|
more or less absent in or during the A. A person may experience disorders because he does not know or listen to what he really wants to do, because he does not dare or is not able to take the initiative, or because he only wants to do good and finds it difficult to receive from others. In more serious situations this may result in, for example, a fear of failure or even symptoms of a depressive nature. In society, which focuses in particular on effect and performance, we have many contact in our daily interactions with each other, as stated before. However, they often concern functional contacts, for example expressing one’s appreciation of the other by a pat on the back as a reward for a positive end result. Haptonomy does not really focus on this form of functional contact, but more on the emotional contact that affects our mind. These affective contacts in particular determine the self-fulfilment and personal well-being of people.
If this affective confirmation has been more or less absent in or during the process of growing up, this may affect a harmonious development of one’s emotional life. In this case the person in question will not have learned to develop his own abilities to start affective relations. This may mean that he will have to operate in society and in relationships in a rational way, which takes a lot of energy. If this is the case, this implies that he will always focus on matters of which he thinks that other people regard as important, even though he would like to focus on other matters. However, the need to be confirmed by others means that he ignores his own feelings. This conflict in himself, that is to say, always wanting to meet the so-called demands of others is a struggle that takes a lot of energy. One of the reasons that this behaviour occurs is that his welfare largely depends on how and to what extent he has learned to use his capacity to start affective relations and contacts. The following excerpt excellently describes the human capacity we are talking about. The story comes from a novel by Laurens Van der Post: Venture to the Interior. Veldman Sr, the founder of haptonomy, often uses this excerpt to explain the phenomenon of haptonomic contact.
|