My name is Angel and I’m 30, I use they/them pronouns, and I’ve lived with chronic pain, out of control behaviours and bipolar disorder for years. Dissociation is part of how I’ve survived — shutting off from my emotions, from my body, from the world around me. There are still days when that’s my default. I still have very difficult moments. But the difference now is I have something to come back to. A relationship with my body that isn’t always terrifying.

It could be said that we all have an ideal amount of touch we’d like to receive at any given moment in time, and an actual amount that we ac

A perspective on the use of touch in therapeutic settings. When is it ok to touch?