Touching limits in the analytic dyad

The matter of limits and boundary violations by both parties in the analytic dyad remains an unsettled technical and ethical concern, whether touching has to do with actual physical contact or is expanded in its meaning to include its psychic equivalents. Touching, probing, and breaching of the idio...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inThe Psychoanalytic quarterly Vol. 64; no. 3; p. 433
Main Author McLaughlin, J T
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States 01.07.1995
Subjects
Adult
Aggression - psychology
Defense Mechanisms
Ethics, Medical
Female
Humans
Male
Nonverbal Communication
Physician-Patient Relations
Psychoanalytic Interpretation
Psychoanalytic Therapy
Sexual Behavior
Touch
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Summary:The matter of limits and boundary violations by both parties in the analytic dyad remains an unsettled technical and ethical concern, whether touching has to do with actual physical contact or is expanded in its meaning to include its psychic equivalents. Touching, probing, and breaching of the idiosyncratic perimeters of the private self of one by the other in the dyadic intimacy are necessary components of the healing contact but pose an inevitable liability for violation, disruption, and damage. Clinical data remind the analyst of the near-physical impact of words. And the data sometimes speak for the legitimate place of restrained forms of physical contact, as nonverbal necessities of analytic communication, in critical instances in which a viable analytic engagement could not otherwise be sustained.
ISSN:0033-2828
DOI:10.1080/21674086.1995.11927460