The main reason I write this is not to gloat! It is to sum up and share my reflections which I hope offer a useful reminder about the importance of touch.
Bessel Van Der Kolk’s book ‘The Body Keeps the Score’ was a book club choice that travelled with me to Samos (good choice Kate B!). It describes the physical and emotional effect of trauma on the body and explores the best ways to treat different types of trauma. In a chapter titled ‘Getting in touch’, he asks one of his favourite bodywork practitioners, Lucia Sky, what impact bodywork has on people. Her answer expresses something I think many of us forget or at least don’t appreciate often enough:
“Just like you can thirst for water, you can thirst for touch. It is a comfort to be met confidently, deeply, firmly, gently, responsively. Mindful touch and movement grounds people and allows them to discover tensions that they may have held for so long that they are no longer even aware of them.”