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One of the most obvious hallmarks of Virginia's work was her use of touch. Although it is perhaps the most controversial aspect of her work (any physical contact between therapist and client is still expressly prohibited as unethical in mainstream psychiatry), she felt it was crucial. Touch is an essential part of family intimacy. Studies have shown that without it, infants who are otherwise well cared for will die. Yet troubled families typically either don't touch at all, or only touch roughly when angry or frustrated, or during sex.
In addition to its essential role in intimacy touch has a way of getting a person's attention more effectively than sounds or sights, and attention is essential for learning. Virginia insisted on using touch to amplify any important positive communication or new learning and thus to consolidate change. Previous sections include several examples of this.
Virginia sometimes began by making physical contact with the children, who are typically more open to this than adults. Soon she was literally reaching out to all family members. Anyone who experienced Virginia's touch will tell you that it was simple, direct, and felt completely natural. She probably did more touching in one session than most therapistsdo in a year, creating positive connections among family members where loving touch had been lost altogether or had been replaced by roughness and violence.
In her videotape Of Rocks and Flowers (1983), Virginia works with a blended family with a history of severe physical abuse on both sides. In a moving segment in which she interacts only with the two young children, she has them touch her face gently, reciprocates, and then asks them if they would like to do the same with their parents. Then she brings the parents back in and patiently coaches both the children and the parents, suggesting that the children initiate this kind of contact several times a day.
Then she demonstrates with both parents the difference between grabbing roughly in anger and holding firmly yet protectively when they want to stop the children from doing something. She continues until both parents show behaviorally that they know how to do this. For those who would like to study exactly how she did this, a verbatim transcript of this session appears in Appendix II; viewing the videotape is even better.
Following this session, in an interview with Ramon Corrales of the Family Therapy Institute of Kansas City, Virginia commented on her touching:
There had been so many things happening, and the fear was so strong in relation to these children that if you thought of one image it was like they were monsters. So one of the things that I wanted to do was also to see that they had the capacity to respond with a touch, using myself in that regard by having them put their hands on my face-that it was a kind of a mirror for the family itself, the people in the family. And then allowing them and encouraging them to do that with their own parents. See, touch, that comes out of that kind of ambiance which was there at the time, says things that no words can say. And that whole part of where there was the gentleness, that, too, is part of the whole thing.
Now, for me, my touch is not going to send much to you unless I am integrated myself, unless I really feel whole myself: then energy moves out. If I feel I have to touch, orhave to be careful about touching... that won't work. Because it's not a gimmick, and it's not a strategy. It's a living kind of passing back and forth of energy. Now, when that condition is there, then I know that one touch with energy passing back and fortha real feeling of one human being really touching another in a literal senseis probably worth hours and hours of something that doesn't contain that.
You know about throwing the baby out with the bath water? Well, some touch is used for sex purposes and aggression purposes. And so many people have thrown touch out because it got used for those purposes, instead of saying, OK. That's not the touch we want? No more than we want to come out blaming in such a way. We don't throw out our words because we don't want to use them for blaming; we find different words. And I frankly have to say that if I couldn't have the energy that comes out with touch, I am certain I could not have the kind of really good results that I have.
These are most of the larger patterns that made Virginia's work so effective, and all of them are evident in the verbatim transcript that follows. Each of these patterns could be divided into smaller pieces and described in more detail, and there are also many other supporting nonverbal elements. I invite readers to identify additional patterns by studying the videotape and transcript, to continue to amplify our understanding of Virginia's work.
Virginia's more subtle nonverbal perceptions and behaviors are harder to write abouther timing, her intonation patterns, the nonverbal cues she used to know how a family member was responding to a particular intervention, etc. Many of these smaller elements can only be learned by studying the videotape and by doing what Virginia herself did: closely observing how family members responded to each other and to her interventionskeeping those that worked and discarding those that didn't.
At the beginning of the weekend workshop from which the transcript in this book is taken, Virginia described her reasons for being there:
I'm aware that this is a very important occasion. And the importance of this occasion is that we are putting into an image form something that I believe will be very helpful to people. You know for years we've been talking to people, we've been writing books. You know, with all the books that have been written and all the words that have been given to people, wouldn't you think that we would have improved more?
It seems that we have to have something else to learn about ourselves. When video came in, I didn't know the power of it right away. But I've begun to see how very powerful it is, and that images are probably more important than anything else. To be able to see something is a very important part of making a new possibility. (1989)
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