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A restoring touch for abusing families
0145-2134/811040487-03.%32.00/O Copyright 8 1982 Pergamon Press Ltd.
BRIEF COMMUNIZATION
A RESTORING TOUCH FOR ABUSING FAMILIES JULES OLDER, PH.D. University of Otago P.O. Box 913 Dunedin, New Zealand
CHILD ABUSE may be viewed as a disorder of touch. The disorder may be expressed in terms of quantity, quality, or strength. Insufficient touch is a major component of neglect. Incest is touch of the wrong sort. Battering is a form of touch at the wrong strength. The literature of child abuse clearly recognises that it is a frequently transmitted phenomenonparents who neglect or seduce or beat their children are often those who were themselves badly touched as children. Yet this same literature strangely ignores what might be seen as an obvious conclusion; that is, if touch was the damaging modality, it may also be a source of restoration. Despite the fact that the growing body of Iiterature on the treatment of child abuse suggests many experimental modes of treatment, touch is but rarely mentioned as a means of treating abused children, and almost never, as an appropriate treatment for abusing adults. The explanation for this void may partially lie in cultural taboos which associate touch with sex. Such taboos almost certainly limit physical contact in psychotherapy [ 11. Here, another factor may be operating as well: a residual belief even among therapists that abusing parents do not defense to be touched, that their mistreatment of young children renders them literally untouchable. Whatever the reasons, the absence of descriptions of touch as a healing agent is striking. A recent article which specifically related touch and child abuse made no mention of physical contact as a healing agent [2]. Even more striking, in a classic article on the treatment of abusing parents, an example of the profound effect of touch is presented-and its implications virtually ignored by the authors. At a cruciai time in one interview, during which Sally was crying and the worker put a sympathetic hand on her shoulder, they were interrupted by the ward personnel demanding Sally come out and join in the routine group therapy scheduled at that time. She later described the situation as follows: “When Mrs. D. put her hand on my shoulder, I felt a sense of hope for the Brst time in my life, and then they mined the whole thing” [3].
While thoroughly exploring almost all other aspects of treatment, the authors of this article fail to elaborate on the significance of their own example; this is a probable sign of a cultural and professional taboo interfering with perception. Still more support for the taboo hypothesis may be taken from another comprehensive article, or, more precisely, from that which is excluded from it. The article describes a “multi-modal cognitive-behavioural group curriculum for abusive parents” [4]. The curriculum includes child development, teaching, behaviour problem management, and anger control. Nearly all aspects of parental and interactional skills are described but touch is never mentioned. Those few works which do mention touch usually do so briefly and in passing 151. If evidence from monkeys can be extrapolated to humans, there might be a case made that there are scientific grounds for avoiding the use oftouch as a restorative agent. It could be argued 487
488
Jules Older
that studies of animals raised in isolation show that the touch-deprived infant becomes the touchaversive adult [6]. If this can be extrapolated to humans, any touch may be intrusive. But the evidence is far from conclusive, and some findings, notably Mitchell’s study of primates raised in isolation, point to the restorative potential of physical contact and companionship [6]. But, however the evidence is weighed, you never really know until you try. In New Zealand we’ve been trying. In 1980, social workers Sheila Monaghan and Ruth Gilmore and nurse Colleen Brown founded the Acorn Club to assist abusing and poientially abusing parents. The Club meets every Friday in a small building on the grounds of Dunedin Public Hospital. Few fathers have attended, but between 20 and 40 mothers and their children show up every week. The ambience is distinctly casual and more than a little noisy. The sessions begin with a long, chatty cup of tea and end with a lecture or demonstration on some aspect of child rearing. In between is an exercise involving touch. The exercise was devised by occupational therapist Franceska Banga, and she and 1 alternate in leading it. It begins with everyone in the room introducing herself to the person sitting next to her. Pairs are formed, and one member of each pair is asked to stand behind her partner, the staff participating just as the mothers do. Then the touching begins. The exercise has six steps. In the first, the standing person taps her fingertips rapidly and very lightly on the shoulders of her partner. This we call snow$i’akes. Following snowflakes comes raindrops, in which her fingers tap simultaneously and with greater intensity. Then she glides across her partner’s back, using the heels of her hands in parallel strokes. Next, with hollow palms she claps her hands across the back and shoulders, creating the sound of horsehooves. The fifth stage is whirlpools, a penetrating massage of circling thumbs. Finally, the recipient of the exercise is asked which touch she preferred and is given an extra dose of that. Each stage lasts 2 or 3 minutes. When they are all done, the partners switch places, and the sequence begins again. The stages incorporate a number of different types of tactile contact ranging from the controlled aggression of horsehooves to the sensuality of whirlpools. The exercise allows the mothers to experience both receiving and giving touch. Often, when there is a baby on the seated mother’s lap, the child is touched by the mother in the same way that she is being touched by her partner. If a staff member does the touching in the first part of the exercise, she becomes a recipient in the second part. Thus, if staff is seen as parental figures, the mothers experience both accepting and providing a pleasant and beneficial touch through three generations. The process is unvarying from week to week. The mothers know what to expect and are secure in the knowledge that this touch will not lead to others. Because they are fully clothed, there is rarely skin-to-skin contact. Because one partner is standing behind the other, there is no eye contact. In short, the touch we use is as relaxing and unthreatening as we can make it. How successful, then, has it been as a restorative agent? The simplest answer is that we don’t know. Even if we did know that the group was (as we suspect) reducing the incidence of abuse, we still could not say whether it was the atmosphere, the lecture, the touch or some nonspecific factor which was responsible. What can be said is as follows: 1. When given a choice of whether to continue the touch exercise or drop it from the programme, the mothers unanimously elected to have it go on. 2. If the touch exercise is skipped one week, its absence receives notice and comment. 3. A number of club members have taught the exercise to friends and spouses; some report getting touched more at home as a result, usually in the form of a bedtime massage. 4. At least one mother has said that once, when she' went to hit her baby in a fit of anger, she massaged his back instead. 5. Contrary to many reports in the literature of child abuse, the Acorn Club has no trouble in attracting and keeping its members. On the contrary, our mothers bring their friends, come in ever-increasing numbers (size is becoming a serious problem) and arrive earlier and stay later each week.
A restoring touch for abusmg families
489
The use of touch as a restoring agent at the Acorn Club should be considered a preliminary description. To actually determine the usefulness of how, when, and where restorative touch is best implemented will require controlled and replicated research. The climate best suited to such research is one in which professional taboos are opened to the light of scientific examination and in which human touch is accepted as a legitimate therapeutic modality with the potential for restorative effectiveness. REFERENCES 1. OLDER, J.. Four taboos that may limit the success of psychotherapy. Pqchiary 40:197-204 (1977). 2. ANDERSON, D., Touching: When is it caring and nurturing or when is it exploItwe and damaging’? Chi/dAbuse NqI. 3:793-794 (1979). 3. STEELE, B. and POLLACK. C. B.. A psychiatric study of parents who abuse infants and children. In: Ray Heifer and C. Henry Kempe (Eds.) The Battered Child (2nd Edition). p. 140. Chicago, University of Chicago Press (1974). 4. AMBROSE, S., HAZZARD, A. and HAWORTH. J.. Cogmtive-behavioural parenting groups for abusive famdies. ChildAbuse A’qI. 4:119-125 (1980). 5. HELFER, R. and KEMPE, C. H.. Child Abuse and Neglect: The Family and the Community. Ballinger Publishing Co., p. 59 (1976). 6. MITCHELL, G., What monkeys can tell us about human violence. Fururist. 9:75-92 (1975).
BRIEF COMMUNIZATION
A RESTORING TOUCH FOR ABUSING FAMILIES JULES OLDER, PH.D. University of Otago P.O. Box 913 Dunedin, New Zealand
CHILD ABUSE may be viewed as a disorder of touch. The disorder may be expressed in terms of quantity, quality, or strength. Insufficient touch is a major component of neglect. Incest is touch of the wrong sort. Battering is a form of touch at the wrong strength. The literature of child abuse clearly recognises that it is a frequently transmitted phenomenonparents who neglect or seduce or beat their children are often those who were themselves badly touched as children. Yet this same literature strangely ignores what might be seen as an obvious conclusion; that is, if touch was the damaging modality, it may also be a source of restoration. Despite the fact that the growing body of Iiterature on the treatment of child abuse suggests many experimental modes of treatment, touch is but rarely mentioned as a means of treating abused children, and almost never, as an appropriate treatment for abusing adults. The explanation for this void may partially lie in cultural taboos which associate touch with sex. Such taboos almost certainly limit physical contact in psychotherapy [ 11. Here, another factor may be operating as well: a residual belief even among therapists that abusing parents do not defense to be touched, that their mistreatment of young children renders them literally untouchable. Whatever the reasons, the absence of descriptions of touch as a healing agent is striking. A recent article which specifically related touch and child abuse made no mention of physical contact as a healing agent [2]. Even more striking, in a classic article on the treatment of abusing parents, an example of the profound effect of touch is presented-and its implications virtually ignored by the authors. At a cruciai time in one interview, during which Sally was crying and the worker put a sympathetic hand on her shoulder, they were interrupted by the ward personnel demanding Sally come out and join in the routine group therapy scheduled at that time. She later described the situation as follows: “When Mrs. D. put her hand on my shoulder, I felt a sense of hope for the Brst time in my life, and then they mined the whole thing” [3].
While thoroughly exploring almost all other aspects of treatment, the authors of this article fail to elaborate on the significance of their own example; this is a probable sign of a cultural and professional taboo interfering with perception. Still more support for the taboo hypothesis may be taken from another comprehensive article, or, more precisely, from that which is excluded from it. The article describes a “multi-modal cognitive-behavioural group curriculum for abusive parents” [4]. The curriculum includes child development, teaching, behaviour problem management, and anger control. Nearly all aspects of parental and interactional skills are described but touch is never mentioned. Those few works which do mention touch usually do so briefly and in passing 151. If evidence from monkeys can be extrapolated to humans, there might be a case made that there are scientific grounds for avoiding the use oftouch as a restorative agent. It could be argued 487
488
Jules Older
that studies of animals raised in isolation show that the touch-deprived infant becomes the touchaversive adult [6]. If this can be extrapolated to humans, any touch may be intrusive. But the evidence is far from conclusive, and some findings, notably Mitchell’s study of primates raised in isolation, point to the restorative potential of physical contact and companionship [6]. But, however the evidence is weighed, you never really know until you try. In New Zealand we’ve been trying. In 1980, social workers Sheila Monaghan and Ruth Gilmore and nurse Colleen Brown founded the Acorn Club to assist abusing and poientially abusing parents. The Club meets every Friday in a small building on the grounds of Dunedin Public Hospital. Few fathers have attended, but between 20 and 40 mothers and their children show up every week. The ambience is distinctly casual and more than a little noisy. The sessions begin with a long, chatty cup of tea and end with a lecture or demonstration on some aspect of child rearing. In between is an exercise involving touch. The exercise was devised by occupational therapist Franceska Banga, and she and 1 alternate in leading it. It begins with everyone in the room introducing herself to the person sitting next to her. Pairs are formed, and one member of each pair is asked to stand behind her partner, the staff participating just as the mothers do. Then the touching begins. The exercise has six steps. In the first, the standing person taps her fingertips rapidly and very lightly on the shoulders of her partner. This we call snow$i’akes. Following snowflakes comes raindrops, in which her fingers tap simultaneously and with greater intensity. Then she glides across her partner’s back, using the heels of her hands in parallel strokes. Next, with hollow palms she claps her hands across the back and shoulders, creating the sound of horsehooves. The fifth stage is whirlpools, a penetrating massage of circling thumbs. Finally, the recipient of the exercise is asked which touch she preferred and is given an extra dose of that. Each stage lasts 2 or 3 minutes. When they are all done, the partners switch places, and the sequence begins again. The stages incorporate a number of different types of tactile contact ranging from the controlled aggression of horsehooves to the sensuality of whirlpools. The exercise allows the mothers to experience both receiving and giving touch. Often, when there is a baby on the seated mother’s lap, the child is touched by the mother in the same way that she is being touched by her partner. If a staff member does the touching in the first part of the exercise, she becomes a recipient in the second part. Thus, if staff is seen as parental figures, the mothers experience both accepting and providing a pleasant and beneficial touch through three generations. The process is unvarying from week to week. The mothers know what to expect and are secure in the knowledge that this touch will not lead to others. Because they are fully clothed, there is rarely skin-to-skin contact. Because one partner is standing behind the other, there is no eye contact. In short, the touch we use is as relaxing and unthreatening as we can make it. How successful, then, has it been as a restorative agent? The simplest answer is that we don’t know. Even if we did know that the group was (as we suspect) reducing the incidence of abuse, we still could not say whether it was the atmosphere, the lecture, the touch or some nonspecific factor which was responsible. What can be said is as follows: 1. When given a choice of whether to continue the touch exercise or drop it from the programme, the mothers unanimously elected to have it go on. 2. If the touch exercise is skipped one week, its absence receives notice and comment. 3. A number of club members have taught the exercise to friends and spouses; some report getting touched more at home as a result, usually in the form of a bedtime massage. 4. At least one mother has said that once, when she' went to hit her baby in a fit of anger, she massaged his back instead. 5. Contrary to many reports in the literature of child abuse, the Acorn Club has no trouble in attracting and keeping its members. On the contrary, our mothers bring their friends, come in ever-increasing numbers (size is becoming a serious problem) and arrive earlier and stay later each week.
A restoring touch for abusmg families
489
The use of touch as a restoring agent at the Acorn Club should be considered a preliminary description. To actually determine the usefulness of how, when, and where restorative touch is best implemented will require controlled and replicated research. The climate best suited to such research is one in which professional taboos are opened to the light of scientific examination and in which human touch is accepted as a legitimate therapeutic modality with the potential for restorative effectiveness. REFERENCES 1. OLDER, J.. Four taboos that may limit the success of psychotherapy. Pqchiary 40:197-204 (1977). 2. ANDERSON, D., Touching: When is it caring and nurturing or when is it exploItwe and damaging’? Chi/dAbuse NqI. 3:793-794 (1979). 3. STEELE, B. and POLLACK. C. B.. A psychiatric study of parents who abuse infants and children. In: Ray Heifer and C. Henry Kempe (Eds.) The Battered Child (2nd Edition). p. 140. Chicago, University of Chicago Press (1974). 4. AMBROSE, S., HAZZARD, A. and HAWORTH. J.. Cogmtive-behavioural parenting groups for abusive famdies. ChildAbuse A’qI. 4:119-125 (1980). 5. HELFER, R. and KEMPE, C. H.. Child Abuse and Neglect: The Family and the Community. Ballinger Publishing Co., p. 59 (1976). 6. MITCHELL, G., What monkeys can tell us about human violence. Fururist. 9:75-92 (1975).