Chapter 15

That afternoon, after Tom and Lynette had returned home, Tom told Angela what had happened to him in the Avery class.

“Oh, Tom!” Angela exclaimed when he told her about how he had felt about the holding of hands and how the touching made him begin to have signs of anxiety.

“But it wasn’t at all like the panic I used to get, Mom,” he assured her. “This was more of a feeling of ... discomfort ... anxiety, I guess. I was really uncomfortable at first, and as I tried to push that feeling away, only then did I start to get the anxious feelings. The touching didn’t start the feeling. It started when ... um ... like when I tried ... yeah, when I tried to deny the anxiety. Maybe my body knew something was wrong, it didn’t want the intimate touching ... maybe it was too intimate for me ... and when I tried to damp down how I felt, my body hit me with a way it knew would stop me from any further touching.”

Angela hugged Tom. “Honey, that was a wonderful explanation; it looks like you have a pretty good handle on figuring out your own responses to emotional feelings. But how do you feel about touching other people and having them touch you?”

Tom shrugged. “Jeez, I never gave it any thought at all before this. I’m fine with hugging. Hey, I even hug back some of Lynette’s friends when they hug me ... Lynnie, some of your friends are comin’ on to me, you know,” he teased.

She shoved him playfully. “Yeah, and I’ll scratch out their eyes if they try anything more than hugs...!”

Tom went on thoughtfully. “Yeah, some of the guys on my track team hugged me after I had a good race time—we slapped each other on the arses too, all in fun; that’s fine; doesn’t bother me. Say, I told Darden—she’s our counselor—that I maybe I can’t handle being even a little intimate with a girl without having a psychological or maybe emotional attraction to her. I love Lynette so, so much that in my deepest thoughts, I must feel that any kind of intimacy with someone else is betraying her.”

“Oh, Tommie, that’s so sweet,” Lynette murmured as she hugged him and Angela smiled at them both.

“You know, Tom, that sounds exactly right!” Angela exclaimed. “Maybe you’re reacting to a challenge to your commitment to Lynette, not some kind of psych problem.”

Lynette broke in then and began telling her mom about her own experience.

“Yeah, Mom, I kinda felt a little like Tom, doing that stuff. The part we were doing this morning was a bonding exercise and had us first holding hands, then stroking each other’s hands, telling the boy things about me, then we were supposed to embrace each other ... doing that hand-holding and stroking felt so friggin’ awkward and uncomfortable to me; then when the embracing was started, that was getting way too intimate for me and it suddenly occurred to me that if I was feeling like that, what about Tom? Then all hell broke loose and Tom went running out... HOLY SHIT!” she broke off.

“Lynette! Language!” Angela chided gently. “What did you think of? I know when your light bulb goes on, darling.”

“Yeah Mom, that’s it! Why Tom reacted; I kinda reacted to that also. Those bonding exercises? Our holding hands, caressing them, sitting close and chatting quietly about private little things—all that—Tom and I—we’ve been doing all that together since forever! Oh shi ... Sorry. Years ago, Tom and I must have bonded intimately, just like in the Avery Program, but exclusively. We’ve always loved each other ... since we first met but our ... what?—yeah, our psyches must have bonded and our bodies must have reacted to having the wrong person doing the stuff with us that bonded us together. I was just uncomfortable doing it with another guy ‘cause it just felt so wrong. Apparently when Tom feels something wrong so deeply, he panics or something—he’s learned that as a defensive measure. Right, Mom? Tom?”

While Lynette was talking, Angela was staring at her in awe. When Lynette finished, Angela could hardly express herself, her chest had swelled with love and admiration for her daughter. Meanwhile Tom, who had been listening raptly, responded.

“Damn, sis, that’s perfect ... sounds like you figured it out—again! Yeah, sure I remember how we sat ... hours sometimes, just stroking each other’s hands while watching tv or talking while sitting so close I could feel your breathing ... No, that’s why I can’t do that with anyone else. Doing that with another person was just wrong!”

Angela had recovered her voice. “My god, darling, that was so incredibly perceptive. If you want to consider careers, you’d make an awesome psychiatrist or psychologist.”

Lynette blushed and whispered. “Thanks, Mom.”

Tom wondered, “Well, Darden told us she’d have to redo our schedules now. But I wonder if they’ll try to get me to do it again.”

Angela grinned mirthlessly. “Well, I’m certain we’ll hear from the school pretty soon. Don’t worry about it, honey, okay?”

Tom nodded.

Three days after Tom’s aborted Avery class session, Hanford assembled a group to discuss how to deal with Tom’s problem in the Avery Program. In addition to Mrs Darden, the school counselor, he had arranged with the Education Authority to have Dr Marjory Seetis attend, she was a psychologist from the Department for Education and was a member of the National Program Committee. She had been involved with the Avery Program’s replacement of the Naked in School Program. Also attending were Miss Gunson together with Mr Turner and Mrs Robbins, two teachers who had conducted the most Avery Program sessions.

Hanford opened the meeting, introducing everyone to Dr Seetis.

“So first I want Dr Seetis to listen to our description and impressions of what happened before she addresses our issue. Dr Seetis, I want you to see how we view the problem first and then have you take over the discussion. Is that satisfactory?”

“Yes, that will work,” she agreed. “Let me know the situation’s background and how you’ve dealt with any similar cases. You told me when I rang you back to arrange this meeting that it was about a touch-shy pupil.”

Hanford nodded. “Yes. Thanks. The issue actually involves a case of extreme touch-shyness and nothing like it has come up before in our Avery sessions. As well, I’ve reviewed all of the materials we have from Avery University and find that there’s no mention of dealing with what seems to be a case of intractable touch-avoidance in a pupil. The Avery Program has a protocol for dealing with touch-avoidance; in fact, Miss Denise Roberts actually developed it. She taught it to several of our teachers and it’s been successfully used and improved at the beginning of our pilot program last spring. But that protocol didn’t work for this particular pupil last week. Miss Gunson, can you describe what happened?”

Gunson gave a brief description of her observation of Tom’s class session and concluded by telling the group what Julie had reported to her.

She finished, “Now even though this was one of Julie’s first interventions, she’s quite perceptive and resourceful, but our mentors have been drilled not to, erm... ‘wing it,’ as they say, and they know that they must stick to the techniques which we know have worked in prior sessions. In fact, Julie remembered what Amelia Hadad had accomplished last spring with a religious Muslim girl and she tried that technique too, but to no avail.”

Mrs Darden asked, “For cases of children who are touch-shy, it seems that with a little coaching and encouragement, they can mostly overcome it, right?”

“Yes, that’s always been the case, up to now,” Mr Turner agreed. “When we were trained during the school’s first round of Avery classes, we were told that some degree of touch-shyness can occur in about 5 to 7 percent of kids. The uni students who worked with us during our training mentioned that most cases are mild, and that’s been my personal experience as well. We’ve only had two pupils last spring who we had to remove from the program for psychological reasons, one had a mild form of autism and has hypersensitivity to various stimuli like touch and the other pupil has moderate behavior problems. We didn’t risk putting that second one in the Avery Program because he was somewhat antisocial; he’s subsequently been diagnosed as having a social anxiety disorder. Since both pupils were receiving special ed lessons, we decided that we could leave them out of the required Avery sessions. But the pupil we’re meeting about, Tom Armstrong, he appears to be a normal teenager—with the possible exception of his having those letters in his file asking for exemptions in using the locker room and shower.”

Darden nodded. “I recall from my psych classes that the children with more severe forms of social problems are easy to spot since they exhibit other behavioral issues. Fortunately they’re somewhat rare, like that one antisocial pupil from last spring. And teachers deal with autistic children fairly frequently these days. But Tom Armstrong seems totally normal. The letters from his prior therapists deny any forms of a social anxiety disorder, only a phobia concerning being naked. Apparently that’s why his parents switched his school to Norwich.”

Hanford took over the discussion. “I believe this summarizes the incident, but we’re starting to stray into theorizing and conjecture. Dr Seetis, perhaps now is a good time to tell us if we’ve missed anything.”

Dr Seetis looked around the group. They were watching her intently.

“I can see from your expressions that you expect me to work miracles and give you advice to make everything good again. Psychology isn’t only a science; it’s also a bit of an art and requires intuition as well, so there’s no standard recipe for handling every diagnosis—and the actual diagnosis may only be a choice from among several related options. You mentioned a number of psych terms: phobia, touch-shyness, social anxiety disorder. I think a review of those terms and how they might apply here might help; that is, help in understanding what I believe your issue might be.

“We all know that some people don’t like to be touched. Mr ... ah, Turner mentioned a number, 5 to 7 percent, that’s the population of adolescents who exhibit some degree of aversion to being touched, over a mild to severe spectrum. You all probably know that a child who’s touch-averse typically seems distant in interpersonal relationships; they act aloof from others. There exists a disorder where the person is simply hypersensitive to being touched, that’s called allodynia, a painful touch—that’s a neurological problem, obviously not the case here. The mild form of touch-aversion may be a discomfort of someone getting inside a person’s ‘personal space’”—she made finger quotes—”but in its more severe form, the reluctance is regarded as a phobia and has a variety of names: touch avoidance or tactile defensiveness; the technical terms are chiraptophobia, aphenphosmphobia, or haphephobia; there are a few other Greek names for it too. Those hard-to-spell names add gravitas to psychologists’ diagnoses, don’t you know.”

Everyone laughed.

“Those are different names for basically the same disorder, it’s regarded as one of the specific phobias falling into the general group of social phobias. Some experts seem to regard it as a subtype of sensory defensiveness; you probably can see why.

“So enough with technical definitions. I think I’ve heard enough about this young man, enough to believe that he doesn’t fit into the usual picture of people who exhibit touch avoidance. In general, the most common forms of touch-avoidance are found in autistic people, as Mr Turner mentioned. These people dislike touching because of their inability to filter out physical sensations. In a word, as Mr Turner said, they’re hypersensitive. Touch aversion is also associated with premature birth, but this is mostly seen in babies and young children. Its major precipitating cause in the general population is as a reaction to physical abuse; touch-aversion can develop in children or adults as a result of inappropriate sexual or non-sexual touching. I’m guessing that the young man’s records don’t indicate any information which suggests that kind of history.”

Hanford shook his head. “No. And I interviewed the family in January and found them to be quite open and outgoing, while Tom Armstrong seemed to have an engaging and friendly personality.”

Seetis nodded. “Excellent. Then from what I’m hearing, we can rule out other frequent diagnoses which involve intimacy, those personality disorders like avoidant personality disorder or schizophrenia, I think. People with those disorders will avoid contact with others for many reasons but also because they may fear being touched. From your description, Tom Armstrong appears to be ‘normal’”—she made air-quotes—”in all respects but touching.”

Miss Gunson replied. “From what Julie, the session’s mentor, reported, Tom’s had no problems whatsoever in touching contact with either sex. Julie told me that she spent about six weeks this summer with Tom as members of a group of two dozen pupils on a cultural program traveling in Europe. In that group setting, he was totally comfortable interacting with everyone the whole time. He was outgoing and friendly and certainly wasn’t averse to casual touching and hugging, she told me. He reacted only when he was in the Avery Program class setting.”

“Did you notice any overt physical signs of distress with him in that Avery class?” Seetis asked her.

“Oh yes,” Gunson answered. “He was pale and sweating. Trembling, too. I watched when his partner was trying to get him to hold her hands. His body was rigid and his arms were shaking.”

“That fits a classic panic reaction, actually,” Seetis replied. “People react, here’s the laundry list, with panting, dizziness, rapid breathing, shaking, irregular heartbeat, sweating, nausea, intense fear, dry mouth, and an inability to articulate words or sentences...”

“That too,” Gunson broke in.

Seetis frowned. “Sorry? What do you mean?”

“The inability to articulate words or sentences. Tom was having difficulty expressing himself to me.”

Seetis nodded. “Yes. Classic panic. And from the boy’s records, he also panics if he’s naked?”

Hanford shook his head. “Not quite. It appears he panics on just seeing someone naked. His last school had to keep him away from any of the participants chosen for doing the Naked in School Program.”