Mélanie Faure 6:37 p.m., September 06, 2022

Man needs tenderness.

And this includes caresses.

Dr. Véronique Lefebvre, specialized in psychiatry, details the benefits of the caress and how it manifests itself from an early age and evolves over time.

If it is associated with desire, this gesture can relieve ailments and do good for morale.

"What could be worse than a life without contact, without gentleness and without caress?"

In her book "La force de la caress" published by Éditions du Rocher, Dr Véronique Lefebvre explores this ancestral gesture.

Invited to the microphone of Europe 1 this Tuesday, she explains why we all need hugs in life.

“We need physical contact”, she explains in Bienfait pour vous this Tuesday.

"We, poor human beings, need marks of tenderness, of sensoriality. But beware, with the caress, you have the two poles: at the same time tenderness, sensuality and sex."

>> Find Bienfait pour vous in replay and podcast here

And even before coming into the world, the human being is rocked by caresses.

"When we carry a baby, we first caress the belly with a pretty voice and music for our little baby", explains Dr Véronique Lefebvre at the microphone of Julia Vignali and Mélanie Gomez.

"As soon as he is born, we caress his skull, we give him his little down, we give him a body wrap and we say to him 'You are part of the world of the living and you are, thanks to this wrapped caress, welcome to our world." 

“Men need affection and hugs”

A hug takes many forms.

She can simply be a hand on the shoulder to cheer you up in times of trouble.

"For depressive patients, patients who have bad news, and God knows if we announce it to the hospital, it is very important to have this comprehensive care."

And if the caress is a feminine word, men also savor this gesture.

"They say that men are virile, but they also need a lot of affection and hugs", analyzes Dr Véronique Lefebvre.

With children, behaviors change and the mother is no longer the only parent to maintain privileged moments.

"It's reversed: today we see a lot of dads doing skin-to-skin contact in maternity wards. It's not just moms and they love it."