TOUCH vol. 4 | Page 27

THERE’S A DOCUMENTED PHENOMENON CALLED “SENSORY DEFENSIVENESS.” As well, all of these strategies can be used to gradually increase your level of comfort with touch. Once you have the strategies in place you can use them to slowly broaden your range of positive touch parameters. It’s a process of re-training your emotional and psychological response to touch (and other sensory input) to make it an experience that you automatically associate with nurture and more positive emotions, but the good thing is that it can be done! Have you ever experienced sensory defensiveness? Hopefully these tools can help you and people you know to establish greater comfort with an essential component of health. Drew.