Touch Papers

Graeme Galton was born in Australia and is an attachment-based psychoanalytic psychotherapist working in private practice and in the National Health Service. His clinical work is particularly influenced by attachment and psychodynamic theories. He is a consultant psychotherapist at the Clinic for Dissociative Studies. He also works at the Parkside Clinic in London with individuals and groups in an outpatient psychotherapy service. He teaches trainee psychotherapists at The Bowlby Centre, where he is a registered member and training supervisor.

'This is surely a time for us to put our thinking about touch on the agenda. I think psychoanalytic clinicians may need to gather and reflect on our own desire to touch, our fear of touching, our responses when asked to touch, our responses to being touched or wanting to. The essays in this collection... are an attempt to open up a space in which the issues around touch can be thought about afresh.' - Susie Orbach, from the Foreword 'A rich, fascinating and most impressive collection of differing views on touch in psychoanalytical and psychotherapeutic settings, opening a debate long overdue on this controversial and neglected (avoided) subject.' - Alex Holder, Training and Supervising Analyst; Member of the German and British Psychoanalytical Societies 'The opening up of this whole issue of touch, as presented in this book, when it might be appropriate or inappropriate in the clinical setting of psychoanalysis or psychotherapy, is timely and much to be welcomed.' - Patrick Casement, Training and Supervising Analyst; Member of the British Psychoanalytical Society

• Foreword -- Introduction -- Winnicott's experiments with physical contact: creative innovation or chaotic impingement? -- Touching and affective closeness -- Symbolic understanding of tactile communication in psychotherapy -- No touch please—we’re British psychodynamic practitioners -- Can touching be relevant to understanding some patients in psychoanalysis? -- Bearing witness to an abused patient’s physical injuries -- Between touches -- The presence of the body in psychotherapy -- The issue of physical contact in psychoanalytic work with children and adolescents -- Strong adaptive perspectives on patient–therapist physical contact -- A body psychotherapist’s approach to touch -- Something dangerous: touch in forensic practice