Connecting Through Touch

From a founding member of the famous Esalen Massage program at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, CA, this book guides couples through a sensual and restorative massage exchange. This intimate practice can enhance communication, relieve stress and tension, and to bring more joy into readers lives thorough the healing power of touch.

Starting with a simple setting that can easily be accomplished with few special preparations, readers will learn, step-by-step, how to make a deep and meaningful connect with their partner's body. Using a combination of strokes from the most time-honored massage traditions, they will learn to be mindful of where their partner holds stress and tension. As the massage continues, readers will enter into a profound nonverbal dialogue with their partner, learning much from the simple act of contact with another body. All of the techniques are illustrated with black-and-white photographs. Elegant and refined, this book is a perfect gift for a special someone or a friend in love.

"I open the garden gate, which creaks on old, worn hinges. The rose garden is peaceful but not silent. Bird song and the buzz of bees provide nature's melody. Somewhere in the distance, gentle music is playing and it relaxes me." Namaste Care offers compassionate care to people with advanced dementia through sensory input, comfort and pleasure, combining music, therapeutic touch, colour, food and scents. With ready-to-use structured sensory stories that are specially designed for people with advanced dementia, A Namaste Care Activity Book invites you to enhance your care through storytelling and sensory stimuli. Early chapters give an overview of the approach, exploring the effects of sensory stimulation in improving quality of life. With contributions from professionals across the field, chapters describe ways to engage the different senses, including aromatherapy, food and memory and therapeutic use of lighting. These are followed by a selection of themed stories, with ideas for sensory activities to support each one. In addition to guides for Namaste Care sessions, the book provides a starting point for writing your own stories tailored to the person for whom you are caring. Inspiring creativity and confidence in delivering Namaste Care, the activities provide valuable guidance in caring for and improving the lives of people with advanced dementia.

This book explores the ways in which the broad range of technologies that make up the smart city infrastructure can be harnessed to incorporate more playfulness into the day-to-day activities that take place within smart cities, making them not only more efficient but also more enjoyable for the people who live and work within their confines. The book addresses various topics that will be of interest to playable cities stakeholders, including the human–computer interaction and game designer communities, computer scientists researching sensor and actuator technology in public spaces, urban designers, and (hopefully) urban policymakers. This is a follow-up to another book on Playable Cities edited by Anton Nijholt and published in 2017 in the same book series, Gaming Media and Social Effects.

A behavioral scientist explores love, belongingness, and fulfillment, focusing on how modern technology can both help and hinder our need to connect. A Next Big Idea Club nominee. Millions of people around the world are not getting the physical, emotional, and intellectual intimacy they crave. Through the wonders of modern technology, we are connecting with more people more often than ever before, but are these connections what we long for? Pandemic isolation has made us even more alone. In Out of Touch, Professor of Psychology Michelle Drouin investigates what she calls our intimacy famine, exploring love, belongingness, and fulfillment and considering why relationships carried out on technological platforms may leave us starving for physical connection. Drouin puts it this way: when most of our interactions are through social media, we are taking tiny hits of dopamine rather than the huge shots of oxytocin that an intimate in-person relationship would provide. Drouin explains that intimacy is not just sex—although of course sex is an important part of intimacy. But how important? Drouin reports on surveys that millennials (perhaps distracted by constant Tinder-swiping) have less sex than previous generations. She discusses pandemic puppies, professional cuddlers, the importance of touch, “desire discrepancy” in marriage, and the value of friendships. Online dating, she suggests, might give users too many options; and the internet facilitates “infidelity-related behaviors.” Some technological advances will help us develop and maintain intimate relationships—our phones, for example, can be bridges to emotional support. Some, on the other hand, might leave us out of touch. Drouin explores both of these possibilities.

Marriage should be based on love, right? But does it seem as though you and your spouse are speaking two different languages? #1 New York Times bestselling author Dr. Gary Chapman guides couples in identifying, understanding, and speaking their spouse's primary love language-quality time, words of affirmation, gifts, acts of service, or physical touch. By learning the five love languages, you and your spouse will discover your unique love languages and learn practical steps in truly loving each other. Chapters are categorized by love language for easy reference, and each one ends with simple steps to express a specific language to your spouse and guide your marriage in the right direction. A newly designed love languages assessment will help you understand and strengthen your relationship. You can build a lasting, loving marriage together. Gary Chapman hosts a nationally syndicated daily radio program called A Love Language Minute that can be heard on more than 150 radio stations as well as the weekly syndicated program Building Relationships with Gary Chapman, which can both be heard on fivelovelanguages.com. The Five Love Languages is a consistent New York Times bestseller - with over 5 million copies sold and translated into 38 languages. This book is a sales phenomenon, with each year outselling the prior for 16 years running!

This title is directed primarily towards health care professionals outside of the United States. This book is based on a three year qualitative study (a study that was funded by the United Kingdom Department of Health) that investigated how psychiatric nurses provided care for suicidal people. Drawing on service user data, this book contains and explains an evidence-based (empirically induced) theory of how to care for suicidal people. Far from being an esoteric theory with no clinical applicability, the findings captured in this book are grounded in the reality of day-to-day practice. Furthermore, in addition to tracing the role of nurses in caring for suicidal people, the authors use their findings to launch into formal level issues regarding future research, education and policy; as well as focusing on the ethical issues involved in care of the suicidal person. The authors close by shifting the focus on 'suicide survivors' and with the help of contributing aithors. As the eminent suicidology scholars who have generously provided their Forewords note - this is a must-read book for anyone involved in the care of the suicidal person.