Haptic communication

Body contact means the active or passive touch of your own or someone else's body. The intensity ranges from the gentle touch with the fingertips, through contact with lips or hands, etc., to strike with the fist. Recent research has shown that we need adequate and well-intentioned physical contact to regulate key body functions, such as our heat balance, our immune system and our cardiovascular system. ( Juhan, Bauer and others)

Body contact and child development

In the first half of the 20th century writers such as the pediatrician L. Emmett Holt and the psychologist John B. Watson have popularized the idea that babies and children should receive as little physical contact. In Germany the very progressive results of infant research from the 20s ( Wilhelm Reich ) were reversed by a issued by the National Socialists parenting books a woman Haarer into its opposite. So was expressly prevention of body and eye contact are recommended to reduce the child's attachment to the mother and in this way to promote bonding to the party and the leader. ( Chamberlain and others) Influenced by Sigmund Freud pediatrician Benjamin Spock was successfully run with his best-selling infant and child care from 1946 against such an education by storm. Ashley Montague published in the 50s first studies on the health consequences of the lack of physical contact with orphans.

Today, experts agree that the intensive and regular physical contact influenced the development of the child and the parent- child bond positive. Worn children cry less and are more satisfied than children who do not benefit from as much physical proximity usually (Source: The influence of wearing to the cry of the infant behavior by Dr. Urs A. Hunziker, University Children's Hospital Zurich, according to a prospective controlled study in two obstetrical departments in Montreal (Canada) from a total of 117 mothers ).

A newborn child is placed shortly after the birth process on the mother's abdomen and soothes it easily. It feels during the first year of life yet merged with the mother. Brisch among others were able to prove in their research that a successful bond with the mother, which is expressed in a sense of Fused -being of mother and child, is learned and critically depends on the quality of the contact between the two. Breastfeeding creates a more important for the development of child psychology body contact with the mother. It was not until about three years, the child is able to perceive independently of the parent entity existing as one. Always gives the body contact the child's sense of security and confidence in the reliability and love of his caregivers. Psychologists refer to this context of the development of basic trust.

The educator and therapist Marion Esser writes in her 1995 book Move - reasons. " To after birth to a uniform body ego development, the infant is dependent on close contact with the mother or an appropriate caregiver, it requires a. tonic body dialogue, re- fusing with the body of an adult, alternating with motor and tactile experiences, satisfying and pleasurable physical relationships, to cope with the slow dissolution of the direct body contact can takes his place symbolic substitute: glances, gestures, voice, and finally language as most abstract form of communication " (Esser 1995, p 23).

Communication tool

The interpersonal positive was body contact is mainly for expressions of sympathy ( physical intimacy ). It is a means of nonverbal communication. In the Body Psychotherapy is actively worked, among other things with the elements of holding, eye contact and the Widerspiegelns of movements in the restoration and extension limited communication capabilities stakeholders. Desired body contact for emotional reasons is often accompanied by eye contact. When physical contact of body odor or perfume, as well as the pheromones of others are clearly perceived, which can be crucial for further communication readiness. In traditional Chinese medicine, the body's odor is considered as an indicator for the early detection of organ diseases.

Glaser, among other things developed with the psychotonic a concept of the use of touch, among others in gerontology, which can have a positive effect on the health of those affected.

Greeting contact

When greeting acts very often there is a body contact. Examples of these are the handshakes, the pats on the embrace and the Hongi mentioned. Physical contact with strangers without a word character, which is perceived in western culture as unpleasant, found, for example accidentally or intentionally ( Chikan ) held in scramble.

Disease transmission by physical contact

Between the early 16th and the early 19th century prevailed in the medical community with the view that disease transmissions done by touch. Only with the European cholera epidemic of the early 1830s was this " Kontagionstheorie " refuted and replaced until the end of the century by the theory of infection.