Getting in Touch

THIS PAPER is a preliminary discussion on the use of tactile communication in the analytical setting. It is suggested that touching can, in certain circumstances, promote the analytical process and that prohibition of touching can delay or inhibit this. As a tentative approach to a subject which has been seldom referred to in the analytical literature, it can lead to some questions and speculations rather than conclusions.

States have long been recognized where the ‘classical’ analytic technique is not adequate. Some analysts hold that it is necessary to enter into the relationship with affects and responses. The interaction is then of a more personal and individual nature. Various terms have been used to describe these states and the methods of coping with them, e.g. ‘the level of basic fault’ (Balint, 1968), ‘states where delusion persists’ (Little, 1966), ‘the individuation process’ (Jung, 1935). Care for patients in these states is referred to as ‘management’ (Winnicott, 1954), ‘the need for adaptations’ (Little, 1966), ‘the dialectic procedure’ (Jung, 1935).

The multiplicity of terms used to describe these states and their care seems to reflect not only that each analyst has discovered differing aspects of them for himself but also perhaps that the degree of personal involvement of the analyst makes him tend to find his own individual term for them. In this paper I will refer to this involvement or caring as ‘management’.

The common factor in the care of these states is that the rules of ‘classical’ analysis are relaxed. They are resumed, however, when the oedipal stage is reached and the as-if situation can operate. Margaret Little (1966, p. 483) states, ‘Adaptations … serve the limited and specific purposes of the analysis of delusion.’

I consider that this tends to create a dichotomy between analysis and management which is false because a patient can function at different levels synchronously, one state or level predominating over another at any par