Somatica Coaching Curriculum
No matter if you’re taking the Somatica Training for professional development or developing more self-love – it is guaranteed to transform your life and prepare you to be an expert coach in the field of sex and relationships.
The Somatica curriculum is based on somatic therapy, somatic sexology and on the neuroscience of how people learn and integrate new skills. Research has shown that the most efficient and effective learning requires so much more than reading and memorizing information, it requires embodied participation. Somatica’s body-based and experiential approach will prepare you to be a top professional in the field of sexology and will make you the most sought-after coach.
Other trainings out there are full of old-school sex coaching tools that haven’t been updated since the 1970’s. Other’s only focus on one type of sexual practice such as Tantra, leaving out the full spectrum of sexual desires. And, most trainings out there focus solely on sex, while Somatica works directly with the way sex and intimacy are intricately intertwined because it’s impossible to separate sexual and emotional intimacy when working with actual clients. The Somatica training starts where the other trainings end.
Our experiential, in-depth, and deeply interpersonal curriculum gives you all the tools to launch a successful, lucrative, and fulfilling coaching practice. With live teaching over Zoom, you will have the opportunity to observe and practice every tool, so you will be ready and confident when you start seeing clients.
The Objective of the Curriculum
The Somatica Training is designed to not only teach you the skills to become a successful sex and relationship coach, but also unlock the secrets to emotional and sexual empowerment for yourself.
Throughout the Somatica training, you’ll master the tools to:
- Explore turn-ons and embrace different desires
- Turn relationship challenges into opportunities for intimacy
- Move beyond negative socialization and shame through self-acceptance
- Deepen embodiment and mindfulness
- Clarify boundaries and consent
- Discover and claim their unique identity across the gender and sexuality spectrum, whether they are cisgender, bi, gay, lesbian, transgender, non-binary, or genderqueer
- Understand societal power differences and their impact on sex, intimacy, and relationships
- Become empowered around trauma by learning to understand, self-soothe, and communicate
The Philosophy Behind the Curriculum
The Somatica Curriculum is based on the Somatica Method. It combines talk-based coaching with experiential practices in an authentic two-way relationship so you can help your clients practice intimacy tools in real time. This process is proven to help participants change existing habits, uncover their true selves, and find more fulfillment and pleasure in their sex lives and relationships.
The Somatica Curriculum is divided into 3 phases to prepare you to earn your Certified Sex and Relationship Coaching credential and includes business success as well. Upon completion, you will be prepared to work with clients on any sex and relationship issues and have the marketing and networking skills to succeed as a coaching professional.
The Next Somatica Certification Training Begins October 25, 2024!
Let pleasure be your guide to an exciting new career. Become an in-demand sex & relationship coach and watch your own life transform in the process.
Join our live podcast with the Somatica Institute founders and save $400 on your tuition.
Not ready to join our live podcast or can’t make it? You can still save $400 by watching this recorded Q&A (discount code at the end). Or you can reach out to us with questions.
Core Somatica Training Curriculum
Modules 1-6
The Core Curriculum is your gateway to a better understanding of sex and relationships. It is designed to give you insights into the full spectrum of sexual desires, communities, and experiences, and to help you understand people’s emotional challenges, motivations, and healing opportunities so that you can bring your clients unprecedented growth and satisfaction.
Throughout the curriculum you will be engaged in experiential practices to build confidence in yourself and your coaching skills. You’ll learn how to identify old wounds and blocks, and to help your clients face and overcome them. And, you’ll learn the most cutting edge tools to help people thrive in the realm of emotional and sexual intimacy.
The Core Curriculum is designed for aspiring sex and relationship coaches, individuals seeking deeper self-love and personal growth, and licensed mental health professionals looking to build their toolkits.
Emotional Awareness
Societal messages often treat emotions as unhelpful and irrational. However, emotional awareness and the acceptance that we are all emotional beings is an integral part of feeling good in our lives. When we help our clients pay attention to our non-triggered feelings and listen to what makes them feel joyful and connected, they will create the life and relationships they really want for themselves.
Inner Safety
People long for a world that is safe – yet there are many ways in which the world can feel and be unsafe. You will help your clients find a sense of embodied safety, trust, and confidence in themselves. When they find safety in themselves, they become more resilient and courageous.
Self Regulation
Sustainable intimacy requires the ability to self-regulate. When you teach your clients to self-soothe, lower anxiety, and return to neutral during challenging moments, they will feel more at ease. The ability to know where they are in terms of regulation on a moment-to-moment basis and take care of themselves helps them open up to all the warmth and pleasure intimacy offers.
Attunement
Attunement is the subtle process of bringing awareness to your own lived experience and the lived experience of others. Becoming attuned means being aware of emotions, sensations, affect, pace, limbic resonance, and so much more. As you learn to attune to yourself and your clients, you will teach them to do the same. Attunement increases secure attachment, trust, and sensational and emotional awareness.
Empathy
Empathy is one of the most powerful and essential skills of intimacy. Showing empathy to your clients and helping them learn empathy facilitates them to create joyous and fulfilling relationships. To be empathized with is one of the deepest human needs and longing – and people don’t experience nearly enough of it. While it may seem that empathy is something people are either capable or incapable of, empathy can actually be learned. In Somatica you will learn how to be masterful empathizers, and teach your clients to do the same.
Embodiment
In Somatica, you practice and help your clients practice paying attention to the signals their bodies are giving them. Being fully embodied is like having a foundational navigation system – a GPS that guides you to your best life. Our bodies are wise and are telling us how we feel, where our boundaries are and what sensations we enjoy. Somatica Practitioners guide their clients to fully reclaim the right to be inside their own body, thus experiencing a strong and solid foundation. This sets the stage for much higher levels of pleasure and self-awareness.
Desires & Boundaries
Identifying what you want and don’t want is essential to having a self-directed life. In Somatica, you teach this skill through embodied tools, like listening to the messages your body gives you. The next step for your clients is to realize they have a right to pursue what they want – and say no to what they don’t want. You help them claim this right without apologies or excuses, so they can share their desires and boundaries lovingly. In turn, you teach them to listen to and respect others’ boundaries and desires.
Consent
Helping your clients understand the importance of consent will lessen the likelihood of any violations in their connections. In Somatica, we teach our clients to practice enthusiastic consent, and to make sure both they and their partners are a full “yes” to whatever is happening between them. This creates trust, safety and the best sexual experiences possible.
Trauma Empowerment
Many of your clients will have trauma in their history. You can help them identify triggers and de-escalate. Somatica tools will enable them to reclaim their full self-expression – something that is often minimized due to trauma. You will help your clients lower any shame they have about their trauma, allow people to acknowledge the impact of it, and become empowered in the face of their own and other’s trauma.
The Relationship Lab: A Model For Healthy Attachment
We believe the only way to healthy relating is through practice – which is why we think of Somatica as a “relationship lab”. As a Somatica coach, you create a place to practice the tools of emotional and sexual relating. This helps your clients gain the skills and confidence they need to have amazing sex and relationships. The Somatica Method is a two-way relationship where you authentically relate to your client, giving them real time practice, honest feedback, and guidance on how they can improve their relational skills.
Inner Child
Connecting with your inner child is a way to heal emotional wounds. Instead of looking around for others to save them or speak for them, your clients will learn how to care for their inner child and advocate for this child out in the world. They will stop shaming themselves for having an inner child, and learn to elicit help from others from a place of personal responsibility and agency. This ongoing relationship with their inner child will deepen their sense of integration and ease in their day to day life.
Identifying and Dealing With Triggers
Part of self-regulation and repair is an embodied knowledge of when you are triggered and how to handle these moments. You and your clients will map the triggers in an embodied way, and they will learn how to de-escalate them. This might include finding places to offload to others, communicating their needs and feelings, or caring for themselves. Stopping blaming and shaming others when they are triggered will improve their communication skills and relationships.
Relationship Repair and Conflict Resolution
Repair is a process of working through ruptures in connections with a partner. It is one of the most life-changing and essential tools Somatica has to offer. In your practice, you help clients understand the importance of repair – and the steps of repair when things get tough. They will see that every relationship has ruptures, and repairing when they arise can increase trust and sustainable intimacy.
Finding and Reviving the Spark
So many couples find they have lost the sexual energy and spark in their long-term relationships. Somatica helps your clients understand what is truly needed to enliven and revitalize their erotic connection – way beyond the hot tips and tricks that they see in magazines. A combination of communication around what is truly important, as well as experiential practices can bring passion, romance, and pleasure back into their sexual connection.
Secure Attachment
The Somatica Method is grounded in attachment theory. The relationship you will have with your clients will be a model of healthy attachment. When you pair the unconditional love of attachment with an opportunity for authentic partnership, people’s attachment wounds begin to transform. They experience healthy, secure attachment with you in session, which lays the foundation for more secure relationships where they can survive rejection and create sustainable connections.
Ruthless Deshamifying
The process of socialization – growing up in a society – rarely comes without some amount of shame. Shame in turn restricts people’s ability to claim and share the fullness and beauty of who they are. This is why, as a Somatica practitioner, you will become a ruthless de-shamifier. You will teach people to fight the negative messaging and unattainable requirements that society places upon them – so they can bring their authentic glow into their erotic and emotional intimacy.
Celebrating and Understanding the Multiplicity of Identity
Somatica is an inclusive training, celebrating people’s identities and supporting their uniqueness. By understanding your clients multiple identities and the socialization that plays out around them, you will be able to help them celebrate their identities and claim their own uniqueness beyond identity as well. We will look at gender socialization and its impact on emotions, sexual desire and empowerment (these lessons are LGBTQIA and non-binary inclusive). We will also examine the resources and restrictions that come with racial, class, and sexual identities – and how they impact intimacy.
Reclaiming Full Erotic Self-Expression
Shame is particularly hazardous to your client’s ability to feel comfortable in fully expressing themselves in their sexual lives. In service of reclaiming full erotic self-expressions, you will teach your client to disinhibit themselves so they can reach their full pleasure potential. You will give them the permission to breathe, move, make sound, touch themselves and ask for what they need from a partner to get to the highest levels of erotic self-expression.
Sharing Erotic Energy
When it comes to sex and pleasure, there are so many skills to be learned – one of the most important ones is sharing erotic energy. We are told by society to shut down our eroticism – but bringing it to life and sharing it fully with another person sets the stage for the most arousing and satisfying sexual experiences. You will teach and practice sharing erotic energy with clients so they too can savor every minute of their erotic lives.
Giving & Receiving
The most amazing lovers are comfortable with both giving and receiving. There is an art to it too – including sharing energy, touch, words, and gestures. Relaxing into receiving and not feeling like you have to reciprocate immediately is a skill as well. When you know how to do all of these, you become a truly wonderful lover. As a Somatica coach, you teach your clients to be an active participant in giving and receiving pleasure – allowing their natural bodily reactions, asking for what they want, and redirecting when something isn’t working.
The 3 Dimensions of Sex
Many people don’t realize there are many different ways to orient yourself in a sexual experience. Differences in the way people want to have sex often create misunderstandings. Knowing the 3 dimensions of sex, and helping your clients understand their tendencies will help them empathize with their partners, take things less personally, and create bridges when there are discrepancies. As a coach, you introduce people to all of the possible dimensions and help them try out each of them. This will increase their self-knowledge and confidence in exploring with others.
Core Desires
A person’s Core Desires are defined as what they want to feel during sex. These feelings are what really motivate people to have sex, and may include feelings like being adored or dominated. Having sex that makes you feel your most desired feelings is the pathway to peak erotic experiences. You help your clients deepen their self-awareness of what turns them on, and why, and how to share this with their partners in a shameless and enticing way.
Hottest Sexual Movie – populating the sexual menu
Once people know what they want to feel during sex, they need a variety of menu options – ways to play sexually – that give them the feelings they want to have. We call this a person’s Hottest Sexual Movie, and each person may have a bunch of movies that work for them. The Somatica Training teaches you how to take your clients, step-by-step, on a tour of the different Hottest Sexual Movies – energetic/spiritual (Tantra), romantic, passionate, dominant/submissive (BDSM/kink)- so they can choose from the full menu of experiences when creating their ultimate sex lives.
The Anatomy & Physiology of Pleasure
In addition to understanding what turns people on psychologically, you will learn about the physiology of pleasure and orgasm, pleasure expansion, and full-body pleasure mapping. We’ll talk about and de-shamify bringing toys into the sexual experience. You will learn about different types of toys, as well as other approaches to expanding pleasure and sensation in the body.
Fundamental Coaching Techniques
Being an amazing coach starts with the foundational tools of attunement, empathy, de-shamifying, and celebrating. You learn each of these tools – as well as when to bring them into the coaching relationship. Somatica teaches you to master guiding people through experiential exercises, process their feelings, and gain insights as they go through the process. Finally, you’re there to lend them a hand integrating this new knowledge and skills into their lives.
Expert Curriculum
In this phase of the training you will deepen your coaching expertise and learn how to guide your coaching clients smoothly through sessions and coaching trajectories in preparation for the certification exam. You will study additional specializations to work with the wide variety of issues and communities out there and to help you discover your niche. And, you will gain the business skills you need to be a successful professional in this burgeoning field.
Specializations
Specializations will help you expand your Somatica toolkit so you can work more effectively with specific populations or issues you might see in your practice or may want to focus on. You can find in-depth explanations of each of the specializations here.
Choose at least two specializations – get access to ALL of them (included in tuition).
- Relationship Design – help your clients navigate relationship structures including monogamy, poly, open, solo as well as other relationship choices
- Sexuality around Childbirth and Postpartum – support clients in embracing their post-pregnancy desires and staying connected through this huge life change
- Sexuality and Aging – understand the impacts of menopause and andropause and how to create hot sex throughout the aging process
- Body Image – overcoming negative body image with a focus on body positivity, embodiment and self-love
- LGBTQ+ and Non-Binary – be aware of special consideration when working with the wide variety of folks in the LGBTQ+, non-binary, and gender non-conforming communities
- Sexuality Across the Ability Spectrum – help each client embrace their body and mind as it is, and experience the full range of pleasure that is their birthright
- Empowered Dating – work with your clients on getting out successfully in the dating world and finding satisfaction by dating in a way that works for them
- Sexual Dysfunction – treat issues such as erectile dysfunction, vaginismus, premature ejaculation, low desire, pelvic pain, performance anxiety, and anorgasmina
Coaching Excellence
When a client comes into your office, they generally know what their goals are, but have no idea how to achieve them. It is your job as a coach to see what’s missing in their intimacy skills. The Somatica Training teaches you how to identify what is blocking a client from their goals, diagnose growing edges, and perfect the arc of a session. You will also learn the coaching roadmaps for the different issues your clients bring to you.
Through these advanced coaching techniques, your clients will realize they can trust your skill and ability to guide them – which helps you retain your clients long enough for their lives to truly transform. It will make you the most sought after coach, with a flourishing private coaching practice.
In this class your cohort will meet weekly with Dr. Danielle Harel Somatica Co-founder and will cover the following topics:
- Supervision: review client cases
- Learn and practice new topics to grow your coaching skills
- Advanced Attunement, Empathy, and Celebration
- Advanced Work with Shame
- Getting Out of Story and Into Feelings
- Pulling the Weeds: Working with Fear and Societal Beliefs
- Identifying Growing Edges
- Talking it Through
- Diagnose While Teaching
- Using the Countertransference
- The Trajectory of Growing Edges: Feelings, Need, Boundaries and Capacity
- Mastering Guiding an Exercise
- Fishbowl practices and getting feedback on your coaching
- Preparing for your certification exam
Marketing and Business Success
When you graduate from the Somatica Training – in addition to being a brilliant and adept coach – you will also have the tools to become an accomplished business person. The training guides you in finding your unique voice and gift, so you can confidently launch your business – and invite the clients you really want to work with.
When marketing your business it’s important to identify the marketing avenues that feel most aligned with your personality strengths. Marketing in a way that is inspiring to you is at the core of your success as a coach. Somatica teaches you how to bring your style of invitation out into the world. We’ll introduce you to a wide variety of marketing approaches so you can get the world out and fill your practice with the clients that are right for you.
In the 6 months of weekly business and marketing meetings, Somatica co-founder Celeste Hirschman, MA will guide you in doing the actual work of marketing and you will get feedback and edits on any marketing materials you choose to share.
Marketing topics include:
- Facing and overcome blocks to business and marketing
- Identify your marketing goals
- Identifying your sandbox and
- Perfecting your elevator pitch
- Understanding the marketing field – choose the marketing approaches that work for YOU
- Launching your business
- Building your website
- The secret to successful client calls – closing
- Networking – reaching out to other professionals
- Bookkeeping and so much more…
The Advanced Curriculum
Modules 7 & 8
The Advanced Curriculum builds on the foundation set in the Core Curriculum, and addresses some of the more complex and challenging issues that you might face as a Somatica coach. The goal of the Advanced modules is to build your skills and confidence to work with whatever you might face. By using gender as an example, you will better understand coaching trajectories and how to work with clients over time on specific topics. You will also move into advanced boundaries, trauma, and attachment work, as well as helping people deal with difficult core desires.
Intersectionality and gender socialization
One key aspect of socialization that has a huge impact on the kinds of issues that people bring into our offices is gender socialization. You will learn the specific coaching trajectories that are key to overcoming the inherent negative lessons people socialized and women and people socialized as men face. Importantly, these cannot be separated from other identities including race, ethnicity and sexual identity so this is taught in the context of intersectionality. The advanced curriculum tackles these essential topics as well as cultural humility so you bring more awareness to each unique, and beautiful client who comes through your practice.
Advanced coaching boundaries
Regardless of what kind of coaching or therapy practice you have, it is always possible for a client to develop feelings for you. When working in the realm of intimacy and eroticism this may happen more frequently. There is a way to work with these feelings when they arise that can be a huge growth opportunity for your clients, where they can learn about vulnerable sharing, boundaries, secure attachment, disappointment, and authentic connection. You will learn how to work with these feelings in a way that is warm, embracing, and clear.
Facing challenging turn-ons
When it comes to what turns people on, many of them can be fully experienced in society. However, there are some that are non-consensual/illegal and people who have those desires will need a place where they are not shamed so they can talk through their feelings and struggles with these desires. If you create a safe space, then you have an opportunity to help them find ways to get their desires met in a way that is legal and consensual.
Trauma empowerment
Trauma has an impact on so many people. There is physical trauma, sexual trauma, emotional trauma, relational or attachment trauma. In Somatica we not only help people become aware of the impact of their trauma, we also help them lower shame, accept that they will have strong reactions in certain situations, and help them learn tools to track their responses, self-soothe, and receive soothing from others. Trauma empowerment is all about helping your clients know and accepting themselves, use their regulation tools, and communicate with others about their trauma so that they can get the support they need from the people they are connected with.
Advanced attachment
In Core, you learn about the inner child and how to bring your clients into connection with the inner child so that they can become an advocate for their inner child out in the world. Advanced attachment is about learning more in depth what the inner child needs to hear so you can guide your clients to take exquisite care of their inner child. Adult attachment is also about connecting emotional and erotic attachment and helping people see how they can flow together in their partnerships.
Eroticism as a therapeutic modality
Something that is quite unique about Somatica is the importance of eroticism as a therapeutic modality. Because there is so much sex negativity in the world, as a Somatica practitioner, you counteract that by being open with your erotic energy, playfulness and flirtation. This creates a deeply healing space for your client to accept the invitation to fully embrace and express their own eroticism, and to learn how to flirt and share erotic energy. This is emphasized in the Advanced training as it is the key to so much healing.
Discover All the Details About the Somatica Training In our Career Information Packet and Course Catalog
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How is it possible that Somatica just keeps getting so much better, the more I learn and practice it? Just WOW!
I found that in the Core Training, I was able to really explore my own personal relationship to various aspects of my sexuality, which transformed my marriage and my life. This exploration was crucial to having a personal understanding of what it’s like to do this work. In year 2, I was just starting to see clients, and found the Advanced Training gave me the ability to know what they needed to work on next and helped me feel authentically connected to them in the process. This made my work so much more efficient and effective. I was thrilled to be able to apply new insights immediately into my client sessions.
– Pamela Joy, Somatica graduate
Ready to Start Your Journey?
If you want to help create a world filled with greater intimacy, connection, and pleasure, don’t wait because spots in our training program fill up quickly. Start now and:
- RSVP for our next free live podcast (and get $400 plus off your tuition!)
- Explore the next training dates, tuition, and discount packages
The Next Somatica Certification Training Starts October 25, 2024!
Join us and let pleasure be your guide to an exciting new career.
Become an in-demand Sex & Relationship Coach and watch your own life transform in the process.