Water As An Affective Medium

Introduction: Clinical observations suggest that haptotherapy in water improves clients’ capacity to experience positive affect. Water is considered an affective affordance (Fuchs 2013); it is used to facilitate bodily awareness, and thus enhances awareness of embodied affectivity. As a result, touch can be used more subtly and sparingly in therapy, which may be beneficial for clients who have difficulties experiencing safety in closeness and with affective touch. The current study constructs and explores a method to make these observations researchable.

Methods: We hypothesized that improving sensory awareness will lead to experiencing more positive affect. We constructed a questionnaire to link base embodiment and field of affective resonance to experiencing specific affects such as vitality and existential feelings. Forty students of the STH Water completed this questionnaire before and after a learning event.

Results: The results indicate that the questionnaire was highly reliable, and that sensory awareness and positive affect had improved.
Discussion: The approach seems feasible for a subsequent research step using the questionnaire with different subjects, testing the model underlying the questionnaire, comparing the effects of haptotherapy in water with the effects of other haptotherapeutic interventions, and adding a therapy effect measurement.

Appendix: questionnaire (QWAM-22).

Keywords: sensory awareness, affect, haptotherapy in water

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