[Between body and soul: touch]

A proverb from the Middle Ages says "hand games, naughty games". We would like to reverse it to "hands on games, good games" and show that, from the beginning to the end of life, touch, when practiced with tact, is care. In psychiatry, it takes on the specific meaning of listening, without any preconceived judgment or ideological or normative a priori: taking care, care rather than cure. It is futile to claim to treat mental illness without understanding the singular history of each of those affected. Already in the 18th century, Philippe Pinel and his assistant Jean-Baptiste Pussin had understood this: care is at the source of the "moral treatment of the insane", itself at the origin of institutional psychotherapy. A brief detour through the Middle Ages and the practice of thaumaturgy would confirm that the hand, more than any other sense, is healing.