Touched by the Goddess

The author of the indispensable bodywork classic JOB'S BODY offers a fresh look at the physically, emotionally and socially transformative powers of touch. Backed up by extensive research as well as long hands-on bodywork experience, this collection of fourteen essays (many originally written for Massage Magazine) takes on not only difficult and critical issues facing therapeutic touch, but also its potential to create positive change in all our lives.

Deane Juhan Deane Juhan was born in 1945 in Glenwood Springs, Colorado, and educated at the University of Colorado (BA), the University of Michigan (MA), and the University of California at Berkeley (three and a half years as a doctoral candidate in English literature specializing in William Blake). In 1973 an experience with bodywork at Esalen Institute in Big Sur led to a sudden change in career. Joining the staff at Esalen as bodyworker and instructor (where he remained until 1990), he saw dramatic improvements in a wide variety of conditions as a result of hands-on work and movement reeducation. This quickened his interest in clinical research, and years of study of the physiology of touch and its concrete effects on development, adaption, skill learning, and healing eventually produced Job's Body: A Handbook of Bodywork, as well as the essays in his latest book, Touched by the Goddess: the Physical, Psychological, and Spiritual Powers of Bodywork. He is currently a practitioner of the Trager