Our society is suffering from chronic social isolation and touch deprivation and, to make matters worse, we have also sexualized touch. Touch deprivation is linked to anxiety, depression, aggression, stress, violent behavior, impulsiveness, low job performance, poor relational skills, and so on.

Sadly, many people in our society come from communities where they were never, or rarely, touched by their parents, family members, or friends or only experience touch through sex. There’s a better way. Cuddling provides mutually beneficial touch that many of us never received in the past or currently do not experience in the present. Much like yoga, meditation, and mindfulness, professional therapeutic touch through cuddling is healing and transformative when it happens in a respectful and emotionally safe way. The protocols Cuddlist teaches establish and preserve these conditions.