The Healing Touch
Posted on 04/10/2010 | 0 Comments
The idea of the healing touch has a very long history. The New Testament recounts stories of miracles of healing resulting from touch. Pop psychology trumpets the necessity for “group hugs”. Mother infant bonding is enhanced by skin to skin “touch”. Different cultures have different approaches to “touch”, some celebrate it and some fear it. Metaphorically we are told to “reach out and touch somebody” and about a decade ago, a pseudo-science initiative called “therapeutic touch” caused all sorts of enthusiasm until controlled research studies showed that not touching someone was not the same as actually touching someone. And who has not felt the complex meaning of touch from a loved one? Few types of human interaction have been so well understood or so much misunderstood as “touch”.
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As a recent news article has noted , (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128795325&ps=cprs), human touch is an essential component of the human condition. This is because we touch with our brains. Every touch is a perception that has meaning – and that meaning is created and applied in our brain. We no more touch with our fingers or skin than we see with our eyes or hear with our ears. And the meaning of touch results in the activation of specific brain areas, areas that can lead to a host of positive or negative emotions and cognitions. Basically put, touch is a key component of human connection. And, as I have often said: human connection is the key to improving the human condition.
As human beings we live in complex family and community settings. How we navigate those settings depends on many things. Hope and connection are fundamental to health. Touch is fundamental to healing. So why are we so afraid to give someone a hug?
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This is a great set of comments and rings very true.
I totally agree that scientists (just like everyone else) have their biases and foibles. After all, scientists are human beings too! But science is different than scientists.
The scientific method is the most objective frame that we have by which to evaluate and predict. Science is not about finding truth. It is only about being less wrong most of the time. The scientific method (experimental design and mathematics) gives us the ability to test what we believe. The scientific method is not used to prove something is correct, on the contrary, the scientific method is designed to prove that something is not correct! It is designed to test what is called the “null hypothesis”. It takes ideas that come out of left field (or wherever else they come from) and puts those ideas to an independent test.
t does not drive our beliefs. It does however challenge our beliefs. In that way it is self-correcting. Of course scientific inquiry and understanding lives within a wider social context. That is one of the great features of science.
But gravity is gravity, social context notwithstanding. And thus it is nasty, brutish and long. As Brecht said, (something like this) - the purpose of science is to save us from everlasting error.
By Christina Carew on May 11th
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