Touch in Psychotherapy II: Advanced Standard of Care, Ethical and Clinical Explorations

Course overview

This is an advanced course on touch in psychotherapy and counseling which sheds light on what the standard of care in psychotherapy and counseling is and clarifies how clinically and ethically appropriate touch falls within the standard of care. It briefly reviews the importance of touch for human development and healing practices and describes the ethical application of touch in psychotherapy as adjunct to verbal psychotherapy. It looks critically at the prohibition of touch in therapy and examines its historical, professional and cultural roots. The course extensively covers different ethical aspects of therapeutic touch and provides a rare but thorough exploration of the meaning of touch in psychoanalysis and the role of touch in the therapeutic relationship. The advanced level 6CEU course includes 7 extensive, ground-breaking articles by Ofer Zur, Ph.D., Courtenay Young, ex-President of the European Association for Body-Psychotherapy (EABP) and an authority on the topic of the ethics and clinical aspects of therapeutic touch, Dr. James Fosshage, Aline LaPierre, and Joanne McGuirk. Finally, the course provides an ethical decision-making process and a summary of California law in regard to touch in therapy. Additional resources and references are provided for further study, but they are not part of the course.