Why we need a daily dose of touch: an investigation of the effects of touch on our physical and mental well-being. Although the therapeutic benefits of touch have become increasingly clear, American society, claims Tiffany Field, is dangerously touch-deprived. Many schools have “no touch” policies; the isolating effects of Internet-driven work and life can leave us hungry for tactile experience. In this book Field explains why we may need a daily dose of touch. The first sensory input in life comes from the sense of touch while a baby is still in the womb, and touch continues to be the primary means of learning about the world throughout infancy and well into childhood. Touch is critical, too, for adults' physical and mental health. Field describes studies showing that touch therapy can benefit everyone, from premature infants to children with asthma to patients with conditions that range from cancer to eating disorders. This second edition of Touch, revised and updated with the latest research, reports on new studies that show the role of touch in early development, in communication (including the reading of others' emotions), in personal relationships, and even in sports. It describes the physiological and biological effects of touch, including areas of the brain affected by touch, and the effects of massage therapy on prematurity, attentiveness, depression, pain, and immune functions. Touch has been shown to have positive effects on growth, brain waves, breathing, and heart rate, and to decrease stress and anxiety. As Field makes clear, we enforce our society's touch taboo at our peril.

A symposium titled, "Touch in Infancy" was held to celebrate the opening of the first Touch Research Institute in the world. Although touch is the largest sense organ in the body, it is the one that had been the most neglected and the only one to just recently have a research institute. Designed to conduct basic research on touch and on the skin, the institute will work with wellness programs such as massage therapy and other kinds of touch therapies to facilitate better health and to treat various diseases. The institute's opening symposium featured presentations from several of the world's leading experts in infant development. Published in this volume, their work addresses the relevance of touch to the neonate's well-being.

This book examines the research base of touch in massage therapy while linking the implications of these results to massage practice. It was written by the director of the world-renowned Touch Research Institute. Each chapter gives a clear and authoritative review of what is known about the effects of touch in a variety of clinical conditions. It specifically addresses the areas of stress reduction, pain reduction, growth and development, immune functions, and auto-immune disorders.

Children are already learning at birth, and they develop and learn at a rapid pace in their early years. This provides a critical foundation for lifelong progress, and the adults who provide for the care and the education of young children bear a great responsibility for their health, development, and learning. Despite the fact that they share the same objective - to nurture young children and secure their future success - the various practitioners who contribute to the care and the education of children from birth through age 8 are not acknowledged as a workforce unified by the common knowledge and competencies needed to do their jobs well. Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8 explores the science of child development, particularly looking at implications for the professionals who work with children. This report examines the current capacities and practices of the workforce, the settings in which they work, the policies and infrastructure that set qualifications and provide professional learning, and the government agencies and other funders who support and oversee these systems. This book then makes recommendations to improve the quality of professional practice and the practice environment for care and education professionals. These detailed recommendations create a blueprint for action that builds on a unifying foundation of child development and early learning, shared knowledge and competencies for care and education professionals, and principles for effective professional learning. Young children thrive and learn best when they have secure, positive relationships with adults who are knowledgeable about how to support their development and learning and are responsive to their individual progress. Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8 offers guidance on system changes to improve the quality of professional practice, specific actions to improve professional learning systems and workforce development, and research to continue to build the knowledge base in ways that will directly advance and inform future actions. The recommendations of this book provide an opportunity to improve the quality of the care and the education that children receive, and ultimately improve outcomes for children.

John Bowlby demonstrates the devastating effects on children of maternal deprivation - effects that ripple through the generations as neglected children often become neglectful parents.

You can still work and be a great parent! Most modern parents work. And we have limited time, limited energy, limited patience and too much to do. We are seldom at our best at the end of a long working day when the parenting shift kicks in. We want to do the right thing but, in the thick of it, with no time to think and no energy to spare, it’s easy to miss the small changes that could make a big difference to our child’s (and our own) well-being. The Work/Parent Switch is essential reading for every working parent. Written by an expert in child development and psychology who has worked with thousands of stressed out working parents, it will walk you through an approach to parenting that will transform family life and can be fitted into modern working patterns. Covering all the key challenges such getting everyone out of the house on time in the morning, managing difficult behaviour when you’re tired at the end of the day, controlling tech time and avoiding Sunday night homework battles, The Parent/Work Switch will help you to stop feeling guilty about being at work and give you the tools to create the family life you want to come home to.

A prominent psychologist known for her work on infant behavior and a science writer-photographer together provide a remarkable picture of infancy from the baby's own perspective.

Now part of a two-volume set, the fully revised and updated second edition of The Wiley-Blackwell Handbook of Infant Development, Volume 1: Basic Research provides comprehensive coverage of the basic research relating to infant development. Updated, fully-revised and expanded, this two-volume set presents in-depth and cutting edge coverage of both basic and applied developmental issues during infancy Features contributions by leading international researchers and practitioners in the field that reflect the most current theories and research findings Includes editor commentary and analysis to synthesize the material and provide further insight The most comprehensive work available in this dynamic and rapidly growing field

For the first time, the controversial issue of physical contact in the consulting room is explored by distinguished psychoanalysts and psychotherapists representing a diverse range of psychoanalytic viewpoints. The contributors focus on the unconscious meanings of touch, or absence of touch, or unwelcome touch, or accidental touch in the psychoanalytic clinical situation. There are plenty of clinical vignettes and the discussions are grounded in clinical experience. Out of all medical and therapeutic treatments, psychoanalysis remains one of the very few that uses no physical contact. Sigmund Freud stopped using the 'pressure technique' in the late 1890s, a technique whereby he would press lightly on his patient's head while insisting that they remembered forgotten events. He gave up this procedure in favour of encouraging free association, then listening and interpreting without touching his patient in any way. Psychoanalysis was born and the use of touch, as a technique reminiscent of hypnosis, was explicitly prohibited. The avoidance of physical contact between the analyst and patient was established as a key component of the classical rule of abstinence.

Out of all the human senses, touch is the one that is most often unappreciated, and undervalued. Yet, the surface of the human body, the skin, is actually one huge sheet of tactile receptors. It provides us with the means to connect with our surroundings. Despite the important role that vision plays in our everyday lives, it is the skin that constitutes both the oldest, and by far the largest of our sense organs. The skin protects our body from the external world and, at the same time, informs us about what occurs on its surface. In Touch With The Future explores the science of touch, bringing together the latest findings from cognitive neuroscience about the processing of tactile information in humans. The book provides a comprehensive overview of scientific knowledge regarding themes such as tactile memory, tactile awareness (consciousness), tactile attention, the role of touch in interpersonal and sexual interactions, and the neurological substrates of touch. It highlights the many ways in which our growing understanding of the world of touch can, and in some cases already are, being applied in the real world in everything from the development of virtual reality (VR) environments, tablet PCs, mobile phones, and even teledildonics - the ultimate frontier in terms of adult entertainment. In addition, the book shows how the cognitive neuroscience approach to the study of touch can be applied to help improve the design of many real-world applications/products as well as to many of our everyday experiences, such as those related to the appreciation of food, marketing, packaging design, the development of enhanced sensory substitution systems, art, and man-machine interfaces. Crucially, the authors makes a convincing argument for the view that one cannot really understand touch, especially not in a real-world context, without placing it in a multisensory context. That is, the senses interact to influence tactile perception in everything - from changing the feel of a surface or product by changing the sound it makes or the fragrance it has. For students and researchers in the brain sciences, this book presents a valuable and fascinating exploration into one of our least understood senses