Touch and holding must be needed, wanted, and requested within a self that comprehends what is being asked for. That self must be deeply committed to experiencing and must have sufficient strength to contain and work through the powerful feelings that will emerge. When one is truly at work within Level Four depth psychotherapy, touch and holding are a warm and safe hearth in a desperate storm. Sexual Touch I have come to understand that sexual touch is impossibly difficult to use. It has become clear to me that most patients who request it have no idea how badly it will upset them.
Sexuality is a separate ocean in a patient's world.
The terrible and complicating truth about sexual touch is that in addition to triggering a re-living of childhood trauma, it may ignite the mating processes of the brain. In turn, these feelings can overwhelm the damaged ego container of the client and, indeed, of the therapist, and spill over into the therapy with disastrous results. As if these problems weren't enough, the defensive forces of the brain may seize upon the therapist as the source of pain, thereby avoiding the frightening early primal work. As I say elsewhere, it is easier to destroy the therapist than it is to face our early molestation. And yet, Masters and Johnson, and other sexual researchers, have used direct sexual techniques and surrogate partners, in an ever-widening area of innovation.