I started out in 2004 as a massage therapist and holistic tutor. I loved the work, and I kept noticing the same thing. People didn't only need their muscles looked after. They needed to be touched kindly, with no agenda, by someone who had been trained to do it well.
For years I worked on bodies on a massage table. Slowly I noticed that what people needed most wasn't always in the muscles. They needed someone to be present and kind with them, with no agenda and no expectation. They could rarely find that anywhere.
Touch was the one thing people were most starved of and least able to ask for. Anything that came close was either clinical or tangled up with something else. Nobody was offering safe, consensual, non-sexual touch as a proper profession, with training, boundaries and standards behind it.
That was when it clicked. This didn't need to be awkward or secretive. It needed to be done well, and somebody needed to build the structure. So in 2016 I started the first cuddle therapy business in Europe. Plenty of people raised an eyebrow. I understood why. Platonic touch was an uncomfortable subject, and almost nobody was teaching it properly.
So I built the structure the field was missing. In 2016 I launched the first accredited training course for professional cuddlers. It grew into Cuddle Professionals International (CPI), the training, accreditation and membership body for cuddle therapists. CPI is an approved training provider with the Complementary Medical Association and the International Institute of Complementary Therapists.
Today I train practitioners, set standards and talk openly about why safe, consensual touch matters. I'm also a partner of the Pro-Touch Movement, which champions the role of touch in health and wellbeing.
I've been on the radio, on TV and in print explaining all of this. I'm happy to do it again.
Want me to speak at your event or talk to your audience? Get in touch.
