The Healing Touch

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 When I began the course, thinking about the senses and which one I thought took precedence, Touch was definitely not at the top of that list. Reading this in many ways reiterated just how deeply the sense of touch can affect, and has been affecting our lives. The way that the book explores significance of touch to an ailing individual was eye opening for me. It was also really interesting to see how during periods where leprosy was rampant, the lack of touch meant so much more than just 'no touching'. Not only were suffering individuals deprived of touch, but it also led to social isolation, which I believe is also a loss of touch in a more intangible manner, where they lost touch with their environments and the social scene of that time. 

Reading about that made me reflect on what is going on in the world right now, as it related to COVID. We, as a society also recently went through a phase where we had to deprive ourselves fro touch in various ways. For me personally, the loss of touch (may it be in the form of hugging my loved ones, or shaking hands with someone new that I met) was profound as I am coming to the realization that I find tactile interactions comforting. However, at the same time it is interesting to see how even though we couldn't touch physically, as a society we still managed to 'stay in touch' through social media. The entire excerpt really highlighted the degree to which stripping touch can strip the life of an individual and how much social interactions, whether they may be pleasant or unpleasant rely on touch. 

                                                 

I also found myself romanticizing the idea of pain in similar ways to the author while reading about it and was captivated by the idea that touch is the strongest remedy for touch. The pain inflicted by touch can most effectively soothed by applying balm with gentle hands. Whats more is that though it may seem like an external sense, a kiss has the power to churn, soothe, invoke and satisfy emotions in a manner I don't think other senses can. 

Skin to skin touch is said top be one of the most important sensors input for a new born child, considered imperative for mother baby bonding. Evidence suggests that lack of this touch can result  developmental issues that the child would then be subjected to. 








Comments

  1. Marissa KanakryMay 8, 2022 at 1:28 PM

    Saachi, this quote of yours stood out to me: "stripping touch can strip the life of an individual." Although I agree with you, it's also worth noting how the science and opinions on the amount of touch that children should get at a young age has changed. Classen wrote about how the practice of systematically alienating the sense of touch in childhood had many adherents among physicians in the late nineteenth century (although some found Schreber’s methods excessive).The widely read pediatrician Emmett Holt, for example, warned against sleeping with or rocking babies, and denounced the kissing of children as a means of communicating disease. Such hands-off methods of child rearing would later find a strong proponent in John B. Watson, the founder of Behaviorism (who we talk a lot about in psychology). “Mothers just don’t know,” Watson scolded, “when they kiss their children and pick them up and rock them, caress them and jiggle them upon their knee, that they are slowly building up a human being totally unable to cope with the world it must later live in." Touch created emotional dependency, and this was an unacceptable trait in a world that demanded self-control and emotional detachment. According to such theories of child care, a well-drilled child would no longer even desire a mother’s touch. #Kanakry

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