From an early age, Stéphanie “Taffy” Dugan was told that she had healing hands and that she should pursue a career in the medical field.  She ignored the advice and went into the computer field, IT to be exact.  After moving to Silicon Valley, the mecca for tech people, and spending glorious year heading up an IT department, the Dot Com bubble burst.  Like many faced in the same situation, it was time to reinvent herself.  While meditating on how to proceed, she accepted a free chair massage.  Fortuneatly,  the massage was just adequate and Taffy found herself thinking that she could do better.  A different career path opened up and Taffy found what she was meant to do.

Taffy is a California Certified & Licensed  Massage Therapist and Health Educator with over 800 hours of training in various massage modalities including Perinatal and Prenatal, Shiatsu, Swedish, Deep Tissue, Sports, Myofascial Therapy (both Active and Direct Release), Thai, Polarity, Lymphatic, Reflexology, Aromatherapy, and Stone massage.  She trained at the National Holistic Institute and graduated with honors at the top of her class with a concentration in Zen Shiatsu and Sports Massage.

She became pregnant with during the second week of training so it became necessary to adapt every modality to prenatal.  As such, Taffy had the unique perspective of instructing her fellow students on how to better give her prenatal massage.  This enabled her to learn, create, and refine techniques.  She also has an intimate knowledge and understanding of injuries caused by pregnancy, giving birth, postpartum, nursing, baby wearing, and baby carrying and how best to treat them.

She began massaging her son the day he was born.  When her son was 3 months old, they took their certification training together in infant massage education through Infant Massage USA   and the International Association of Infant Massage with Suzanne P Reese.  Taffy found she was better able to communicate with her baby while establishing a deep level of trust and intimacy.  She found it to be wonderfully soothing for both the baby and herself.  Massage increases happy hormones hormone levels in both the person giving the massage and the person receiving it.  

After becoming pregnant with her second child, the  challenge of finding a competant and effective prenatal massage was daunting.  Each massage left her  still in pain and frustrated with the lack of proper understanding of a pregnant woman's particular needs.   This renewed her commitment to Perinatal  (a.k.a. prenatal, labor, & postnatal, or pregnancy) Massage.  She received her education and advanced certification  in Pre- and Perinatal Massage through  Body Therapy Associates and Carol Osborne-Sheets.  

Taffy attributes the ease and speed of her births, and much of her children's happiness, to the abundance of perinatal massage she received and the subsequent infant massage she gives them.  Her philosophy is simple.  To facilitate worldwide  peace and compassion one person at a time.