Peggy Horan - Connecting Through Touch: The Couples Massage Book

Peggy Morrison Horan is a thirty-five-year practitioner and teacher of Esalen Massage, student of yoga and movement, and retired midwife. She coproduced the Esalen Massage Video in 1996 and was one of the founders of the Esalen Massage School. She managed the Massage Department at Esalen for many years before retiring from management in 2004. She still practices and teaches there.

Foreword writer Gabrielle Roth is the creator of the Five-Rhythms Movement Meditation Practice. She is a theater director and the author of Maps to Ecstacy: The Healing Power of Movement.

In Peggy Horans inspired hands, Esalen massage becomes a true practice in the spiritual sense, based on intimate connections between people. Read this book for both the how and the deeper why behind the techniques, and experience the wonder for yourself.

Gordon Wheeler, Ph.D., president and CEO of the Esalen Institute and author of Beyond Individualism: A New Perspective on Self, Relationship, and Experience

Touch is its own, unique form of communication, which can foster genuine understanding between partners in ways that words alone cannot. For more than thirty years, I have been dazzled by Peggy Horans extraordinary talents and sensitivities. She is truly one of the great living masters of the art of massage. In Connecting Through Touch, she does a superb job of capturing all of the ways in which touch can comfort, stimulate, bridge gaps, and heal. I have every confidence that this book will enrich the relationships of anyone who reads it.

Ken Dychtwald, Ph.D., author of Bodymind, The Age Wave, and The Power Years

Dont miss this sophisticated, accurate, delightful approach to bodywork.

Jack Lee Rosenberg, DDS, Ph.D., founder and director of Integrative Body Psycho therapy in Venice, CA

For many in the Esalen Community, touch was the first door to self-discovery. In this book, Peggy Horan leads us into the wonderful world of touch. You couldnt find a better guide.

Christine Price, teacher at and long-time resident of the Esalen Institute

Some aspects of a relationship lie deeper than words. Peggy Horan rolls together our human needs for pleasure, communication, and well-being in this practical guide for couples massage. Couples can strengthen their partnerships as well as get rid of those achy back pains by giving each other massages with these principles in mind. Our divorce rate could plummet!

Brita Orstrom, LMFT, a founder of the Esalen Massage School and family therapist with a background in somatic, body-based psychotherapy

Publishers Note

This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering psychological, financial,legal, or other professional services. If expert assistance or counseling is needed, the services of a competent professional should be sought.

Distributed in Canada by Raincoast Books

Copyright 2007 by Peggy Morrison Horan

New Harbinger Publications, Inc.

5674 Shattuck Avenue

Oakland, CA 94609

www.newharbinger.com

Cover and text design by Amy Shoup and Sara Christian;

Large cover image by George Doyle/Stockbyte/Getty Images; Other cover images by Brock Bradford; Interior images by Brock Bradford

Acquired by Jess OBrien; Edited by Jess Beebe

All Rights Reserved. Printed in the United States of America.

Epub ISBN-13: 978-1-60882-744-2

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Horan, Peggy Morrison.

Connecting through touch : the couples massage book / Peggy Morrison Horan.

p. cm.

ISBN-13: 978-1-57224-502-0 (pbk. : alk. paper)

ISBN-10: 1-57224-502-6 (pbk. : alk. paper)

1. Massage. 2. Couples. I. Title.

RA780.5.H67 2007

615.822--dc22

2007044741

dedication

This book is dedicated to my husband, Richard: my life partner, my first masseur, and the one who still gives me the best backrub in the world.