The meaning of a handshake for a psychotherapist

The meaning of a handshake for a psychotherapist

Our handshake tells others more information about us than we think, says an American study I recently read. Researchers at the University of Alabama evaluated the handshake of 112 male and female college students based on eight characteristics: dryness, temperature, texture, strength, force, grip completeness, duration and eye contact. The subjects also completed four personality questionnaires and the results were compared. The researchers found that handshakes are stable and consistent across time and gender. The study concludes that handshake characteristics are related to both objective measures of personality and the impressions people form of one another. Specifically, five handshake characteristics (strength, force, duration, eye contact, and grip completeness) were used to determine whether a handshake was considered firm. The results confirm the widely held belief that people whose handshakes are firmer are more extraverted and experiential and less neurotic and shy than those with a less firm or slack handshake, and this information about a person is conveyed to others when shaking hands.

The contributorsTouch Papers: Dialogues about touch in the psychoanalytic space(Galton, 2006) discuss the importance and importance of many aspects of physical contact in the psychotherapy consultation room. Several authors examine what it means for a psychoanalyst or psychotherapist to shake hands or not shake hands with a client. They comment that there is a general reluctance in the psychoanalytic community in the UK to shake patients' hands, except sometimes at the beginning and end of treatment. Many British psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic psychotherapists view shaking hands with a patient as physical contact that should be avoided or kept to a minimum because it disrupts the transference relationship. We may also want to consider whether fears of seduction or devouring may be aroused in a client (or therapist) by the physical contact of a handshake. As Brett Kahr reminds usTouch PapersAny physical interaction between two people can trigger unconscious memories of previous physical interactions, especially those that are provocative or abusive.

However, a handshake at the end of a psychotherapy session can also be a sign of improved ability to relate to others. When I recently told a psychotherapist that I was writing this article about handshakes in the consulting room, she told me about a client she has been working with for several years. At the start of treatment, her patient had been hospitalized for 18 months and could barely speak. They had never shaken hands until recently, when the patient shook my colleague's hand at the end of the last session before the summer break. This action was understood by both as an expression of the patient's emerging ability to connect and relate to others and to herself.

In daily life in the UK and North America, it is unusual after the first meeting to shake hands with someone we meet regularly, in contrast to many parts of Europe and South America where it is common for people to shake hands at every meeting and again when parting. Two of the contributorsTouch PapersAlthough they have lived and worked in the UK for many years, they originally came from other countries and cultures where handshaking is more common, including in psychoanalytic circles.

Maria Emilia Pozzi, born in Italy, writes inTouch Papersthat her first psychoanalyst in Switzerland shook her hand four times a week at the beginning and end of each session for several years. It was a shock when she met her first analyst in London, who did not stand up or shake her hand until the last session, when she herself plucked up courage and initiated a handshake that she remembered feeling somewhat embarrassed about the reactive handshake.

Psychoanalyst AH Brafman, who came to the UK from Brazil, writes that he was amused to read discussions that included handshaking as an example of touching the patient. He recalls his own surprise in his first sessions with his analyst in London, when his handshakes led to interpretations about the unconscious transference significance of such behavior. Even now, many years later, he remains unconvinced that his desire to shake hands was an expression of some subconscious need.

Another staff member, respected psychoanalyst Pearl King, now in her 80s, writes that she always gives patients a welcoming handshake upon first meeting because she believes it is important to work from a culturally accepted baseline. The only time she shakes her patients' hands is after the last session before a long break. It is a firm handshake that conveys to the patient that she is fine and will take care of herself while she and the patient are apart, knowing that her patients must rely on her not to do anything that might jeopardize their being there to continue working with them when they return after the break.

Psychoanalyst Valerie Sinason writes inTouch Papersof a completely different handshake when she visited an asylum on the Greek island of Leros a few years ago. She describes entering a huge, cold ward that smelled of excrement and where naked and smeared patients were huddled on old iron beds. She walked over to a particular crowded bed, introduced herself, and held out her hand. From the mass of human pain, a man with Down syndrome emerged and shook her hand. A year later, she met the same young man in the first group at home to study disabled people in Athens. He opened the door when she rang the bell and they shook hands in the usual way. He was elegantly dressed and took her on a tour of the house. He then said to her through an interpreter: "I remember you. You shook my hand at Leros."

If handshakes really reveal as much about us as the American study concludes, shaking hands with our psychotherapy clients may reveal more about us than we wish, thus damaging the transference relationship. On the other hand, if our customers can really learn so much about us from our handshake, how much more can we learn about them from their handshake?

References

Galton, G. (2006).Touch Papers: Dialogues about touch in the psychoanalytic space. (London: Karnac).

This article was first published inKarnac review, Issue 10

2006 Graeme Galton

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