Exploration of Touch in Faculty of Medicine? Presentation and exploration of touch and perspective in practice
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Abstract
In the medical profession, doctors are called in different ways to touch the patient: from the simple handshake to body examinations or sometimes a simple touch of the hand on a shoulder showing support and comforting. Touching does not necessarily mean being in an interpersonal contact of quality with someone. Yet reflection on touch is nearly absent from medical training.
This workshop aims to promote awareness of the following: how to touch, feeling the contact with other and being touched ourselves. It is an introductory class on awareness of the elements involved in a quality touch that can confirm the other person in his/her personal integrity and dignity.
Awakening the “Sensible” Being (ASB) is a formative practice geared toward care giving and support that includes manual practice. It examines how experiencing one’s own body and its movement stimulates the development of self-awareness and awareness of others, both of which are desirable qualities for healthcare professionals.
Through exercises, the participants will be able to explore touch in general and with ASB protocols. We will use also time of reflexivity and of writing about the experience.
The workshop will be divided as follows:
1) Introduction: Theorical perspectives and Phenomenology of touch and “being in contact”.
2) Experiential: time in class will be alternating between exploration of different types of touch, interspersed with short writing periods on the lived experience.
3) Conclusion: time to share our lived experiences, and presentation of the results from a research done on ASB (Lachance, 2016).
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