"In Touching, We Experience Encounter"

    

    

Doctors newspaper online, 12.10.2019

    

        
        
        

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interview

Christine Groß has been campaigning for years for hand weaving to remain recognized as a craft. Behind this is not just a passion from childhood. The former doctor and psychologist spoke with the "Ärzte Zeitung" about the connection between the hand and the brain.

By Susanne Werner

Ärzte Zeitung: Ms. Groß, we just shook hands in greeting, now I reach for the coffee cup with my hand. What's going on in my head?

© Susanne Werner

Christine Gross

• Doctor, graduate psychologist worked in research, management and teaching
• Hand weaving: For more than 15 years active in the association weaving +

Christine Groß: First something happens in her hand. Your head hardly needs to be active anymore. Thank God! The paths in her brain have long been laid. Our sense of touch already forms in the womb. Once we are in the world, we practice grasping. We open up the world with it. From these experiences develops our implicit knowledge that we are no longer aware of in everyday life. So they immediately know how to handle a coffee cup.

They have been making a strong commitment to hand weaving for years. This is unusual for a physician.

Large: This had initially biographical reasons. As a child, I have already learned several textile techniques and during my professional life, working with the fabrics and yarns was a balance for me. The fact that it also hides a medical theme was only clear to me when I read Richard Sennett's book "Handwerk".

The quote from the US sociologist and cultural philosopher is "The separation of head and hand ultimately harms the head."

Large: Yes, to the extent that we work with our hands, we train our brains. It is not just the hand that feels, the material also touches the hand. This is how an encounter takes place. For example, when we cook, we deal intensively with the ingredients – in an active way.

Why is it so important to work with the material?

Large: We can not live without activity. We need to continuously interact with our environment, understand it and determine the boundaries. The world experience has to be experienced and the hands play a big role. All this is shaped at the beginning of life. A child has to reach for a cup several times, until it learns how it no longer falls to the ground. In adulthood, gripping is a routine that requires little brain activity compared to the time of learning. This gives me new possibilities: While I routinely work with my hands and, for example, knit, other brain areas can be activated in which the thoughts are sorted out and creative solutions are developed.

There is a feeling today that we know a lot in society, but act little. Do you see an increasing blockage between hand and brain?

Large: It is a loss for me to use our hands less and less. I lose access to the world. There are certain time windows in child development in which the child should practice certain abilities and skills. Adults can catch up a bit later, but that's a lot harder.

The hands are therefore the basis of learning?

Large: In the interaction of the hands with the environment we understand the world. The left hand is usually practiced to hold something and develop strength, the right hand does the precision work.

The sense of sight alone is not enough. The eye can not grasp the materiality and can be deceived. A hand, on the other hand, is not easy to cheat on and it can not cheat. Musicians, for example, hear the sound when they move their hands and before they play it.

When we do something by hand, we develop our confidence in our own abilities. Learning by hand ranges from fine motor skills, to touching, to exploring the material, to spatial imagination, to patient practice and process thinking.

See also:
Healing Hands: The Charm of Touch

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