A year without touch

A less-discussed casualty of the pandemic is the the way that isolation from one another has been affecting many of us, particularly those that live alone. The Guardian recently put out an article exploring how the lack of touch affects our mental health, with lots of little juicy science bits about the ways our nervous systems respond to touch. I’ve discussed some of the touch science in the past, but it has become newly relevant in a time when even I, a therapist who uses touch in sessions, can’t provide physical touch to people who were missing it even before this began.