Posted this under the podcast, but figured I might as well share it here as well. Trying to decide whether to share it with T, still. Sorry, it is long and no one need read it, but in case my working through this stuff in my mind is helpful to anyone, I thought I might share.
As a client, I really wish every therapist would be up front on their boundaries around touch from the very start. I feel like I've been dancing around this topic with my therapist for a couple of months. We do a lot of work with my journal entries and there are a lot that focus around how I feel like need closeness, physical connection, etc. to safely release some of the emotions that are surfacing for me. I have made commentary about wanting to know what the boundaries are, what I can expect him to do if I am in pain...but I feel like unless I specifically ask him, "Do you touch clients? Handshakes? Hugs? A hand on someone's shoulder? Would you do that for me? Do I have to ask for it or would you offer it if you sensed I wanted or needed it?" I will never know. Yet, at the same time, it is impossible for me to ask directly. The best I can manage is to continually express my needs, while aiming them at the ambiguous “someone” or “anyone.” Therapists, if you are reading or hearing such statements from your clients, it’s very probable they mean YOU. All it might take to give me permission to address these questions with him is the simple questions, “Is someone a specific person?” or “Who is anyone?”
Last month, I started sitting on the floor when I was too overwhelmed by the distance. My therapist started joining me on the floor, sitting side-by-side with me (which I had expressed as a need), but still four or five feet away. The intensity of wanting and enjoying that "connectedness" while not knowing if my feelings there in that space were "OK" with my therapist meant that configuration left me panicking, albeit in a different way than the distance panics me. Instead of being shut down (distant configuration), I found myself powerfully drawn in toward something I wasn't sure I was "allowed" to have. If he was far and we were divided by the coffee table, I could barely look at him, because sensing that disconnect was painful. If he sat with me on the floor, I experienced a powerful urge to draw closer and make physical contact, but not knowing the availability of such an experience, I fought to contain it on my own, which was a very painful experience. As my therapist sensed how overwhelming my experience of our connection was, the amplification of my usual separation anxiety, he said, "Perhaps I should not have sat on the floor with you." Ouch! So now, considering his withdrawal, it is nearly impossible for me to ask where he stands on the issue of touch, because of an inner certainty that my needs will be rejected…again. And as my therapist himself has noted, the message of invalidated need, that I would ask for something, allow someone to meet my need and then have it not be OK is the most distressing, excruciating experience I can imagine. It is like being at the end, teetering over the edge, of my own inner world.
There are many past precedents for why this is so, ranging from an extremely touch-deprived childhood to assaults in my preteen and teenage years to having safe touch within my marriage damaged by a sleep condition that my husband has. Without touch, my therapist and I have still been able to explore the messages of being "too much" and "not enough" and the real experiences of being pushed away and invaded by people I should have been able to trust. Therapy is the first place I've been connected enough to someone I trust to actually want to approach for safe, non-sexual connection and touch...yet, my concern for my therapist's invisible (yes, possibly imaginary) boundaries means I am paralyzed. I am drawn toward him as a safe, trustworthy person, so I cannot run away (despite often wanting to), yet I am repelled by the sense that he will not receive or accept those needs. So, I am literally inanimate unless he approaches...and this is true of both the physical aspects and our verbal interactions in general. I need explicit permission for almost every positive experience I have within therapy: learning what it means to be open and vulnerable; asking for things I need and allowing him to meet those needs; and yes, wanting to be hugged.
I have no initiation, no power, no responsibility for getting those needs met. And honestly, he may be wise to patiently wait for me to take up those things, as offering them before I can clearly communicate when I want and do not want them would be quite dangerous. However, I wonder if therapists realize how impossible it is to ask for something that has been withheld to the point that something inside believes you simply must be literally untouchable and unapproachable. It feels like asking my therapist to give me a unicorn...in my mind, the possibility just does not exist within nature that he CAN touch me without being repelled, damaged or transfigured into an abuser somehow. The potential that I might be loveable and touchable by him seems fiction or fantasy. For the sake of not reliving one of the most painful messages many of us clients experienced in our childhood (which is that no one can be close and safe at the same time, either because we were neglected, physically abused or sexually assaulted), I think it a therapist's basic policy should be stated up front and clearly labeled as their boundary/choice (i.e. not something that is dependent upon the client's innate approachability).
That being said, I do realize the importance of client initiation, especially in cases like mine where we have been unable to repel or say no to unwanted contact in the past. So, while having the general policy out there is a must in my opinion, there may be cases where it would be wiser to let the client ask for contact rather than even offer it. I think reassuring a client that it is an available resource (if the therapist indeed feels comfortable with it) is important, but if the therapist is approaching without explicit invitation, I wonder if some clients may experience it as invasion and be unable to vocalize the fear that accompanies it. I'm assuming those therapists who practice touch are aware that it is a constant negotiation and most of that negotiation is probably occurring within the clients themselves, with the therapist taking on the role of a facilitator.
In my case, it would probably be two completely different experiences if my therapist asked, "Do you want a hug right now?" and "What would it mean if I moved closer in this context? Would you feel comforted? Invaded? Would you want touch? Do you think you'd be able to ask for it? To say no?" In the first scenario, my panic at having to answer the offer would probably lead me to jump over all the important reflection that MUST attend touch in my case. I would react instinctively either, "Yes, I desperately desire a hug," or "No, I can't receive it. I don't deserve such a thing." But, even if I desperately desire touch, I might not be ready for it (and without asking the latter questions, I would not be able to realize it). And if I could not receive it, not because it would be a negative experience, but because feeling a lack of permission, jumping over those same questions would rob me of realizing that a hug would be a safe, healing, releasing experience in the present moment.
In the end, as much as it seems essential that therapists put this conversation out there, I realize that I need to take responsibility for the discussion within my therapy experience. Even if the answer is that touch is not something my therapist feels able to offer me, I need to understand that it is just his personal preference to express his care in other ways and it does not reflect upon me. I need to be ready to not internalize his boundaries as rejection. And if I look at it from that perspective, as a client, I have nothing to lose from bringing up the topic. If he truly is the safe, trustworthy therapist he has demonstrated himself to be, then he will not be disgusted or intimidated by my feelings of need there. He will accept them, receive them, explore their meaning with me and grieve with me. I am not receiving touch now, and should I find out he cannot offer it, nothing will have "moved," even if my experience of him is temporarily altered (as it was when he said he should not have sat with me). However, I will have the opportunity, when I am ready, to explore what it means to not have that experience available to me. Or if I am wrong, and touch is something he offers within an appropriate context...well, then I shall have my hug at last! All that really remains in my case is to decide when I am ready to explore the meaning behind the pain of the "deprivation" I am already experiencing.
Still have a way to go from knowing that it is OK to talk about to feeling safe on that topic, especially with how I dealt with the rejection of him moving away from me.
