About Us
Welcome to The Center For Haptic Healing
What Is Haptic Healing?
Haptic Healing at the Pottery Wheel™ (Haptic Healing) is the body-based, intentional and conscious practice of using clay and a pottery wheel to foster resilience and promote post-traumatic growth. (Haptic literally means “to touch,” and relates to any experience we have which is distinguished by touch, and especially the manipulation of objects.)
Haptic Healing uses clay and a potter’s wheel to reorganize and regulate the nervous system; reactivate the circuits in the brain responsible for pleasure and reward; improve thinking and focus; promote regaining a sense of control of one’s environment; provide grounding; reignite motivation; and integrate both hemispheres of the brain. Haptic Healing focuses on the hands as an alternative to talk.
This work finds common ground across independent disciplines, blending contemplative teachings, art, and science. By integrating art, mindfulness, and neurobiology, skilled instructors enrich their existing teaching practices and make their classes healing and trauma-informed.
What We Do
CHH also trains ceramics instructors to use trauma-informed, relational practices at the pottery wheel with the aim of creating trauma-informed spaces, nurturing resilience, and promoting post-traumatic growth.
Read more here.
Our Philosophy
As a teaching method and healing modality that fosters collaboration, empowerment, connection, and psycho-social responsiveness, Haptic Healing at the Pottery Wheel has the power to change the way we view and relate to one another as teachers, students, and members of the human family. Ceramicists have at their disposal tools they can and should use for healing. What most ceramicists know—feel—about the therapeutic effects of throwing clay implicitly, they can make explicit through the practices of Haptic Healing at the Pottery Wheel. You don’t have to be a therapist to be therapeutic—ceramicists can be healers.
Our Mission
The Center for Haptic Healing exists to support healing from trauma through embodied experiences with clay. We create direct opportunities for restoration, connection, and post-traumatic growth while training ceramic artists and educators to bring trauma-informed practices into their own communities.
Our Vision
Through our work, CHH seeks to:
- Expand access to embodied, clay-based experiences for people healing from trauma.
- Create spaces where survivors can experience restoration, agency, connection, and growth.
- Increase awareness of the ways trauma affects the body, relationships, and our capacity to feel safe and engaged.
- Broaden ideas about what healing can look like, including approaches that extend beyond traditional talk-based models.
- Partner with mission-driven organizations to bring Haptic Healing to communities affected by trauma.
- Train ceramic artists and educators to create relational, trauma-informed experiences rather than focusing solely on technical instruction.
- Build a connected community of Haptic Healing practitioners who can bring this work into more communities.
- Continually evolve our practices and training to be more inclusive, representative, accessible, and responsive to the people we serve.
Would you like to donate?
The Center for Haptic Healing (CHH) is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization. Contributions for the charitable purposes of CHH must be made payable to “Fractured Atlas” only and are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law.