Since the practice of physiotherapy emerged as a field based largely on manual work with the body, it has become problematic to find a formula in which touch and corporeality in therapy would not have sexual connotations. Physiotherapy is nowadays classified in the so-called bodywork category, where the body is, on the one hand, the physiotherapist’s working tool and, on the other, the object of work (Krzesicka 2019; Twigg et al. 2011). The issues of desexualisation of the body and the therapeutic relationship remain quite relevant and have been reflected in the biomedical approach, rooted in the Cartesian concept of the body-as-machine. In this way, the practice of physiotherapy came closer to the model of doctors’ work: the therapy was set on a couch either in a hospital environment or in a desensitised office, and physiotherapists donned uniforms—medical gowns (Gimlin 2007; Nicholls and Holmes 2012). Meanwhile, current philosophical discourse and the social sciences tend to consider embodiment to a much bigger extent from a phenomenological perspective, following Merleau-Ponty in recognizing the experience of the body as an essential element of perception and a way of being-in-the-world, and even “that the bodily-self constitutes the most fundamental form of the conscious mind” (Przybylski 2015, 55–56; Długołęcka 2019). And, consequently, the issues of embodiment and the relationship to one’s own body and to the body of another person are of integral importance to both parties involved in the physiotherapy encounter, albeit differing in their social roles.

While corporeality is an inseparable part of the sense of identity, touch, in Ratcliffe’s (2012) terms, determines body awareness. Touch carries the meanings given to it by the toucher and the touched person. It can be a means of expression of “giving”: care, tenderness, love, safety, presence; on the other hand, it can also express “taking”: desire, appropriation, domination, violence. In physiotherapy, touch is an indispensable diagnostic and therapeutic tool.

In the context of a physiotherapy session, two categories of touch may be distinguished: therapeutic touch, which includes diagnostic, intervention, accompanying, and informative types of touch, and non-therapeutic touch, which includes caring touch, relationship building, and preparation of the patient (Przyłuska-Fiszer and Wójcik 2020; Davin et al. 2019). On the other hand, in a meta-ethnographic study comprehensively covering the health professions (nursing, medicine, physiotherapy, osteopathy, counselling, psychotherapy, and dentistry) Kelly et al. (2018) hypothesized that touch in the therapeutic relationship can be: “(I) an expression of caring or (II) demonstration of power, and that it (III) requires safe space.” By investigating the importance of touch in particular fields, they have established that (in the opinion of patients or therapists) touch plays a therapeutic role in physiotherapeutic and osteopathic practice because it is a tool for communication and for showing care intended to establish a relationship, giving a sense of security (Kelly et al. 2018). Touch carries with it the meanings given to it by the person doing the touching and the one being touched, but the same act of touching can acquire different meanings for the two persons (and another meaning for the person who observes from the outside). By accepting touch, an internal calculation is made, on the basis of which the acceptability of the touch is assessed. As criteria for this calculation, Heslin and Alper (1982 as cited in Benjamin and Sohnen-Moe 2013, 134) specify the following: What part of the other person’s body is touched? What part of my body is touched? How long does the touch last? What is the strength of the touch? Was there any movement after the contact was made? Is anyone witnessing the touch and if so, who? What is the relationship between me and the person who is touching me? What situation did the touch take place in? What words accompany the touch? What non-verbal behaviour accompanies it? What are my past experiences with the person who is touching me?

One important area of analysis in this paper will be the importance that respondents ascribe to touch, the extent to which they distinguish between different modalities of the tactile relationship, and whether they have experiences (and which ones) of crossing boundaries within touch.

Intimacy, in general, means something of very personal nature. Edward T. Hall has defined intimate social distance, under which he included the distance of sexual activity, wrestling, protecting, and comforting (Hall 1990, 117–118). The category of intimacy can be interpreted much more broadly, as the hard-to-define privacy of inner life, probably best described by Mariola Bieńko (2013, 10):

The essence of intimacy is inaccessibility due to the subjectivity and uniqueness of experiences. It is a sphere of the most inner and often undisclosed sensations, quite difficult to express, an individual’s own secret history, a fragile social relationship that requires both a plan and a strategy, as well as discretion and tact to survive in its unique and exceptional nature. One could risk the thesis that it does not require a definition at all, as it is felt, practised and ultimately discursively inexpressible.