement and appropriate response to their child's communication of needs during the first few years of life is essential to adequate neurological and emotional development (Bowlby, 1952; Field, 1998, 2003; Harlow, 1971). They agree, as well, that deficits in the satisfaction of basic needs results in the development of defense structures that complicate and inhibit relationship to self and others.

Americans are considered by many other cultures to be independent to a fault, to be self centered, materialistic, lacking in reasonable social boundaries and somewhat abrasive. Why? Perhaps because we are a culture with a high population of insecurely attached persons. Object relations theory tells us that insecurely attached children often have a cool demeanor and focused involvement in activities that make them appear independent, although their independence may later become self-importance (Heller, 1997).