Begining in the next issue of Skinship Journal, Donna C. Cerio will be writing a regular column entitled Touch, The Unspoken Language: Healing from Sexual Abuse. Donna says, "The topic of healing from sexual abuse is a heartbeat of mine. I have a practitcal and philosophical interest in how touch enters into this equation.

"Twenty-three years of research and experience with survivors of sexual abuse have lead me to the realization that the approach to touch is paramount in shaping the direction, pace and results of the healing process. Results are dependent on the partnership of approach and technique. One without the other is at best a band-aid. Long-term sustainable healing takes place when the two are skillfully combined in the context of caring human relationship.

"The upcoming series of articles that I am writing address how the approach to touch influences recovery from sexual abuse. As we consider the components of touch and how touch influences stages of human development, experience, and healing, we enter into an in-depth study of the language of touch and its many voices in the human condition."

Donna C. Cerio's 23 years as an Alternative Health Care Professional include personal and organizational development, health care and stress management. She offers health care and education in private practice, academic and medical settings, and the public arena. She is the Founder and Director of The Cerio Institute, and author of My Body, My Energy, My Self, and Basic Functional Anatomy for the Student Body Technique.

Donna C. Cerio's Model for Healing Interaction:

Intentional Touch™ is a model that provides a protocol for interaction between the health care provider and the health care recipient. By working in the context of this protocol, the practitioner develops the ability to provide health care in a way that significantly influences the course of the healing process. Intentional Touch™ enhances the success of many modalities and procedures, preventing retraumatizing clients who are suffering from the effects of traumatic experiences. It initiates, strengthens and reinforces the body's own natural inclination to heal. It prepares the mind of the recipient to cultivate and strengthen confidence in the provider, the procedure, and their own body's ability to respond. It gives the recipient an experience of safety, security and comfort. There have been several recent studies that stuggest confidence, trust, and safety increase biological changes resulting in positive influence on the healing process.

Originally Intentional Touch™ was developed to work with survivors of sexual abuse. It became clear early on that this paradigm was more widely applicable. Through the years Intentional Touch™ has evolved in response to the needs of clients with chronic long-term illness and or pain and the growing need in the alternative health care profession to have an approach that insures safety and long lasting sustainable solutions for clients. More recently its growth has been in response to the need for a pathway leading to an alliance between conventional and alternative medicine.

Recently published work by Donna C. Cerio: The Wounded Client: Guidelines for Working with Survivors of Sexual Abuse - Massage Magazine, November/December 2003 (Issue 106)