Hands up everyone who shares a passion for the power of positive, nurturing touch! Get the date in the diary and plan your October Pro-Touch Ambassadors – register your interest New website launching Summer 2021 One Million Healing Hugs to launch October 2021 Raising Public Awareness – touch and connection therapies: free online libraries to share Fundraising and/or Volunteering across UK in October to celebrate and promote our amazing sector Now in year 4 – and with last years’ activities taken fully on-line – there are plans for a bigger and better (Covid-safe) campaign for October 2021 ..read more

We’re living through unprecedented times at the moment. Uncertainty is at an all-time high – no one knows what the world is going to look like tomorrow, yet alone in three weeks or months. It may sound trivial, but the lack - or even prohibition of - physical contact with other people during this period of social distancing can have a real impact on mental well-being, particularly if you live alone. Now that human touch is restricted, many people will start to feel psychologically isolated, emotionally un-held, mentally isolated, and socially excluded. For some, sadly this will be a trigger f ..read more

On January 19th 2018, as part of the ‘Niche Work If You Can Get It’ series, CPI Founder Kitty Mansfield was interviewed about cuddle therapy and professional cuddling. Professional cuddling is slowly becoming more accepted as a legitimate holistic therapy, in line with a growing body of scientific research, as mentioned by cultural commentator Karen Krizanovich in the show. We appreciate the BBC investigating the role of cuddle therapists but feel that there were some issues raised in the programme that warrant clarification. The host, Nick Baker, said he was worried about a “young person off ..read more

Loneliness is a misery faced by people of all ages and social groups, and it has a serious impact on our health as well as on our happiness. The causes of loneliness are complex, and up to now researchers have focused on the issue of older people and loneliness. Families break up as a result of divorce, children move away to work in other cities and even other countries, leaving their parents isolated in retirement. And of course, when you don’t go to work there is no longer any reason to go out every morning and people lose the daily social contact most of us experience in the workplace. How ..read more

Re-blogged from The Kindness Blog as written by John Tuite Touch could properly be regarded as a form of nutrition. We mistakenly think that touch occurs on the periphery of our self, a skin thing. But truthfully each surface stimulus travels far into the most hidden interior landscapes of our self, traversing long nerve cells right through the buried spinal core to enter and gather in the deep folds of our brain. It’s not by accident that our skin and brain each are generated from a single ectodermic substance, cascading outwards and inwards as we grow in the womb, because right at the very r ..read more

In January 2015 I was the first person in Europe to gain recognition of cuddling as a professional therapy for insurance purposes. In spite of much resistance from the insurance industry, I pushed and pushed and wasn't going to take no for an answer! My persistence paid off, and CPI can now offer its members professional insurance for their cuddle practice. Our insurance and therapist association partner provides insurance for Cuddle Therapy, Massage, Reiki, Healers, Reflexology, Acupuncture and practitioners of over 300 other therapies. The scope for treatments continually widens, higher stan ..read more

The science of touch convincingly suggests that we’re wired to—we need to—connect with other people on a basic physical level. To deny that is to deprive ourselves of some of life’s greatest joys and deepest comforts. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GW5p8xOVwRo ..read more

I've been a qualified holistic therapist for ten years, and I'm still constantly humbled by the power of touch to soothe and heal. While holistic massage has certainly helped my clients deal with their aches and pains, I always felt that there was a part of the jigsaw still missing. After much research into touch - its benefits, and the impact of deprivation - I decided to open BeSnuggled, the UK’s first professional cuddling service. It seems like such a logical and natural extension to my existing therapy practice, and arguably no more odd than having a stranger lying on my massage table in ..read more