The Power of Touch - The Basis for Survival, Health, Intimacy, and Emotional Well-Being [Paperback]

Phyllis Davis (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 1999

In this healing work, readers will learn that touch is a form of communication on the most basic level. The author shows how touch can improve relationships of all kinds, help heal the body, and open one's heart to a deeper love.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

"Science is revealing that the power of touch triggers changes in the body that can activate healing and increase longevity. Phyllis Davis's book is thought provoking and contains good medicine indeed." - Hank Wesselman, Ph.D. author of Spiritwalker and Medicinemaker

"Phyllis Davis's warm, trustworthy, loving voice makes a compelling case for the healing power of touch--personal, clear, sensible, and very accessible to both parents and children, teachers and students." - Belleruth Naparstack, author of Your Sixth Sense and creator of Health Journeys guided imagery audiocassettes

"In a world desperately out of touch, THE POWER OF TOUCH is a remedy for our individual cries for connection and love. This book offers a powerful road map for wholeness." - Rick Phillips, author of Windows to the Soul and Emergence of the Divine Child

"This book is a fascinating connection of touch and spirituality. Read it, and tell everyone you know to do the same." - Marlo Morgan, author of the Mutant Message Down Under and Message from Forever

"Phyllis Davis has brought to light, through her clarity and understanding, many powerful issues concerning us as individuals, couples, and society in general, surrounding the power of touch. Phyllis helps us to reexamine our beliefs, attitudes, emotions, and displays of affection in dealing with each other in our everyday life. THE POWER OF TOUCH has enhanced my ability to further understand my clients As a licensed massage therapist for the past ten years, I feel that this book is an ABSOLUTE must for anyone in the field of helping others to communicate and heal in regard to the mind, body, and spirit." - Ruth Johnson, Licensed Massage Therapist

"Phyllis's book and insights confirm the true 'power of touch' in all our lives. Touch has the power to nurture us, to connect us, and to transform us. Understanding our need for touch and the consequences of touch deprivation is vital not only to massage therapists, but to all the helping progressions. This is a great book for all those interested in understanding ourselves and should be required reading for all parents!" - Peggy Smith, M.S., R.D., N.C.T.M.B., Director of Education, BMSI Institute

"Once I started this wonderful book, I couldn't lay it down and stayed up all night reading. I though she'd written it about me. If every individual understood and practiced Phyllis Davis message allowing themselves the joy of touching and being touched by others a new optimistic spirit would rain on peoples lives in families, in neighborhood communities, and especially in the often mechanistic and demanding workplace. People yearn for community, to belong, to understand the unique role for which they were created. Davis's The Power of Touch is a good place to begin. It should be required reading for anyone who desires to relate more soulfully and sincerely to the self, to others and to all living systems in the universe. - Michelle Hopkins, Managing Editor, The InnerEdge, a resource for enlightened business practice,

About the Author

Phyllis K. Davis is a Licensed Professional Counselor as well as a communications consultant. In her private practice she specializes in stress management, posttraumatic stress syndrome, and spiritual development. As a former high school teacher, she pioneered highly successful classes in interpersonal communications.

Phyllis holds a B.S. in Speech Communication, an interdisciplinary M.A. in Counseling, Psychology and Interpersonal Communication, and a Ph.D. in Somatic Psychology. She is a wife and mother and teacher.

Dr. Davis is trained in Therapeutic Touch, Vibrational Healing, Energy Attunement, Esalen Massage, and Triom as well as other touching/healing modalities. Accustomed to giving to others she now finds that watching the moving circle of giving and receiving is a joy in her life. Her aim is to help America rediscover the lost art of "loving touching."

As a writer her work glows with the light of personal experience and warms with the emotion of personal feeling. She learns, lives, and practices what she teaches. She currently makes her home in Lee's Summit, Missouri where she enthusiastically practices the lost art of "hugging." Phyllis does workshops on touch and devotes herself to teaching and using touch to soothe, comfort, and heal.

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Hay House; Revised edition (April 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1561705748
• ISBN-13: 978-1561705740
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #327,997 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Dr. Davis addresses so many of my interpersonal roles., August 17, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Power of Touch - The Basis for Survival, Health, Intimacy, and Emotional Well-Being (Paperback)

I just finished reading The Power of Touch by Dr. Phyllis K. Davis. I was immediately impressed by the author's voice that seemed as warm, and inviting as it was wise. The more I read of the book, the more I wanted to read. The content seemed well researched, without sounding clinical. What really amazed me was how many of my roles Dr. Davis addressed: wife, mother, daughter, teacher and even volunteer to Alzheimer patients. By reading her book I have learned why I wouldn't let go of my husband's hand during all six hours of childbirth labor, or why my teen age son loves to have his mom give him foot massages or why my students are more attentive to my comments when I put my hand on their shoulder, or why my widowed mother seems to cling longer to those goodbye hugs. In my volunteer work, I now take my elderly friends by the hand while we talk and walk together. I only wish I had had Dr. Davis's book when my sons were babies. My mothering techniques would have included considerably more tactile stimulation. At least it will impact my future approach to grandmothering. While The Power of Touch affirms so many of my natural inclinations about touch, it also challenges me to use more of its potential, especially for its impact on healing. The central idea that I will carry with me from this book is really summed up in the title. I will never feel as ineffective in interpersonal communication because I know that I can rely on the power of touch to communicate where words are inadequate. Intriqued by the title, my husband has asked questions about the book, leading into much discussion, and now drawing him into reading the book as well. I look forward to the impact it will have on him and on our relationship. Thank you Dr. Davis for your impactful book, The Power of Touch.

A teacher from Okemos, Michigan

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Touch--A Key to Human Transformation, July 14, 2000

By 

Michelle, 44, spirituality magazine editor (Anaheim, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Power of Touch - The Basis for Survival, Health, Intimacy, and Emotional Well-Being (Paperback)

As a managing editor working in the field of human potential and spirituality, I have been privileged to read the marvelous insights and practices of hundreds of authors. This incredible body of work has expanded my knowledge and understanding of what it means to be human, but none of these others works has ever touched me as deeply and helped me to transform myself and others as much as Dr. Phyllis Davis' The Power of Touch.

Dr. Davis addresses a painful, aching need for society and individuals: "skin hunger," the need to feel human touch, a desire that she says "runs much deeper than the desire for sex." This need-largely unfulfilled during the ages of more traditional lifestyles-will increase by many orders of magnitude, I fear, as we choose to immerse ourselves in an information technology-driven world where our main involvement with others rests with e-mail and "reality shows" like Survivor and Big Brother.

In The Power of Touch, Dr. Davis examines all aspects of our world-families, friendships, intimate relationships, and the workplace-to reveal the painful results of touch deprivation. In a world where so many people are living without the validation and self-assurance that come from touches and hugs, or a simple caress, it is no wonder that the movement toward increased spirituality in the workplace has faltered. Too many people have never experienced the power and the magic Dr. Davis attributes to touch, but they are hungering to do so.

A few years ago, after one of my first readings of The Power of Touch (in its first edition), I put Dr. Davis' ideas to the test. I was then working as a media relations specialist for a Fortune 500 company in Los Angeles. At a City Hall reception one evening, I saw a company executive who earlier in the day had completed his first broadcast media interview. "How did it go?" I asked, standing a comfortable "businesslike" distance from him. He replied in what can only be described as an engineer's technical monotone (he is an engineer). I then proceeded to "bubble over" as I expressed how proud I was of him. Without thinking (and I did not know this executive particularly well), I touched his arm and his back in a brief, but friendly hug. An electric jolt could not have changed this man's outward expression more. The stern lines of his face melted. A huge, almost boyish smile came over his face. He became animated and the rush of words were quite a departure from the monotone a moment earlier. His eyes glistened. He was human. He was happy. All because of a touch.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Power in simple touch, August 21, 2000

By 

Gregory Boyle (Kansas City, MO USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Power of Touch - The Basis for Survival, Health, Intimacy, and Emotional Well-Being (Paperback)

In "The Power of Touch", Phyllis Davis has written an extremely useful guide book on a topic rarely discussed in serious terms. Her informal, anecdotal, and very personal style belie the research and scholarship of her work. Though an "easy read", it is a book with a message for the medical and behavioral sciance professional as well as the general public. In addition to research and personal and professional anecdotes, Ms. Davis has included exercises that may be used with a loved one, or in therapy sessions.

If "touch" is in itself, as powerful a tool for health as Ms. Davis's research shows us, then it is sadly underused inter-personally and medically in our society. I hope that the lessons of this little book will be broadcast far and wide.