The use of touch as a therapy was described in the fifth century by the 'father' of Western medicine, Hippocrates. The famous Greek physician, noted that, 'the Physician must be experienced in many things, but most assuredly, rubbing'. Now, in the early days of the twenty-first century, science is finding more and more evidence to prove that babies, infants, mature people, the elderly, and even those who are dying can benefit from various forms of therapy based on touch, including Swedish massage, Aromatherapy, Shiatsu and Reflexology; diagnostics and treatments from all over the globe.
Even before the classical age, the Hindu system of natural medicine, Ayurveda, (1800 bc) observed that rubbing was a useful method of self-healing. Indeed, how many of us in the Western world can remember our mothers offering to 'rub it better' C whatever 'it' was.
In many parts of northern China it is still possible to pay for and experience a massage on a treatment table on the pavement when the weather makes it practicable. And now that vacations in Turkey are affordable to the masses and more popular, the idea of a man massaging another man is becoming less emotional than ever before in our more liberal attitudes.
In the same way that sometimes we need stimulating vacations when we are on top form, at other times we need to rest our senses by taking a break from excitement, giving the body and mind a chance to recover from the stresses of the modern world, or our inability to cope with it. In the same way, our contact with other humans sometimes needs to be sparky. We enjoy beating our friends at sports or arguing about the future of the world or a particular political party.
At other times, however, we need the very opposite; our senses need to be soothed. We need to rest our nervous systems and memories. Thus, Touch Therapy has nothing to do with sexual stimulation or satisfaction in the short term.
A child or an infant can see all it wants to, hear what is going on around it, smell its own body and surroundings and even taste its own body parts. What it cannot do and what is critical to its emotional development is persuade its parents to touch and caress it if they do not wish to do so. Sensory stimulation by touch is vitally important to a child's growth, especially if he or she has tasted the warmth of mother's embrace and is then deprived of that comfort.
For many years I asked myself, who is the most to be pitied, someone blind from birth, or a person blind from the age of, say, six or seven? The answer is clear: if we've never tasted the fruit, we compensate. It is a dreadful thing to have tasted mother's breast and milk, then never been allowed near the breast again. If we've never smelled ground, roasted coffee beans where is the loss? But to smell such an odour just once and then . . .
I am reminded me of a report by a psychiatrist in Florida who said, ' A child who does not get enough hugging or cuddling may grow up to be withdrawn, detached or aloof.... Physical body contact between parent and child is so essential in child rearing that in some cases children who were not hugged or cuddled during the first year of their lives did not survive'.
In a business seminar the report was given of a hospital ward filled with orphaned babies. In a long row of beds babies became ill and some of them died, except in the last bed in the row. In that bed the babies always did well. The doctor in charge could not figure it out. Nurses cared for all of them equally. All were fed, bathed, kept warm. There were no differences in their care. Yet all babies had health problems and some died, except the one in the last bed. As the months passed and new babies were brought in, the story was always the same.
Finally, the doctor, after checking everything he could think of, concealed himself to watch all night. Nurses came in to feed the babies on time and went away after caring for the babies equally. About midnight, the cleaning woman came in. On her hands and knees she scrubbed the floor form one end of the ward to the other. At the end she stood up, stretched and rubbed her tired back, and walked over to the last bed. She bent over and picked up the baby, and walked around the floor talking to it, stroking it, cuddling and rocking it in her arms. Finally she returned it to the bed and moved on in her work.
