Professional cuddler makes a living giving clients hugs who travel from all over the globe to receive cuddle therapy

A professional cuddler who makes a living giving clients hugs has said people travel from all over the globe to receive the cuddle therapy she offers which is “far less intimate than a massage” and helps people from “all walks of life”.

Natasha Wicks, 44, from Coventry, West Midlands, says that despite criticism, cuddling is scientifically proven to release happy hormones like dopamine and that a lot of her clients are “the big spoon in life” and go to her for emotional support that they do not have at home.

As such, many of her clients are caregivers and most of them join Natasha for two-hour hugging sessions, costing £70 an hour.

The sessions vary depending on what the client wants, some having “emotional hugs”, others talking more and some wanting to “sit at opposite ends of the sofa with our legs and feet entwined”.

Natasha became a cuddle therapist in 2015 and, while she has had comments online from people criticising the practice, she said that her family and friends were unsurprised when she first started giving professional cuddles.

She said: “They all said to me that I give the best cuddles so it’s not surprising that I’d start doing it as a job.

“Cuddle therapy might not be as widely accepted in society but it’s far less intimate than other things like massages which are seen as normal.”

Prior to becoming a cuddler, Natasha originally trained as a CBT therapist and counsellor.

She said: “There’d be situations where I would be talking to someone and they’d really need a hug, but obviously, you’d have professional boundaries in place and it wouldn’t have been appropriate.

“It was just a really natural thing. One client had finished her final session and we had agreed that she wasn’t my patient anymore so we hugged goodbye. She said to me that she’d wanted to do that for a long time and I thought ‘me too’.”

By 2015, she was a qualified cuddler and started taking on new patients for cuddle sessions.

Natasha provides a minimum session of one hour but said most people go for at least two hours, sometimes longer if they are receiving more than one type of therapy.

She said: “I always give people a hug on the doorstep when they arrive and then they’ll come in and relax, and we’ll have an initial chat about what brings them here. After that, I’ll put on some ambient music and we’ll have a cuddle on my cuddle sofa.

There is not one type of person that visits Natasha for cuddles, but she says that a lot of her clients are caregivers.

She said: “There’s all sorts of people who come for a cuddle, from people who have moved away from home for the first time and just want a mum hug all the way to people in their 80s.

“I’m inclusive of all genders and all ages. I get a lot of clients who are the carers of their family and they are so busy looking after other people, and probably giving the hugs and support to other people, that they don’t have that for themselves.

“I get a lot of carers, a lot of NHS staff, a lot of mums, a lot of people that are in a world where they have to be the strong one in the situation and they just want to be able to come here and let their guard down.”

Natasha’s priority is to make people feel at ease when they arrive as she said it can be “nerve wracking” turning up at someone’s house for a hug.

Setting out clear boundaries prior to meeting, the therapist has said that the patients she has welcomed into her home have all been respectful.

“I want people to feel reassured that, as soon as they get in, they feel comfortable.”

Despite the unconventional therapy, when Natasha first took on cuddle clients, she said her family were completely “unsurprised” and the step from CBT therapy to cuddle therapy was a “natural evolution”.

While Natasha focuses her time on a holistic approach for treating people, she noted that there is also neuroscience behind cuddles.

Now, Natasha also does EMDR therapy and is a mental health swim host, and has clients travel from all over the globe to receive her hugs.

She said: “Working from Coventry is brilliant because I’m only nine minutes on the train from Birmingham Airport and people come to visit me from all over. I get a client from Belgium, someone from Ireland and people from all over the UK who come to see me.

“I wanted to find a sofa bed that just looked like a big comfy sofa for cuddle sessions. I’d started off with a big L shaped sofa but after about five years, it was sagging a bit, there’d been a lot of healing done on that sofa and it was time for a new one.

Breaking down the taboo around cuddle therapy, Natasha hopes more people will embrace the alternative treatment.

She added: “As it’s become more popular, more people are becoming qualified as cuddlers and I think that’s great.

“I’ve had comments online before of people thinking it’s weird or not understanding but there are other things we accept in society that are much more intimate than cuddles, like massages.

“It’s not weird, it’s actually a really lovely thing to be able to make another soul feel better for a while.”

For more information on Natasha’s cuddle therapy, visit: www.natashawicksmindmatters.co.uk