Michelle Renee

(Pronouns: She/Her)

Hi! I’m Michelle! In late 2015, I started with Cuddlist, thinking it would be a stop-over job on my way to my future career.  Turns out I love it! I’ve been a Cuddlist Certified Practitioner since December 2015, with over 1,200 in-person session hours. As of August 2023, I’m also the Cuddlist Director of Training. I love participating in my clients’ self-healing! Think of me as the scaffolding in your journey.

I’m a firm believer that love heals.  If you seek a “nurturing mom” experience or want to soothe some interpersonal wounds, I’m your Cuddlist. I offer physical and emotional cuddling—it’s like gentle parenting for adults!

In our sessions:

• You’ll feel unconditional acceptance. 
• You’ll feel loved and cared for. 
• You’ll feel seen and heard. 
• I’m here to support you.

I value safety, which to me includes bodily autonomy, informed consent, personal choice, and authentic expression.  With a clinically-minded toolbox, I specialize in working with clients with troubled backgrounds.  Some of these sessions never even include touch.  We will move at your pace. I work really well with clients needing exposure-type therapy.

Some of my favorite books relevant to my work in Cuddle Therapy: Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving, The Emotionally Absent Mother: How to Recognize and Cope with the Invisible Effects of Childhood Emotional Neglect, Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents, Mother Hunger, What Happened to You?, and When the Body Says No: Understanding the Stress-Disease Connection.

Specifically, if you’ve read The Emotionally Absent Mother, my wish is that you will recognize my “Good Mother” characteristics, which include but are not limited to:

• a place of attachment
• nurturer
• mirror
• cheerleader
• mentor
• protector

From Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving, our sessions are also well suited for “re-parenting.” In the book, Pete Walker discusses “re-mothing” as learning self-compassion and “re-fathering” as building assertiveness and self-protection. Consider our time together a part of “reparenting by committee,” as mentioned in the book.

As you can probably tell, I’m a big book nerd, so if you ever want to nerd out with me, please do!

I’m also a relationship geek and very friendly to alternative lifestyles.  Your “weird” isn’t weird to me.

I am experienced in working collaboratively with talk therapists.  Therapists find this work to be a corrective emotional experience for their clients. Please feel free to connect me to your therapist if that feels good to you and your therapist.

Lastly, thank you for being brave and asking for the connection you want. 

“Michelle is a passionate, ever-evolving professional. Over the course of years that we’ve been colleagues, I’ve always benefitted from her loving, kind, bright presence. I trust Michelle and refer clients her way regularly. If you’re considering her services, I strongly recommend that you get to know this caring practitioner.” ~ Jean Franzblau, Cuddle Sanctuary

More testimonials are available here.