Presence Touch
Presence Touch in Basel, Switzerland
Presence Touch is a gentle, trauma-informed, presence-based form of bodywork in Basel, Switzerland. Sessions are in English and provide a safe, compassionate space for expats and locals who are seeking stress relief, trauma healing, nervous system regulation, and a deeper connection with themselves.
What is Presence Touch?
Presence Touch is a heart-centered, non-doing, nondual form of healing touch. When the practitioner makes conscious contact from a foundational state of inner presence, resting in the living stillness that permeates all things, touch becomes a bridge of resonance toward remembered wholeness, soul alignment, and the embodied evolution of consciousness.
As the practitioner attunes inwardly, reposing in the deep heart's core, the bodies of practitioner and recipient naturally move into processes of settling, reorganization, healing, and the integration of fragmentation.
This is a meditative touch that supports the remembrance of wholeness.
How Sessions Support You
Presence Touch is a whole body, whole being process where we collaborate with the creative forces that form the body. It is not a symptom-oriented, medical, or fixing approach. Rather, it is a touch-based communion with Life and Love, supporting you in your embodiment, awakening, healing, and evolution.
I don't heal you in these sessions. I enter a deep state of inner presence and contact your body from that state, supporting your body's intelligence and inherent healing capacity in its relationship with the potency of Life.
Receiving skillful, compassionate touch in a space of grounded heart presence can have profound implications for:
Shifting patterns
Entering deep rest and rejuvenation
Nervous system regulation
Trauma healing and integration
Expanding consciousness
Returning to the remembrance of wholeness
In a relational field that respects and honors your body's intelligence, safety, healing, and homeostasis are possible. Beyond practitioner and recipient, we relax into the perfect holding of Life.
What to Expect in a Presence Touch Session
Sessions are held in Basel, Switzerland, in English. Recipients remain fully clothed and receive touch while lying on a massage table. Each session lasts one hour and provides a calm, nurturing environment for expats and locals seeking trauma-informed touch, somatic healing, nervous system regulation, and movement toward greater wholeness.
Relational Presencing as a Companion Practice
Presence Touch sessions are mostly silent. However, the recipient is encouraged to trust their intuitive knowing, including when bringing verbal expression to their process may be supportive.
If invited, I will guide trauma integration verbally when the specificity of Relational Presencing is called for, as we together host, witness, digest, and integrate your experiences with loving awareness.
Once experiences that may require verbal relational presence settle, we'll transition again into silence and Presence Touch.
Presence Touch and Collective Healing
Presence Touch is not limited to individual sessions. At its heart, it is a communal practice, a way of sharing touch that reawakens our innate capacity for healing and transformation.
Four-Hand Sessions
Alongside individual sessions, my wife and I offer four-hand sessions, where two practitioners work together with one recipient. This creates a uniquely rich and supportive field, especially supportive for deep nervous system regulation and early attachment repair.
Paired Sessions for Couples, Friends, or Pairs
We also hold paired sessions for couples, friends, or any pair, where two recipients receive Presence Touch simultaneously. Each person is individually supported while also sharing in the experience together. These formats open the door to a wider, more relational way of healing.
Presence Touch as a Community Practice
When extended further into community, Presence Touch, especially when accompanied by Relational Presencing, generates a potent collective field. Within this field, practitioners and recipients co-create a space that can hold, witness, and co-digest layers of both personal and collective trauma. Practicing communally restores our sense of belonging, reminding us that wholeness is interdependent. When we heal in community, we also heal the communities we live in, here in Basel and beyond.
Origins of Presence Touch
I developed Presence Touch with my partner Miriam Kislak as an evolution of how we offer touch rooted in the wisdom of our bodies, heart-centered presence, and the embodied transmission of our animistic ancestors. It is also influenced and informed by our training in Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy and Stillness Touch.
I acknowledge the roots of craniosacral work in indigenous wisdom and indigenous healing arts, with its modern emergence growing out of osteopathy and including ongoing discoveries in the fields of psychology, embryology, human development, and neuroscience.
I honor the indigenous and tribal ways of knowing and healing through this kind of touch that have either been lost to history, suppressed, or not widely known in Western society. I also honor the contributions to this field of work by the teachers, guides, and practitioners of cranial osteopathy, craniosacral biodynamics, Stillness Touch, as well as a variety of religious and spiritual traditions.
Presence Touch connects me more directly to the embodied heart-wisdom of my Finnic tribal ancestors and the Mystery of Life in a way less steeped in the predominantly Judeo-Christian metaphorical language represented in the craniosacral, biodynamic, and post-biodynamic fields.
I believe this kind of meditative touch is our birthright, and part of my mission is to make it more accessible for anyone to receive and give.
Frequently Asked Questions about Presence Touch in Basel
Is Presence Touch the same as massage or therapy?
No. Presence Touch is not a massage or medical therapy. It is a gentle, trauma-informed, presence-based form of bodywork that supports the body's intelligence for healing, regulation, and wholeness.
What should I wear to a Presence Touch session?
You remain fully clothed during the session. Comfortable clothing is recommended so you can fully relax while lying on the massage table.
Do you offer sessions for couples or groups?
Yes. In addition to individual sessions, I offer four-hand sessions (two practitioners with one recipient) and paired sessions for couples, friends, or other pairs. Larger community practices are also available through group work with Presence Touch and Relational Presencing.
Do I need to speak German for a Presence Touch session in Basel?
No. All sessions are offered in English. Many of my clients are expats and internationals living in Basel who appreciate having a healing space where they can fully relax into their own language.
What can Presence Touch help with?
Presence Touch can support stress relief, trauma healing and integration, nervous system regulation, deep rest, and a greater sense of embodiment and wholeness. It is not symptom-oriented or medical treatment, but many people experience profound personal healing and transformation through this work.
Where in Basel are the sessions held?
Sessions are held near Wettstein, in a shared practice space with other healing professionals.
Heart of Touch
A Relational Presence Touch Training
Heart of Touch - Level 1
A four-day training process facilitated by Miriam Kislak and Adam Sippola. The Heart of Touch training teaches participants to cultivate body awareness and inner stillness through Inner Presence meditation, practice heart-centered, non-doing touch with Presence Touch, and deepen relational awareness and authentic connection through Relational Presencing. These practices offer a pathway to healing, transformation, and wholeness.
Designed for those committed to cultivating personal and communal health and harmony, this training welcomes caregivers, bodyworkers, healers, guides, and adults wishing to learn how to touch and relate from an embodied and grounded presence.