About us
Find the answers you seek and get help
Cuddlist launched in late 2015 as a collaboration between Adam Lippin, a conscious entrepreneur, and Madelon Guinazzo, a consent expert. The simple goal was to create a space where people can be themselves in the company of another person while we work to discover what makes them feel secure and connected. By training our Cuddlist practitioners to do exactly that, we saw a flood of transformative healing experiences.
Cuddlist brings together those who need healthy meaningful connection (and that would be just about all of us!) with trained, professional practitioners who are experienced, safe, well-versed in consent and follow a code of conduct that sets the conditions for a great session.
Now, in 2022 the Cuddlist mission has grown to support both practitioners in their entrepreneurial path, and clients in their pursuit of quality care. The evolved mission with the help of the new CEO, Keeley Shoup is this:
Cuddlist’s mission is to establish the highest standard of quality for client-lead cuddle therapy. We define that standard through our somatic consent & boundaries based training, principled customer service, and providing a resource rich technical platform. We are committed to mindful accountability and stewarding a diverse community of wholehearted practitioners.
This evolution now means that we can both impact individual people’s lives, and we can impact a global landscape of healthcare and support.
Co-Owner & CEO Keeley Shoup
Keeley has practiced as a full time Cuddle Therapist for over 6 years, supporting clients in both individual and group settings.She is a certified Cuddle Party facilitator and has taken every training program that exists for professional cuddlers. She continues her education in IFS, EFT, somatic experiencing, embodiment practices, the wheel of consent, and racial equity. In 2017, she became the Director of CuddleXpo, the first ever professional cuddlers convention. The 3 day educational event hosted over 100 professionals and participants from all across the world. Keeley has been a fierce advocate via her social media platforms (YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok). She has been featured on dozens of domestic and international print, television, radio, and podcast media; reaching international audiences as she works to destigmatize mental health, promote education on boundaries and consent, and increase access to this groundbreaking therapeutic modality.
Keeley is fostering an interdisciplinary community within the field of mental health professionals. As co-owner and CEO of Cuddlist Keeley works to increase the company’s visibility, further the high standard of quality within Cuddlists’ community of practitioners, increase practitioner’s accessibility to supportive resources, and champion the Cuddlist mission across the globe.
Co-Founder & Director of Training Madelon Guinazzo on Cuddling
Madelon Guinazzo is an expert on Communication, Consent, and Boundaries. She is the Co-Founder of Cuddlist.com and the creator of training for the only cuddle therapy program based on personal empowerment for both practitioners and clients. She trains and certifies workshop facilitators worldwide and is on the board of directors for Cuddle Party, Inc. She holds a degree from Northwestern University in Communication Studies and has been training doctors and other healthcare practitioners on examination techniques and communication skills with their patients for nearly 20 years.
Professional cuddling is very new and like all things it is evolving. My years of experience coaching communication with healthcare professionals and facilitating workshops on cuddling and consent with groups of people has taught me volumes about how people can genuinely connect very deeply very quickly. This is a skill set that can be taught and practiced. It has everything to do with boundaries and the ability to consistently communicate them in positive ways. When we do this it creates the safety necessary for tenderness and vulnerability to show up. The combination is magical and there is a need for it.
Our society is hungry to feel close to ourselves and others in healthy ways. Cuddling is a vehicle for this. We have done so much in the last 50 years to protect people from unhealthy abusive touch. Now we are ready to discover new ways to provide healthy nurturing touch. Separating it from sex is essential. We need to experience physical closeness as adults without the complications and pressure of sex. Cuddling is about being able to relax into whatever we are feeling in the moment in the presence of another person who sees that we are good. This is tremendously nurturing, even healing, in and of itself.
All human beings have bodies and emotions. We need to FEEL a sense of physical and emotional safety and belonging with others. This is the experience our Cuddlists are trained to provide. It is pioneering work. We are bringing something new and needed to those who are ready to try it. We don’t expect it to be right for everyone and we are adamant about no one being touched in any way they don’t want to be. What we do believe is that every time one person becomes more relaxed, happy and connected it ripples out and improves things for the rest of us.
Thank you for all the ways you exercise choice and respect around touch in your life.
