Touch starvation, also known as touch deprivation or skin hunger, is the physiological need by humans and other species for physical contact with their own species or other living beings. Its prolonged absence can have traumatic impacts on an individual's emotional, physical, and/or mental well-being. Absence can lead to or be exacerbated by loneliness and/or existing depressive symptoms. Though non-human therapies are thought to provide some supplemental benefit, lack of physical human contact is stated to be severely harmful to one's confidence, emotional regulation, and self image, especially during the early childhood development window.
Biological explanation
Touch is often referred to as the "mother of all the senses" due to it being the first sense to develop (as it develops in the womb) and is cited to be the most crucial for human development. At birth, humans receive all sensory input from their skin, and constantly require new feedback in order to support the proper biochemical development of the brain. Ashley Montagu was the first to argue against the predominant view that animals lick their young immediately after birth in order to groom them; he argued, instead, that close, consistent physical contact served to stimulate the infant's respiratory and digestive systems, and that without such stimulation they would die. Humans receive this stimulation in the womb and birth canal and thus don't require it. The pleasurable experience of positive touch has, in recent decades, been attributed to a nerve fiber known as the C-tactile (CT) afferent; it's found in hairy skin and observes a preferential reaction to stimuli from other people. Reciprocal touch and social interaction are critical to the biological function of most all complex life in much the same way as food or water. Helen Colton first made this point in 1983, stating that humans are born with "an intense 'skin hunger.'" Their work cited the 1966 scholarship of Sidney Jourard which "suggested that Americans are raised to think that touch must be either aggressive or sexual," and thus were hesitant to openly engage in positive physical contact with anyone other than sexual partners.
Social "craving" Social interaction acts as a "primary reward" in social animals, and its restriction can cause altered or depressed behavior. A 2020 study published in Nature Neuroscience found a distinction between the striatal and cortical regions' responses to social vs. nutritional/appetitive craving (meaning the two do not originate from the same source). It further found that deprivation narrows the window of motivation, leading researchers to conclude that social isolation leads to social-craving (and thus, eventually, "social-starvation") in much the same way that abstaining from food/nutrition induces regular "hunger" and thus, eventually, "starvation".
Along the same line of reasoning, prolonged abstinence or restriction from physical contact can lead to similar consequences. Touch from another person (or, to a lesser extent, other living creatures) sends signals from the skin to the vagus nerve which triggers the release of oxytocin, serotonin, and dopamine in the brain. This in turn helps to reduce stress through the inhibition of and restriction on the production of cortisol, which regulates stress. A person's blood pressure is reduced and their heart rate and nervous system slow; symptoms of loneliness and depression improve. Physical contact is critical to the development of social bonds and relationships on some level in almost every culture worldwide; its absence for long periods of time, even when offset by social interaction in other spheres, can have serious consequences on a person's emotional regulation and stress-hormone balance, with psychological damage building over extended periods of restriction. Individuals with greater sensitivity to touch, such as special needs or neurodivergent persons (especially children), trauma victims, veterans, survivors of sexual or physical abuse, or hypochondriacs may be averse to physical contact and social interaction. They may wish to restrict either to certain degrees of interaction, persons, or parts of the body. Unwanted touch can thus sometimes have the opposite of its generally assumed effect, triggering severe anxiety, stress, or fear, in some cases to such a degree that it produces a fight-or-flight response. Therapy for these individuals is nonetheless suggested by specialists to allow for some affective reciprocal physical contact, if nonetheless limited, as touch can still be beneficial if proper steps are taken to address the particular interests, restrictions, and needs of the person involved.
Scholarship and cultural/circumstantial role American scholarship from the late-20th century forward has promoted the need for increased physical touch among loved ones and in society at large. It also supports the notion that humans have historically understood the connection between physical touch and healing. A 1995 study published in the Journal of Psychosomatic Research suggested that touch and the development of a healthy relationship with touch plays a critical role in the development of proper self image, particularly one's body image. Its focus was the perceived sense of touch deprivation as felt between women with bulimia nervosa versus a control group, which found that the former were more likely to have a worse self-image and to consider themselves to have experienced tactile deprivation in childhood and be experiencing such deprivation at the time of the study.
Physical touch and age
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