#7 - How Touch Shapes Our Relationships
/Touch is both essential and complicated.
In this episode, Kelly and Nyssa explore touch as a human need—how it can be both deeply healing and highly charged.
The discussion moves through consent, subjectivity, non-sexual touch, and how cultural conditioning has shaped the way bodies relate to one another.
Drawing from bodywork, psychotherapy, Thai massage, and lived experience, the episode names touch as a form of communication that can support healing, connection, and dialogue.
Main Topics Covered:
Why touch is politicized, sexualized, and often misunderstood, especially in Western culture
The importance of consent, communication, and clear boundaries in both professional and personal touch
How their work as a psychotherapist, acupuncturist, and massage therapist shapes the way they think about safe, attuned touch
The developmental impact of early touch (and lack of it), including attachment and our capacity for empathy
The philosophy and practice of Thai massage as a form of slow, negotiated, non-sexual touch that can deepen connection between partners, family members, and friends
How expanding our “touch menu” can make it easier to ask for non-sexual touch and potentially even strengthen or “save” relationships
Links:
Thai Massage Workshop at Gaze Hot Yoga, Feb. 21, 2026: https://www.nyssahanger.com/workshops
