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I ALWAYS THINK IT IS INTERESTING to know why someone would take the time and effort to write an article. For me, one reason was that I knew from my own clinical work that there was occasional physical touch between patient and analyst. I could not accept that the psychoanalytic literature was so devoid of any discussion about it, reasoning as I did that I could not be the only one. I knew that during a moment of joy or a moment of pain, a patient and I might have limited physical contact, like a hug, an arm around the shoulders, or a hand held when offered. I could not see the harm; to the contrary, I could see its analytic value. Yet, in researching the literature, I noticed the almost total absence of references to touch in analysis.
Why, I questioned, was it not discussed in the literature? It may be that one answer has to do with a traditional and unquestioned assumption that touch belongs outside what is proper psychoanalysis. However, aided by the current ferment in contemporary psychoanalysis, many analysts, myself included, do not accept the idea of so-called “proper psychoanalysis.” To me, Spezzano (1993) captured something vital in reference to the nature of truth in psychoanalysis when he said: