Touch, second edition

Since it provides the infant with a sense of security and well-being right from the first, touch is surely one of the most important sensory experiences the infant will get.

T. Berry Brazelton, MD, Professor of Pediatrics, Emeritus, Harvard Medical School; Founder, Brazelton Touchpoints Center

Tiffany Field has brought to bear her energy and intelligence on the topic of touch for at least three decades. With this new edition she again shows why she is the leading scientist in the study of touch and how it influences our lives.

Michael Lewis, University Distinguished Professor of Pediatrics and Psychiatry, Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School; author of The Rise of Consciousness and the Development of Emotional Life

If you're numb to the power of touch, you will not be once you read Tiffany Field's book. She masterfully integrates not only the seminal contributions in the field, but the state-of-the-art science as well. Written by the authority in the field, Field's book will increase public awareness about how touch impacts public policy, research, and our everyday lives.

Matthew J. Hertenstein, coeditor of The Handbook of Touch and author of The Tell: The Little Clues That Reveal Big Truths about Who We Are

In the first edition of Touch in 2003, Tiffany Field opened our eyes to the importance of touch in all aspects of well-adjusted human life, and revealed how much the lack of touch was associated with unhappiness and insecurity in children and loneliness and depression in the elderly. In her second edition, Field marshals new evidence to show that modern youth experience a near absence of touch in social contacts because of the rise of digital social media. The emerging picture that Field paints of psychological distress and social malfunction resulting from the lack of caring touch is disturbing and urgently important to every parent and educator. Touch reminds us that we need more than free hugs at the street corner, we need a program for rediscovering our humanity.

Nina G. Jablonski, Evan Pugh Professor of Anthropology, The Pennsylvania State University

This second edition of Touch offers updated reasoning and research so it can continue to be a comprehensive, cutting-edge resource related to this fast-moving, highly impactful field.

Foreword Reviews