master template

WHAT IS TOUCHABILITIES?

A MASTER TEMPLATE

TouchAbilities is a multifaceted framework for teaching touch. By identifying a universal common language, TouchAbilities serves as a master template and presents fundamental ways to connect with and shift the body.

These are called skills and incorporate physical manipulation of soft tissue as well as dynamic interaction with the body’s mental and energetic fields. Twenty-six skills, a veritable alphabet of touch, are organized into 8 Component categories which are based on shared qualities, actions, outcomes and intentions. The component categories are Breathing, Cognitive, Energetic, Compression, Expansion, Kinetic, Oscillation and Gliding.

More and more healthcare practitioners are realizing the need for a universal language of touch; for a core set of principles and guidelines no matter the field or modality practiced. The TouchAbilities model presents such a language. It provides a neutral, “non-sectarian” vocabulary and presents comprehensive foundational skills that are applicable across fields, philosophies or cultural conditioning. Beyond BodyWork and related therapies, this model includes all domains of health care involving touch. We all access the body by drawing from the same primordial pool of possibilities. It is important that we understand the common threads that connect us, as well as the traits and characteristics that distinguish us from one another. There are endless descriptions of what makes us different — TouchAbilities, on the other hand, defines and focuses on what we share in common.