Touch and the permeability of self and world: A phenomenology of tactile experience in autism.
Qualitative Psychology July 20, 2026 Sofie Boldsen
This article examines how touch shapes the experience of self-world boundaries in autism. Analyzing eight autobiographical works by autistic authors, the author argues that tactile experience in autism often involves porous, permeable, and shifting boundaries between self and world. Touch can enable both pleasurable merging with surroundings and terrifying undifferentiation, and tactile practices may help modulate felt connectedness to a sensorially overwhelming world. Countering the trope of autistic withdrawal, the author repositions autism as an intensified mode of being in touch with the world, offering both attunement and vulnerability, and contributing to the phenomenology of touch.