08/31/2018
An Interesting Read!
Believe It Or Not!
We Humans Gotsta Have Us Some Touch Or We’ll All Die!
In 1958 Dr. Harry Harlow, a pioneer in touch deprivation research, conducted experiments at the University of Wisconsin that involved the isolation of monkeys during their early development stages. After a period of time, these touch deprived monkeys exhibited evidence of emotional and social impairment. The lack of touching during their early development years had left them neurotic and socially re****ed. Most female monkeys refused mating by becoming hostile and aggressive when approached. The monkeys that did mate rejected or harmed their young. Harlow observed that during periods of isolation, the infant monkeys valued tactile stimulation more than they did nourishment. Harlow then created two artificial surrogate “mothers.” One was a bear wired sculptor of a monkey and housed a bottle of formula. The other was a fur covered wire monkey that felt and smelled like other monkeys, but offered no food. The infant monkeys preferred to cling to the “mother” who provided a semblance of physical contact without nourishment rather than to the wire models that provided food.
*In the early 1960's Bernard Grad, a Canadian biochemist, conducted his groundbreaking touch research on mice. 300 mice were selected and injected in the same manner. One-third were allowed to heal without intervention, 1/3 were held by medical students who did not profess to heal, and 1/3 were held by a faith healer. After just two weeks, the mice held by the faith healer recovered remarkably faster than the mice in both of the other groups.
In the 1970's, Dr. Delores Krieger, a professor at New York University, became interested in touch healing through studies like Grads. She was fascinated with the idea that intent was so important in Healing Touch. Using non-invasive techniques, Krieger wanted to apply the concept of Grads work in a way that could help her patients.
Through Krieger’s research a tangible relationship emerged between touching and healing. She was able to measure an increase in the hemoglobin content of the blood, which directly corresponded to levels of touching. Hemoglobin is the oxygen-carrying molecule in red blood cells. In Krieger’s study, when a healthy person placed his hands on or near an ill person for 10 to 15 minutes with the intent to heal, this was enough to cause a measurable increase.
Published in 1986, Dr. Tiffany Field Ph.D., professor of Pediatrics, Physiology, and Psychiatry of the University Of Miami School Of Medicine, began a research project to study the effects of massage on 40 premature babies. Half of the group was massaged three times a day for 15 minutes for 10 days. The massaged infants gained 47% more weight. They spent less time in the hospital than the babies who were not massaged, even though both groups of babies had the same number of feedings and average the same intake per feeding. The massaged babies were also more active, alert, and stayed about 6 days less in the hospital. The massaged babies were also more socially active, more responsive, and had better coordination and motor skills than the nonmassaged babies.
Then Dr. Tiffany Field published in 1997, at the Touch Research Institute in Miami, where she'd found that individuals who received a 15-minute seated massage twice a week showed increased cognitive ability, performed better on math tests, and completed problems with increased accuracy and speed. These individuals also experienced a significant decrease intention over individuals who practiced traditional relaxation techniques without massage.
In the 1950s, Wayne Dennis published his findings on what he called, infant and child "retardation". His research was based on his experience at an orphanage in Beirut, Lebanon. He found that the facility that contained the orphanage was more than adequate, but because of the orphanages meagre income, personnel was limited to one employee to ten infants. The children were only taken out of the cribs for feedings, diaper changing, and a daily bath. The children remained in the crib until they began to pull up on the sides. From that point, they were placed in a playpen during the daylight hours with two other children. Opportunities for touch were very limited. *A large number of these children died, even though they were receiving adequate nutrition and hygiene. The children who did survived where dwarfed or deformed. The explanation Dennis gave for his findings of marasmus (wasting away) combined with the tactic death rates of the Lebanese orphanages were the result of touch deprivation, lack of physical stimulation, and learning opportunities. The employees were so busy providing for their physical needs, they did not have time to hold and caress the infants. *When aides were hired to rock and sing to these children, mortality rates dropped 70 percent.
In 1970, Dr. Marc H. Hollander conducted a study at the department of Psychiatry, Vanderbilt School of Medicine, Nashville, Tennessee, using a test group of 39 women. He found that the need for human contact varied from person to person. Furthermore, this need for touch changed from time to time. After conducting surveys and interviews with these women, He determined that more than 50% used s*x as a way of getting their touch needs met and not because they desired the s*xual act.
*Hollander and his team of researchers commented that the "desire to be cuddled and held is acceptable to most people as long as it is regarded as a component of adult s*xuality. The wish to be cuddled and held in a maternal manner is felt to be too childish. To avoid embarrassment or shame, women convert it into the longing to be held by a man as part of an adult activity, involving s*xual in*******se."
In the 1960s, Abraham Maslow, a renowned physiologist, placed the needs of human beings in a sequential order, from the most basic to the most Ideal and abstract. He believed that these needs directed all human behavior and as these basic needs are met, other needs began to emerge until the individual reaches what he terms "self-actualization". Maslow called this the Theory of Human Motivation.
Maslow states that we have five general needs, beginning from the biological needs of food, water, and sleep. The other levels, in order of importance are safety and security, love and belonging, self-esteem and the esteem of others and finally, self-actualization. Maslow characterized the self-actualized person as self accepting, striving to help others, and engaging in activities that will help the person achieve the highest potential. His model was later redesigned, with the help of other physiologist, to a border list of human needs. It is interesting to note that touching and skin contact are ranked very high on the list, Just below the individuals needs for a safe shelter. Many massage therapists will attest to the fact that clients often receive massage to get there "touch needs" met.
A Hierarchy of human needs:
(Completed in part from Maslow, 1962; Miller 1981; Weil, 1973; Glasser, 1985.)
1. Survival
2. Safety
3. Touching, skin contact
4. Attention
5. Mirroring and echoing
6. Guidance
7. Listening
8. Being real
9. Participating
10. Acceptance
Others are aware of, take seriously and
admire the Real You
Freedom to be the Real You
Tolerance of your feelings
Validation
Respect
Belonging and love
11. Opportunity to grieve losses and to
grow.
12. Support
13. Loyalty and Trust
14. Accomplishment
Mastery, power, control
Creativity
Having a sense of completion
Making a contribution
15. Altering one’s State of
Consciousness, transcending the
ordinary
16. Sexuality
17. Enjoyment or fun
18. Freedom
19. Nurturing
20. Unconditional Love (including
connection with a higher power)
Summary:
The skin is so much more than an external covering. It is a highly sensitive boundary between our body and the environment. It offers protection, heat exchange, vitamin synthesis, waste removal and serves as a membrane of interfering. We can survive without sight, taste, smell, or hearing, but to lose our sense of touch would leave us walled off from our environment and from contact with others.
Touch offers us a sense of nourishment and a feeling of belonging. The need for touch intensifies during periods of stress and cannot be addressed without the participation of another person. Without touch, we experience profound physiological pain. If massage does nothing else than to nurture the human race through touch, our profession will be providing a great service.
