Céline Rivière, the author of "La Câlinothérapie" (Ed. Michalon) notes that with the touchdown ban, due to the circulation of Covid-19, people realize how much they lack this sense.
What are the consequences of not touching?
CÉLINE RIVIÈRE. Skin deprived of contact can no longer regulate mood through the release of hormones such as endorphin, dopamine, serotonin and especially oxytocin, the key hormone for well-being and attachment. This hormone secreted during a benevolent touch such as the hug is capable, on its own, of counteracting the effects of stress by allowing the whole organism to relax, to be serene and connected to the other.
The consequences are therefore numerous…
Yes. They are both physical, emotional and psychic. The skin is our envelope regulating our exchanges between inside and outside, so it reacts to any change. By touch, the skin conveys messages thanks to the numerous receptors with which it is strewn (the Pacini corpuscles which are 640,000 in number). Touch causes reactions all over the body. Touching is a way to get in touch, to show the other that he exists, that he matters.
Is touch essential?
It is even vital. As early as the 1970s, a couple of psychologists, Margaret and Harry Harlow, showed that touching would be the most basic and essential act for humans or animals, before feeding. In an experiment with little monkeys deprived of their mothers, they preferably went to a doll, a gentle surrogate mother in which a heat source had been introduced rather than to a wire doll carrying a bottle. Why have so many people sunbathed while confined to their balconies? To activate this heat, it is a kind of touch.
So is it unnatural not to touch yourself?
When there is danger, people become one, come closer ... It is indeed natural. Today, the absence of contact has become our passport to stay alive while touch is essential to life. In this schizophrenia, we understand why we become stressed, more anxious than ever, we are in need with a brutal and radical withdrawal! We arrive at an ubiquitous situation where what could do us so much good, reassure us, is forbidden on pain of contamination. Touch is experienced as an attack, worse, it is associated with the fear of fears: that of death.