I am writing this post backwards. This short introduction is actually the last thing I’ve written, now that I know what the post looks like. It is a bit of a different post to my usual posts. There are three things I talk about in this post, and I have broken them down into different subheadings as my mind’s all over the place and I’m struggling to write a cohesive piece.
Touch starvation-
Harlow and Zimmerman (1959) were some of the first researchers to show just how important touch is. When given the choice between a wire-mesh “mother” that held a bottle and a soft cloth “mother”, baby monkeys preferred the latter. Touch is the very first way we experience the world and is the foundation for our physical, social and psychological health. Loving, meaningful, consensual touch is important for the following:
- Pain regulation (touch releases endorphins)
- Emotion regulation
- Mood
- Relaxation
- Sleep
- Reading faces
- Recognising emotions in self
- Expressing emotion
- Physical growth (“failure to thrive” is the pediatric term for stunted growth/weight)
- Immunity and recovery from disease
- Prosocial behaviour
- Connection to others
Former inmate Brett Collins shares his experience of solitary confinement with ABC, which can be found on YouTube here. The deprivation of human connection and touch, also called “skin hunger”, is essentially a type of torture. It kills, just as physical abuse or starvation kills. And prisoners are not the only people who experience it. You don’t need prison bars to make a prison. Sadly many people in our society are having a remarkably similar experience to Brett Collins. One election some politicians in my country even suggested having a minister for loneliness is it so widespread. A lot of this boils down to the shift from a collective culture to an individualist one. With this shift, we have seen a movement against co-sleeping, where sleeping separately is said to “teach” infants how to manage on their own. Technology is another factor. A lot of people got a taste of touch starvation during lock down. Continue reading “Touch starvation, mania, and dissociation”
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