Bruce Springsteen asks in his song Human Touch: …in a world without pity Do you think what I’m askin’s too much…I just want something to hold on to…And a little of that human touch.
The words resonate with anyone who has teetered at the black abyss of depression or psychosis, with anyone who has experienced a moment when he felt alone and anonymous in a bustling, too-busy-surviving world. How therapeutic for one person to reach for the lonely, to touch an arm, drape an arm over a shoulder, and pull a soul back from the darkness. Most people have lived through such moments and know the void of which I speak.
A friend of mine who works in a psychiatric facility told me she planned to quit her job. She had been reprimanded for hugging her patients. Although she is the type of therapist who radiates an aura of genuine concern, a professional who patients request for their care, she was told that hugging was not appropriate. Not appropriate? The touch between two people, a gesture validating existence and humanity. These are not full body hugs. They are not sexual hugs between men and women. They are connections between patient and therapist executed in a day room perhaps, in a hallway, anywhere.
In my clinical setting, I sense when a patient or a family member needs a hug. I prevented a woman from falling to the ground in grief because I hugged her shoulders to brace her for the news. I did not hug, sensed the need for tactile restraint, but stood shoulder to shoulder as a man watched the resuscitation of his wife. I guided a wife, my hand in the small of her back, to seat her by the bed of her husband as he slipped from this Earth. At one point she squeezed my hand. I see people so diminished by grief I touch them and hope that touch provides a conduit to share the abundance of energy I have provided by the love I have for my profession. Is this inappropriate?
Conversely to my surprise, a man who was going back to his home in another city, who knew he would never see me again because his cousin was dying, hugged me and wrapped me in profound gratitude, not only by his words, but also by this one unexpected gesture from someone who had seemed distant and restrained. I haven’t collected a paycheck able to match the value of this act. The wife of a patient hugged me and told me how much my care meant, not just to her husband, but to the entire family.
For brief moments when people are most vulnerable, the nurse I am becomes an extended family member. Because recovery from illness is never straight-forward, because it is filled with days of five steps forward and three steps back, I earn the trust and wrath of family members. I share the joy, bear the brunt of frustration. I praise success and illuminate the smallest shard of progress. I awaken at 2:30 in the morning and wonder if I have done everything I should have; if I could have done something more or better or more quickly. That is the nature of my nursing practice. It is the nature of humanity.
I imagine some patients will notice my friend’s absence. In the bigger picture of corporate health care, someone will fill her position and the institution will go on without pause.
Decades ago my favorite nursing instructor challenged me to maintain a “Ma and Pa” quality to bedside care in corporate world. I took her to mean: Keep it individualized and personal. I talk books to those who read. I read bean futures to those who farm. I find church services on Sunday for those who worship. I share funny stories from my own family to take a patient’s mind off the humiliation of incontinence, the shame felt by some for being weak. I wash feet, endure court TV, and answer a daily barrage of the same question quite like a child’s “Are we there yet?” “Is he better?” “When can he go home?” “Is he gonna make it?”
I once hugged a man whose son ultimately died, a victim of a drunk driver. He told me that at the time, “Life sucked. It (the hug) picked me up. I knew someone really cared.”
Springsteen tells it right: “You might need somethin’ to hold on to When all the answers, they don’t amount to much Somebody that you can just talk to…a little of that human touch.”
In your new job, my friend, keep hugging.
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