The Therapy of Touch I: P.E.E.M.S..

This series of blogs aims to explore just what the power of touch brings to the therapeutic relationship. It challenges the Massage profession to take more account of the psychological, emotional and spiritual aspects of touch and it questions the psychotherapy profession’s almost blanket refusal to use touch in the treatment room. It is a selection of thoughts and reflections after a lifetime’s work in both fields. Your comments and thoughts are welcome. Use the Follow By Email box on the right to receive each installment direct to your inbox as they're published.

So just what is it then, that makes us truly human? Are we really just muscle tendon and bone as the Massage profession would currently have us believe? Are we really just a collection of ‘complexes’ or neuroses as the psychological professions would have us believe? Or are we much more than this?

To understand what a human being is composed of, I use my ‘P.E.E.M.S.’ acronym. It is a model that has served me well for 28 years of clinical practice. It simply stands for:

                        P -  Physical

                        E - Energetic

                        E - Emotional

                        M - Mental

                        S - Spiritual

When we touch a person’s skin, it is impossible to only touch their ‘physical body’. In giving over 20,000 Massage treatments as a Massage therapist, I have found it impossible to Massage another human being without having a powerful impact on their energy system, their emotions, their mental outlook or indeed their spiritual state.

In almost as many years as a psychotherapist, I have found it utterly impossible to do any profound work at all with my clients without completely altering their physical state, their energy system or indeed, their spiritual state, whilst supposedly working on their mental and emotional issues.

So why then, the Massage profession’s current and obsession with only the person’s physical structure? Is someone out there in the Massage profession afraid of how touch affects our emotions, our thoughts or our spirit? Are we afraid of what a human being really is?

Why then our psychotherapy profession’s highly Oedipal fear of touching our clients? Is someone afraid that if we use touch in therapy all a client will want to do is “sleep with their Mummy or their Daddy”? Do they really believe that qualified therapists and grown up clients cannot handle transference? After all, if we have trained and worked on our professional boundaries, then they should be used, not put away in a dusty cupboard entitled “too scary to try out”.

Does a Massage treatment that simply says “Touch is healing, that is what I shall give you” really turn us into prostitutes? Does a psychotherapist who addresses our fear of intimacy through reaching out and touching my arm or giving me a hug really only want to sleep with their client? Do clients that are touched become overwhelmed by an irresistible desire to sleep with their therapist? Have you seen these therapists? Would you want to sleep with them?

In Massage, so many bodyworkers I meet seem to just want to ‘prod and poke’ and frantically ‘fix’ the body; as if it is an ‘enemy’ to be ‘controlled’. Just like we ‘controlled’ the native American Indians or subjugated the Indian sub continent. Likewise, it seems that many psychotherapists want to hide behind their words and theories as if they too, are afraid of the great primaeval forces of nature that threaten to engulf us, should we ‘dare to touch’. If we reach out and in any way touch our clients, it seems they really do fear that we may perhaps enter into ‘The Heart of Darkness’ described so well by E. M. Forster. Of course such touching must be consensual and contractual. That is why we train psychotherapists. Of course it must have a clear purpose.

If a human being is comprised of P.E.E.M.S, then how can we limit our impact to just one of these areas that constitutes the miracle that is humanity? A Massage therapist who does not allow a client the chance to explore their emotional and psychological reactions to a treatment is surely no better than a psychotherapist who does not allow a client the chance to explore the physical implications of their work and their relationship with touching?

Both are in danger of hiding away in some remote professional forest, far away from the scary glare of the ‘Queen who sees’, living in houses that may be safe but are too small for us, just like dwarves in a forest. We spend our professional lives always looking over our shoulder at this scary thing called ‘intimacy’ and touch. Like Snow White, far better to just hide away with ‘the little men’ who make up regulations to keep the witch at bay.

For those of us actually in clinical practice, however, we often find it impossible to keep the door to powerful and healing touch shut all the time. Sometimes we must open the door, and it is a risk, this touch.  We may well fall foul of old ladies who are not always what they seem, offering apples. What fairy tales tell us, of course, is to ‘feel the fear and do it anyway”. So far both professions seem to only be ‘feeling the fear’ and not doing it at all.

Just how we work with more touch in Psychotherapy and Massage is a big issue. If we want to be effective with clients who are suffering, then we need to use the most powerful tools at our disposal. If we wish to demolish a bridge we must use dynamite. We do not sit around making regulations about the the risks of dynamite and put a lock and key around our dynamite storage depot. Demolishing the bridge one pathetic tap of the hammer at a time, is all that will result. For Massage and Psychotherapy professionals alike, touch is that powerful tool called dynamite. We need to learn how to handle it safely, whether in Massage or Psychotherapy, not lock it away.

The integrative, intimate and healing power of touch is always there, no matter how far into the ground we wish to bury our ostrich heads.