[Tip] When touch is extraordinary

**amacs** · 27-01-2012, 10:04 PM

I was listening to the radio two days ago when Brian Keenan was interviewed as part of a bigger piece. Within it he made the following comments,

Having discussed how during his detainment he was afraid of the dark and hoarded candle stumps he had been given to eat by. These he lit at night and at one stage danced around his 4’x6’ cell to music only he could hear.

Quote:

He went on to say,

I had been in solitary for, I don’t know I think 7 or 8 months and I was moved somewhere. I was pulled out of this small cell and thrown into the back, the trunk of a van bound and blindfolded. I could hear other people around me who I new were not guards but were prisoners, afraid their breathing nervous, anxious, afraid even to breathe. Then I felt a hand reach out and and touch me on the foot and I thought ooooohhh it was a kind of explosion. It was the first touch that wasn’t malign or tried to hurt you ….

As he described that touch, that reassurance the entire timbre of his voice changed, he sounded like a man describing food after abstinence, his voice still rich, redolent with meaning as he made that "oohhh" sound some twenty years on. Rich, vibrant, alive with the texture, the sensation, the experience of that touch.

It made my hair stand up

It made me think of some of the practitioners here, I imagine their touch would feel the similar to a hurting patient.

I think it would be fascinating to talk to him about it.

For those who don't remember or know who he is see here

regards

ANdy

**Diane** · 28-01-2012, 06:24 AM

Wow..

**rkathryn** · 28-01-2012, 11:08 AM

I think that his experience would be the extreme side of what a hurting patient feels. At least a hurting patient can go to their own home and bed at night and have their loved ones to give them care. What a beautiful story, thank you so much for sharing!

**caro** · 28-01-2012, 03:13 PM

Quote:

he sounded like a man describing food after abstinence, his voice still rich, redolent with meaning as he made that "oohhh" sound some twenty years on. Rich, vibrant, alive with the texture, the sensation, the experience of that touch.

This made my hair stand up.

**amacs** · 28-01-2012, 10:42 PM

It was one of those moments hearing it - still get a shiver thinking about it, how "thirsty" he was for non-malign human contact and how, oh how that touch must have felt.

I have been trying to figure out a way of getting at the interview - it is available on BBC iplayer for those in the UK who are interested. I don't think it will work outside the UK however.

seehere The interview begins at 24:44 and is embedded in a wider interview on a related dance production.

regards
ANdy

**caro** · 29-01-2012, 12:41 AM

The link worked for me. Thank you. I listened to the whole thing. Wow.

**Diane** · 29-01-2012, 12:59 AM

I was able to hear it too. Thanks ANdy.
It must be a big relief for him to be able to externalize all that by having a dance company interpret it sociopsychically (to his own satisfaction) to the rest of the human troop. Artistic version of social grooming, reclaiming him back inside the human primate troop, repairing the isolation/exile of it all.

Canada had a guy like that (who wrote a book) a number of years ago, who had been imprisoned for years, tortured, in Saudi Arabia. I don't think any dance troupe took on the job of re-enacting it, though. That is really something. Very daring, going into those dark places of humanity and dancing them.

And the touch thing - yes, could hear his feeling about that.

28-01-2012, 06:24 AM	#2
Diane Human Primate Social Groomer and Neuroelastician Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: Weyburn Sask. Posts: 19,678 Thanks: 1,493 Thanked 3,198 Times in 1,571 Posts	Wow.. __________________ Diane www.dermoneuromodulation.com SensibleSolutionsPhysiotherapy HumanAntiGravitySuit blog Neurotonics PT Teamblog Diane Jacobs.com (personal website) Canadian Physiotherapy Pain Science Division (Archived newsletters) Canadian Physiotherapy Association Pain Science Division Facebook page @PainPhysiosCan WCPT PhysiotherapyPainNetwork on Facebook @WCPTPTPN Neuroscience and Pain Science for Manual PTs Facebook page @dfjpt SomaSimple on Facebook @somasimple "Rene Descartes was very very smart, but as it turned out, he was wrong." ~Lorimer Moseley “Comment is free, but the facts are sacred.” ~Charles Prestwich Scott, nephew of founder and editor (1872-1929) of The Guardian , in a 1921 Centenary editorial “If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you, but if you really make them think, they'll hate you." ~Don Marquis "In times of change, learners inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists" ~Roland Barth "Doubt is not a pleasant mental state, but certainty is a ridiculous one."~Voltaire

28-01-2012, 11:08 AM	#3
rkathryn Senior Member Join Date: Jul 2009 Location: San Diego, CA by way of Huntsville, AL Age: 39 Posts: 192 Thanks: 56 Thanked 46 Times in 16 Posts	I think that his experience would be the extreme side of what a hurting patient feels. At least a hurting patient can go to their own home and bed at night and have their loved ones to give them care. What a beautiful story, thank you so much for sharing! __________________ Rajam K. Roose, HHP "The danger is not that the soul should doubt whether there is any bread, but that, by a lie, it should persuade itself that it is not hungry" (Simone Weil)

28-01-2012, 10:42 PM	#5
amacs A bear of little brain Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: UK Posts: 1,397 Thanks: 175 Thanked 255 Times in 128 Posts	It was one of those moments hearing it - still get a shiver thinking about it, how "thirsty" he was for non-malign human contact and how, oh how that touch must have felt. I have been trying to figure out a way of getting at the interview - it is available on BBC iplayer for those in the UK who are interested. I don't think it will work outside the UK however. seehere The interview begins at 24:44 and is embedded in a wider interview on a related dance production. regards ANdy __________________ "Here is Edward Bear coming downstairs now, bump, bump, bump, on the back of his head behind Christopher Robin. It is, as far as he knows, the only way of coming downstairs, but sometimes he feels that there is another way, if only he could stop bumping for a moment and think of it." A.A. Milne

29-01-2012, 12:41 AM	#6
caro Arbiter Join Date: Jan 2011 Age: 43 Posts: 681 Thanks: 1,170 Thanked 437 Times in 174 Posts	The link worked for me. Thank you. I listened to the whole thing. Wow. __________________ Carol Lynn Chevrier LMT "Beaucoup d'entre nous mourront ainsi sans jamais être nés à leur humanité, ayant confiné leurs systèmes associatifs à l'innovation marchande, en couvrant de mots la nudité simpliste de leur inconscient dominateur." Henri Laborit - 1914-1995 .

29-01-2012, 12:59 AM	#7
Diane Human Primate Social Groomer and Neuroelastician Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: Weyburn Sask. Posts: 19,678 Thanks: 1,493 Thanked 3,198 Times in 1,571 Posts	I was able to hear it too. Thanks ANdy. It must be a big relief for him to be able to externalize all that by having a dance company interpret it sociopsychically (to his own satisfaction) to the rest of the human troop. Artistic version of social grooming, reclaiming him back inside the human primate troop, repairing the isolation/exile of it all. Canada had a guy like that (who wrote a book) a number of years ago, who had been imprisoned for years, tortured, in Saudi Arabia. I don't think any dance troupe took on the job of re-enacting it, though. That is really something. Very daring, going into those dark places of humanity and dancing them. And the touch thing - yes, could hear his feeling about that. __________________ Diane www.dermoneuromodulation.com SensibleSolutionsPhysiotherapy HumanAntiGravitySuit blog Neurotonics PT Teamblog Diane Jacobs.com (personal website) Canadian Physiotherapy Pain Science Division (Archived newsletters) Canadian Physiotherapy Association Pain Science Division Facebook page @PainPhysiosCan WCPT PhysiotherapyPainNetwork on Facebook @WCPTPTPN Neuroscience and Pain Science for Manual PTs Facebook page @dfjpt SomaSimple on Facebook @somasimple "Rene Descartes was very very smart, but as it turned out, he was wrong." ~Lorimer Moseley “Comment is free, but the facts are sacred.” ~Charles Prestwich Scott, nephew of founder and editor (1872-1929) of The Guardian , in a 1921 Centenary editorial “If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you, but if you really make them think, they'll hate you." ~Don Marquis "In times of change, learners inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists" ~Roland Barth "Doubt is not a pleasant mental state, but certainty is a ridiculous one."~Voltaire

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