ABSTRACT
The body psychotherapist working with touch is trained to work with both the verbal and symbolic, and with the subsymbolic, with the language of touch. To use this language appropriately and professionally requires training, and different approaches in body psychotherapy offer training and practice in the different dialects of the language of touch. Touch is earliest form of communication, and the infant is highly dependent on its tactile sensitivity and sense of touch. The Winnicottian concept of the psyche indwelling in the body is an invitation to connect to the basic embodiment of human experience, as well as to need for touch. Ethical positions concerning touch cause many psychotherapists to lose their curious politeness and openness to differentness and variety: conclusive positions are frequently made around touch, unquestionable and unchallengeable truths tend to form, and absolutes characterise the thinking around touch in psychotherapy.
