Thymotactile contact of primary importance in haptotherapy

Recently, colleagues and fellow editorial members asked for clarification regarding the term thymotactile contact, as introduced by Veldman (2007). This essential element of Haptotherapy has long been a subject of my professional interest, and it is a pleasure for me to provide further explanation.

Background

Frans Veldman, founder of haptonomy, also is the author of the book ‘Haptonomie, wetenschap van de affectiviteit’. (Haptonomy, Science of Affectivity. Veldman 1988)

In this important part of his lifework Veldman indicates and describes several human abilities in general that enable humans to make contact either with the outside world or with other people through their sensory impressions, which they mainly experience through the sense of touch.

This sense of touch and the capacity to make contact are both developed from early on in the prenatal period and form the basis of our being in the world.

Contact Faculties

The following contact faculties have to do with the integration of objects and persons in one’s own experienced physicality:

1. The assensus relates to direct touch (i.e. during entirely ordinary activities, using objects as if they were a part of ourselves such as cutting with a knife, writing with a pen, etc.)
2. The circumsensus relates to feeling in a spatial sense and in being present in the space around us. For example, entering a large auditorium feels different from entering a very small room. If someone sits close beside you, it may feel either pleasant or threatening, depending partly on whether one is withdrawn into themselves or perceptibly present as themselves.

These above-mentioned faculties are part of the rational contact faculties, which can be practiced in order to learn to rely on one’s own abilities, thereby increasing one’s self confidence as against surviving through conditioning, that asks for adaptation. If a person experiences that these faculties can be activated within themselves one’s trust in these faculties will grow by training, effort and application in daily life.

The persensus and transsensus however, are affective contact faculties that go together with the presence of a person at the level of expressing the feeling of the inner self.

3. The persensus has to do with direct, affective, affirmative contact.
4. The transsensus has to do with the spatial affective contact.

Personal, positive, affirmative and affective experiences allow people to become themselves, reveal themselves and dare to be themselves based on a growing inner sense of safety and self-confidence.

Presence

Presence means being present with all of one’s contactual qualities being activated. Moving upright as a free being in self-confidence actually shows the basic presence of a human being. Basic presence implies that a person is in balance with themselves when in upright stance with feet, basis and head in natural alignment. As such expressing one’s own vitality.

Expression of the feeling of one’s Inner Self

Expression of the feeling of one’s inner self means expressing the characteristics of a person’s individuality in an uninhibited and open manner. This includes taking responsibility for all utterances and behaviours because they are authentic and appropriately represented from a person’s own autonomy.

Frans Veldman in his later part of his lifework ‘Levenslust en Levenskunst’ (2007, Lust for Life and Art of Living) regards the feeling of the inner self as Thymos, which represents the core of one’s own emotional or inner life and expresses what is most individual in a person. The thymos can be felt beneath the thoracic diaphragm and is the place where the deepest personal connections can be felt and made. Contact at this level of the feeling of one’s inner self is what Veldman calls thymotactile contact and concerns the whole person in connection and engagement, capable of essential exchange and affirmation of the self.

Haptotherapy

Haptotherapy is a means in helping people to get to know themselves, to develop on the way to personal freedom and lust for life, with the qualities and faculties that are genetically present. Under the influence of all formative experiences from conception onward, these can also be conditioned in behavioural patterns of adaptation and survival.

Haptotherapy helps the other person find themselves and develop by appealing affirmatively to the individuality of the other person. Starting with a warm and affirming approach towards that individuality (the thymos) in order to stimulate inner stability and self-perception. This inner stability is the condition for developing resilience to deal with all that has been damaged as far as personal self-esteem is concerned. Negative or distorted self-image may cause people to isolate themselves. If the other person can experience a perceptible welcome as themselves through deep, warm, affectively affirming contact, this can be the starting point for positively experiencing which kind of growth in life and living together are possible.

Haptotherapy and Trauma

Haptotherapy calls upon the faculty to make contact with one another in freedom and openness, which is experienced as warm, loving and affirming. Conditioning from early childhood (particularly in the first thousand days following conception) and later adaptations because of negative and traumatizing experiences can be transformed into faculties for expression by affirming experiences. The latter faculties may give space to be one’s self and to live together in one’s own way in essential contact with others.

Injuries on the level of the inner self, suffered in the first thousand days or afterwards by traumatizing experiences or by epigenetic intergenerational transmission can cause a person to keep from living in freedom as the world around them has been too hostile. Many of these injuries can be healed through experiences of engaged and connected, affective thymotactile contact, to make people aware of the fact that their individuality has not been damaged but rather suppressed. If the injured growing-up person feels that they are welcome as themselves, confidence may grow in revealing themselves in openness and allowing themselves to be known in truthfulness, without negative feedback. A development path emerges in which traumas can be revealed and after recognition and acknowledgement they may disclose themselves. If the necessary safety can be offered therapeutically then the impact of the trauma can be understood and serve as a life lesson, which can open to more personal growth and freedom. Walking this path together offers the perspective of lust for life and living in one’s value and significance with the other.