ABSTRACT
Touch has always been a controversial issue in psychotherapy as well as marriage and family therapy (MFT) for clinical as well as ethical reasons. Within the humanistic tradition of psychotherapy, therapeutic touch has been a legitimate therapeutic technique for many years. For example, Gestalt therapy (Pearls, 1973) and Psychodrama (Blatner, 1973; Moreno, 1964) have utilized physical contact between client and therapist as a therapeutic tool to encourage the client's emotional catharsis. In the field of family therapy, some schools of thought consider touch more or less as a boundary violation and unethical (e.g., MRI, Milan, Strategic, Solution-Focused, Psychodynamic, Behavioral, Intergenerational), while a few others embrace therapeutic touch in their clinical repertoire (e.g., Experiential, Communication), as long as it is done for the client's benefit within the professional code of ethics. Carl Whitaker (Whitaker and Bumberry, 1988) and Virginia Satir (1983, 1988) are two of the most prominent proponents favoring physical contact between therapist and client as a therapeutic means that can be helpful to clients.
