WHAT IS TOUCH & PRESENCE?
TOUCH
Embryological and physiologically, our strongest sense is that of touch. Tiffany Field, et al in their study on power of touch has said, The largest fetal organ, and the first to develop, is the sensory-rich skin, or the sense of touch. Our first attachments are primarily based around touch.
We seek comfort, connectivity and security through touch. Even looking, responding and speaking is touching, but from a distance. Touch of course is tactile, but it is also equally vocal and facial.
Touch conveys a message, it reinforces empathy, sympathy, care and happiness. A sense of touch brings you back to the present, connects you back to your body with greater sense of connectedness and awareness.
A warm touch is said to calm cardiovascular stress, activates the great vagus nerve, triggers release of oxytocin, relaxes the neuromuscular system. There is an abundance of research on the science of touch which can promote health and balance in the functioning of all body systems. It wouldn’t be too far to say that a gentle and a safe touch is possibly an antidote to brain signals of danger and threat.
In a healthy environment, touch means safety, assurance, nutrition and familiarity. These are our first communications with the world.
So much of our communication and expression is conditioned on how we touch and how others touch us. Our needs in life revolve around the kind of touch we are receiving or not receiving. Touch can elicit a gamut of emotions. The nature of biodynamic touch is that it is non-imposing, without desire, open and un-pressured. This is a rare kind of touch. Often people have never been touched in this way. Often the touch we are used to is qualified with another’s need. The kind of touch offered in biodynamic craniosacral therapy brings people to a more primal cellular experience that they had when they were in utero. It takes us back to the first moments of growth before experience changes us and creates patterned behaviour. It is an undifferentiated touch.
By offering this original space, the brain receives the security it is looking for. There is no imposition; clients are offered a place to grow again. When this is established, primary forces in the body start to move and reveal themselves throughout the body’s tissues, leading to reorganisations that can go down to neural and cellular level. The brain and body can reprogram themselves.
PRESENCE
Just being there is no small thing. As therapists, when we are present with someone’s expressions of their life force, there’s a profound effect created that brings about healing. How relieving it is to be heard. Just to be heard. Not having someone qualify the hearing by providing a solution, intervening, or trying to offer something else. Rare indeed it is that someone will just listen intelligently without intervening with their own life story, opinions, solutions or ideas, concepts/fantasies of what is happening.
And as a Biodynamic Craniosacral therapist, this is a cornerstone principle in our therapy. We listen with unconditional acceptance, empathy and intelligence to the unique story your body is trying to share thereby supporting your own healing, at the pace and intensity set by the wisdom in your body.