Introduction

After a postponement of two years because of covid, the Festival of Touch, was held in Marseille, France, July 4 to 7, 2023. This event was a joint meeting of two organizations: the International Association for the Study of Affective Touch/IASAT and Research in Touch. It aimed to bring together researchers working in the sense of touch from across the world.

Campus

The Campus Saint-Charles of Aix-Marseille University hosted the 230 participants in an ancient  lecture hall with modern technical tools.

Program

The program was quite full with 60 oral presentations from 30 women and 30 men, including 7 keynote presentations, 28 symposia presentations, and 25 short talks in three and a half days. The main focus was on fundamental, neurological research, so some of the presentations were more or less beyond my comprehension. The last two half-days, context and research in applied sciences were more in the picture. For me and a number of fellow participants this was very inspiring! Most of us are ‘touch therapists’, working with various touch modalities and in different settings. In a WhatsApp-group we are exchanging experiences, practices, methods and – a limited amount of – research. Together, we would like to help improve the balance, and strengthen the link, between fundamental research and research in applied sciences and between theory and practice. For that reason, we are approaching the organizing committee of the conference.

Posters

Across from the lecture hall, on the other side of a half-sunny, half-shaded area – where coffee, tea, other drinks and lunch were ready during breaks –  three rooms were reserved for the display of 115 posters; an exposition of a wide variety of topics and forms: from all text, to graphs, photos and even just drawings of people touching and holding each other. For an overview, see the abstract book: https://touch2023.sciencesconf.org/data/pages/2023_FestivalOfTouch_posters_4.pdf.

During one hour after lunch on Wednesday and Thursday, (each day half of the) participants with a poster had the opportunity to present it to interested conference guests. The room was alive with activity: people walked around watching, discussing, connecting.

My poster

I presented my poster Haptotherapy for patients with cancer: the impact of affective touch and handed them out in A4-size, with on the backside a number of illustrative quotes from patients, for example: “Suddenly, I realized that was a place I just totally avoided. It was no longer there for me. It shouldn’t be there. I was very dismissive about that. I realized that because she touched it.” (Pt. F. 67, Breast Cancer). And a haptotherapist: “(…) the experience that haptotherapy matters. By literally touching the pain there, the psychological pain. (…) You touch the body, but by touching the body… you come to the grief.”

The poster provided an overview of my present qualitative study, in which I conducted in-depth interviews with 14 patients and 9 haptotherapists, with the following conclusions: “Haptotherapy has the potential to help patients becoming aware of and restoring the connection with their body, including the affected and neglected parts, which is assumed to facilitate emotional processing.” Because of the limited space, my definition of haptotherapy was short (see Box 1).

Discussions were, among others, on the way ‘affective touch’ is defined in most research, with a focus on ‘pleasantness’.  For me as a haptotherapist and a researcher, it is not just about pleasantness; in contrast, it may be important to discover the limit where it gets to discomfort – as basic information for the therapy.

Conference dinner

In addition to all these serious matters, the social aspects were also taken care of: on Thursday night, a gala dinner (“dress code: smart casual – but feel free to dress up!”) was held at the roof terrace of Cercle des Nageurs de Marseilles, overlooking the Mediterranean seaside. A great opportunity to meet other participants in a relaxed atmosphere.