Every person has the need to be recognized by other people, and every person has the need to do something with the time between birth and death. 

The hunger for touch and recognition can be appeased with strokes.  STROKES can be given in the form of actual physical touch or by some symbolic form of recognition suck as a look, a word, a gesture, or any act that that says “I know you’re there.”

People’s hunger for strokes often determines what they do with their time.  they may, for example, spend minutes, hours or a lifetime trying to get strokes in many ways. 

The lack of sufficient stroke always has a detrimental effect on people.  Athough either negative or positive strokes may stimulate an infant’s body chemistry, it takes positive stroke to develop emotioanlly healthy persons with a sense of OKness.  Positive strokes range in value from the minimal maintenance of a “hello” to the depth encounter of intimacy.

When strokes are positive, they leave the person feeling good, alive, alert, and significant.  At a greater depth they enhance the individual’s sense of well being, endorse the person’s intelligence, and are often pleasurable.  The feelings beneath are feelings of goodwill and convey that I’m OK.  If the stroking is authentic, and not overdone, it nourishes a person.  The individual’s winning strek is expanded.

So which stroke have you received and how does it affect you?