Customer Reviews

Touching: The Human Significance of the Skin

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

If you only get one book on parenting and how to raise a child get this one. This is a thick book with lots of research to support the ideas presented by Dr. Montague. However scholastic this book might be it is very readable. If you find the title misleading some chapter headings are breastfeeding, tender loving care, the physiological effects of touching, skin and sex and growth and development. The skin and sex chapter discusses how touching our children affects their sexuality. This is one amazing book full of data that instructs us to hold our children close as long as possible and why this is so critical to their development in every aspect. Read it!!!

Ashley Montague is really on target about the needs of the human body in regard to touch.Infants who bond with their parents the first few years of life are so much more secure. He has written such valuable information which is more relevant today than ever. We could have less violent children and adults if proper touch and bonding occurred as infants. Read this book and practice it as a means of creating peace in the world. Spread the word to hospitals to teach new parents about the importance of touch for their infants. Read and recommend this book to all of your friends.

This highly readable work does a wonderful job explaining the significance of touch in the physical and emotional life of humans. A better understanding of touch can alter the way we interact and is especially important to health care workers.

This book is positvely a must read for anyone interested in Human Behavioral Sciences and Psychology in general. I am only 20 years old but have been interested in the science behind human interaction for many years. I continue to read many books, but this is probably one of my favorites. The book is a great read, and covers in depth more about the actual physical interaction from birth till death than any other books I've read...I strongly suggest it.

Every Massage Therapist/Bodyworker should own a copy of this book. It is a great resource to have available.

It was 1976 when I first discovered this book. I read it through cover to cover nodding my head as he affirmed what I had sensed in my young life: touch is essential to healthy human development.

Though the cover and title look corny now, thirty years later, the content for anyone interested in the human response to touch, is historic.

It is telling and tragic that our scientists had to use research on baby monkeys to document the primate suffering and distorted growth with lack of touch. We as a culture have tried to leave our mammalian and primate origins behind us, but as long as we live in our bodies, we will share the vital need for touch to fully develop and feel whole as human beings.

If you're already familiar with general information on the human response to touch and you're interested it taking it to the edge of what we know at the beginning of this 21st century, take a look at Job's Body: A Handbook for Bodywork (Third Edition). Job's Body takes the understanding of touch to a cellular level!

I would highly recommend it as a background reader for anyone considering becoming a massage therapist, and definitely anyone interested in human development and psychology.

I read this book years ago and am re-reading it now. I have recommended it numerous times over to friends and fellow students as well. My one complaint to Montague's publisher/editor is that I wish that they would have produced a more general "touching" image for the cover versus this one which seems to be of a more 'romantic' nature at least that was my first thought and it was that of many others to whom I had also recommended the book - it may just be the image with the words "Touching" overlaying. It might seem minor but I think that the cover sadly may turn many off (due to mistakenly assuming the content being something other than what it is or that the author has not written a thoroughly and completely well-researched scientific book based on multiple forms of research, evidence, case studies, etc.) from even picking up this ground-breaking work in human development and psychology about the basic need for physical contact of each person and the effects when it is not provided. Each person that passes this book by is a sad loss and one in which we will all ultimately pay.

I found this book to be completely engaging and so well-written and insightful that I could hardly put it down. It is filled with scientific documentation (albeit on the older side and granted science is nearly outdated before it published these days) but one could easily find further information or 'dig deeper' into any subject area that is brought up should you like. Montague also does not tend reference obscure researchers or professionals in their respective fields - though the reader may not have heard of them, with a little research you will almost always find that they are the leaders in what they do - he pulled together the 'best of the best' in creating this work. This is partly why I felt comfortable the more I read it in putting more and more credence in what he was asserting as the human's need for touch across different stages of life and the consequences when that need is not met; he was not quoting and citing charlatans. Much of what he said and came to conclude though, comes from simple observations that really required no degree but just asked that one have an open mind and see that Humans are not all that much different than our animal counterparts in some of our instincts/needs/requirements and the consequences results we when deny those. One example that stood out to me clearly was in the animal world the universal licking mothers do of their newborns - we often want to seem to credit that with 'cleaning' the young - however it had been shown and vets, those raising animals for centuries etc., new that if an animal 'mother' did not lick her young they would often die shortly. This licking, while cleaning them, somehow stimulated them to eliminate waste, breathe, eat, move, etc and it was MUCH more than being clean. Montague posed the question of why human labor was so long? It was longer than any in the 'animal' kingdom? He wondered if then there was a need for the very strong tacticle 'stimulation' of the infant during the birth process. He found that the contractions were similar to the somewhat rougher licking behavior in preparing an infant for the processes that their bodies would need to take over (breathing, GI movements etc.). He then decided to compare these infants born naturally to those who did not receive this stimulation to those born via C-Section (without that massive stimulation) because even today those infants still fare worse and he much more eloquently than I can here, argues that the natural birth process is providing for the necessary tactile stimulation needed for so much. That is one example. The book was filled with those. I was hooked. I found the arguements solid and logical and easy to follow. The foundations for how he came to his conclusions were also laid out for all to see.

Montague seemed to be way ahead of his time in accepting that there was more than just the US/Euro-centric world view that could be ascribed to. It could still be scientifically valid to look to other cultures worldwide and in fact he writes, we may just do well to learn from some and adopt some of their traditions and habits. While providing all of this information and insight I never felt I was being 'lectured' or that Montague was 'Anti-American' or 'Anti-Western'. On the contrary, I felt that he was simply a person, one who cared deeply about the well being of his fellow man (and woman) and wanted to provide them with the information that they would need to help themselves to better their own lives and those lives of the people that they came in touch with - no pun intended - everyday. He provides so many examples of the way in which touch matters and is needed and the dramatic impact that it has not only on the one receiving the touch, but also the one providing the touch and many times for example in hospitalized patients how dramatically their outcome can be improved - lowering hospital stay days, reducing amounts of meds used and so forth which is just as relevant today as it was when the book was written. This issue effects us all purely from a monetary standpoint when institutions are looking at ways to reduce medical costs. Children in institutional care recover from devastating emotional damage far better and are able to psychologically heal with the help of physical touch and again the impact upon us all extends out so far into education, criminal justice, etc. all of which are touched upon in this book.

It is so difficult to do this book justice. I simply say that you will not be disappointed! I think that this should be a MUST read for sooo many - the difficulty is which professions to limit the status of 'must' read to and which to say just 'highly recommend'. I have to say any new parent, expecting parent, nurse, anyone in the helping/healing professions in any form, teacher and I would add administrators - because I think way too often these individuals DRIVE the rule-making of an institution and FORCE the 'feel' of the place and if they do not understand the need for human contact and issue blanket policies banning all contact but the bare minimum necessary out of fear or ignorance they are doing a grave disservice to the place they should be leading. It can easily be read by any 'lay' person and they will not feel as though they are reading a textbook; mind you it will provide references and it is packed full of scientific information but it is not as though it is incomprehensible. Yet, anyone with a scientific background can read this book and be fully engaged and with their background knowledge gain even more out of it because of the prior subject expertise that they have which this will build upon and fill in. However, ANYONE can pick this book up and find a wealth of information that will serve them well in their lives and the lives of those around them! It may even provide some explanations for the reader as to why they are the way they are or do some of the things that they do! Do not be sucked into any other book's cover, title or description -this is the authoritative volume on the subject!

This book contains so much scientific information on touch it should be madatory reading for anyone going into a field where touch interaction is common. It really gives the reader a deaper level of understanding on how touch is not only important to our health but to our survival.

This book is just fascinating! All parents should definitely read this. Buy this book for your friends who are expecting a child. This book can do nothing but help anyone who reads it! It is just packed full of information from studies done that tell the benefits and importance of "touch" at any time in our lives, particularly in the 1st year of life...It is just...fascinating!

This book can be credited with saving our premature child. Our daughter was in ICU. I went to check on her. Unknown to me, in the hallway, I passed my wife's Dr. who was about to tell my wife the child was dying.

Entering ICU, I sat at her table and remembered reading in Dr Montague's book that touching had a positive effect on newborns. I began stroking her back and talking to her about her sisters and a puppy that was waiting for her at home. The nurse came to me and asked what I was doing. Thinking she thought I was doing something wrong, I stopped. She said to continue whatever it was because the respirator showed our daughter's breathing was improving. I sat with her and continued for an hour or so.

The next morning I went to see my wife and ask that she return with me. It wasn't until then that I heard the Dr. 's prognosis. I was credited with saving my daughter by the nurses. I bought a copy of the book for the hospital library and recommend it to all who are expecting.