The Relational Harmony Institute
Trusting Spontaneity
We are dedicated to creating, maintaining, and updating standards of ethical practice, supporting practitioners in realising their creative potential.
“This training is without a doubt the most comprehensive, holistic, and ethically sound I could have hoped to come across. I looked at many different trainings and coaching programs in the fields of sexuality, tantra, and embodiment, and when I read through what was offered in this training, I was an immediate FULL BODY YES!
I’m so grateful I honoured that yes as this has been such a rich, profound, and transformational journey. I’m growing in ways that bring me immense joy, knowing that I’m receiving so much more of my authentic liberated self, which is coming back online from participating in this training.
Through this first-hand experience of updating so many new versions of myself, I am blooming with excitement to be able to share this with my clients. The course is delivered in a very considerate and digestible manner. This is the kind of healing work that will help change the world. Thank you, Katie & Phoebe.”
Certified CSI CSIB CSSE Practitioner 2023-5 Cohort
We facilitate professional training programs in relational embodiment practices.
Our methods have been tried and tested over 40 years of clinical practice & research.
All our practitioners undergo a rigorous training, assessment, and certification process. We feel confident in recommending all of our Certified Somatic Intimacy Coaches & Bodywork practitioners, our professional Supervisors, and our certified Body Poets to you. Our practitioners help you inhabit new ways of authentic being.
Katie Sarra and Dr Phoebe Garland have developed a series of training programs, alongside Continuing Professional Development specialisms, that incorporate Clean Language, Body Focusing, Body Poem, Wheel of Consent, and Right Use of Power into curricula, with embodiment practices that support ethical use of these micro-skills when working with arousal and altered states.
The curriculum facilitates participants in inhabiting ethics on the inside, developing practitioner core competencies, and understanding the “Right Use of Power” teachings, as defined by Dr Cedar Barstow, and applying them to Dr Betty Martin’s “The Wheel of Consent” coaching structures.
We are dedicated to creating, maintaining, and updating standards of ethical practice, supporting practitioners in realising their creative potential.
The practices involve radical acceptance of the self-organising intelligence inherent in us all, using Body Focusing, Body Poem, and Clean Language as our coaching models.
The ability to make attuned, receptive, kind decisions and be in choice while experiencing the intensity of affect is also a core competency that the micro-skills in this training support. These are essential competencies for ethical practice when working in the altered state realms of intimate and erotic self-expression and arousal. We refer to this as our emotional and erotic fluency with response flexibility.
Ethical inquiries are explored with recognition of the visible and invisible aspects of being human that influence our ability to belong and participate.
Our somatic Intimacy Coaches and Bodywork practitioners are trained to facilitate over 45 somatic practices to enhance your embodied decision-making in intimate relationships with yourself and others.
SOMATIC SEXOLOGY is a term that includes the study and research of the sensate body and the scientific study of human sexuality.
This includes practices informed by ancient wisdom teachings from Africa, India, and Asia, as well as leading-edge research in affective relational neuroscience, philosophy, and biology.
Our Somatic Intimacy coaches and bodywork practitioners (CSIB) can also include practitioner touch in your session, helping you update your somatic library as you learn different ways of touching and being touched. When we are touched, we are touching memories, and we may experience what are called somatic openings. This is where memories might arise that have no words but are felt. Receiving bodywork from an RHI trauma-informed bodywork practitioner can address healing emotional and physical scars held in the body. Your practitioner has training in scar tissue remediation to offer presence and guided, specific touch that releases what has been limiting your movement and fluidity in your emotions and body.
Our practitioners are trained in power-informed, enthusiastic consent, and our coaching model is based on active receiving. This means that the embodiment practices are co-created, with clear plans aligned with your learning intentions. You will be guided every step of the way within our session structure.
The Relational Harmony Institute is contributing to the collective wave of embodiment practitioners in service to opening receptivity with radical acceptance in the emergence of living as an antidote to the projections of separation in the reflections of living.
Expansions of consciousness involve us feeling more of our emergent, creative, and intuitive selves as part of nature's ecosystems, and updating our versions of ourselves.
This invariably involves shedding our skins and showing kindness as we overcome the fear of losing our sense of belonging in the hologram.
1st year: Certified Somatic Intimacy Coach training
800+ hours of experiential community learning and practices. These include a foundation in REEF (Relational Erotic and Emotional Fluency) coaching, somatic sexology practices and education and client sessions facilitating 1-1 intimacy coaching. This training is conducted online, and CSI practitioners learn how to guide clients in self-touch, whether online or in person. The certification process included supervised, video-recorded client sessions to earn the required 20 learning credits, leading to certification as a Somatic Intimacy Coach (CSI)—a one-year training program commencing on 1st April each year.
2nd year: Certified Somatic Intimacy Coach and Bodywork Practitioner
800+ hours of experiential community learning, practices and education. This training includes working with practitioner touch, including genital and anal touch, and working with arousal in person. This training is offered online and in person and consists of a 2-week retreat during which practitioners receive live demos and one-on-one coaching during bodywork sessions. Practitioners will complete supervised client sessions and receive coaching via video to earn their 20 learning credits, leading to certification as a Somatic Intimacy Bodywork Practitioner (CSIB). A one-year training program commencing on April 1st each year is open to CSIs who have completed their first year with us. Small group size (approx 12 places only) to support your learning.
3rd & 4th year: Somatic Sex Education and Supervisor
This is a 2-year experiential training in giving and receiving coaching and supervision, revisiting the CSI and CSIB curriculum, and deepening your practitioner skills. You will also develop educational materials as you step into leadership positions within your specialised area of this work. There are opportunities to teach and present during the first and second years, as well as to share your CPD offerings in our postgraduate program.
We also offer free, ongoing Continuing Professional Development and peer supervision through our monthly Postgraduate Program during your certification phase and beyond, in a thriving multi-year community that supports practitioners in maintaining ethical practice
This is a 2-year experiential training in giving and receiving coaching and supervision, revisiting the CSI and CSIB curriculum, and deepening your practitioner skills. You will also develop educational materials as you step into leadership positions within your specialised area of this work. There are opportunities to teach and present during the first and second years, as well as to share your CPD offerings in our postgraduate program.
We also offer free, ongoing Continuing Professional Development and peer supervision through our monthly Postgraduate Program during your certification phase and beyond, in a thriving multi-year community that supports practitioners in maintaining ethical practice
You will be guided through what we call ‘Somatic Assessments’ for enhancing your confidence in intimate decision-making. These include enhancing your somatic recognition of yes and no, and how to tell the difference.
These are invaluable practices that support learning to recognise and represent our limits in life and relationships before it's too late.
These practices include empowering your agency and building confidence through The Wheel of Consent to explore co-created relationship agreements we are all on board with; becoming fluent in navigating intimate space and distances; role-playing repair processes; becoming fluent in your creative self-expression; healing body image concerns; and many more.
We all carry culturally influenced internalised inhibitions that interrupt our receptivity and attunement for trusting our authentic spontaneity.
“My body is learning that it is safe to take care of myself. That I can say no and honour my limits & still belong.” - Adriana
TESTIMONIAL - CSI - CSB STUDENT - 2023 COHORT
The Relational Harmony Institute's Somatic Intimacy Coaching and Bodywork Practitioner trainings do not include facilitating immersive Erotic Massage sessions or commodifying the practitioner to meet hedonistic, goal-oriented ‘hedonistic‘ intentions.
Timed segments of a session might consist of aspects of sensation play and an adaptation of 'active receiving' erotic massage online or in person, attuning to the affective state of the client following our coaching model and session structure within an educational-therapeutic practitioner-client relationship agreement.
These experiences involve the practitioner being attuned to the waters of eros while simultaneously being on the grounding shore of the agreement and holding the duty of care. This practice requires erotic and emotional fluency and an understanding of self-interest when it arises in the practitioner role.
In altered states, there is scope for 'following intuition' without recognised conscious awareness. In altered states, slippage from the Serve quadrant is common for practitioners not trained in the Right use of Power and Wheel of Consent, which we have introduced to this field of practice.
“The Somatic Intimacy Coaching & Bodywork training programs of The Relational Harmony Institute are the most comprehensive sexuality training I have found. The syllabus is rich and covers an incredible breadth of subjects - neuroscience, embodied boundaries & consent, emotional command systems, somatic coaching techniques, rupture & repair processes, session structure, hygiene protocol, and of course, all the anatomy & physiology Sexological Bodywork tools.
This training teaches the core competencies of how to meet another Human in their wholeness - with radical acceptance of all of their parts, including their erotic & sexual expression. It encourages you as a practitioner to trust your spontaneity, creativity, and intuition while equipping you with everything you need to build an ethical, trauma-informed practice. Katie’s passion, skill, embodied experience, and wisdom are the essence of this training which makes it come alive with joy, love, care & laughter.” - Luzi Pods - 2023
Professional Membership Certification & Insurance
Students of the Relational Harmony Institute professional training can become Student members (and, upon certification, Associate (CSI) or Professional (CSIB) members) of The Association of Certified Sexological Bodyworkers (ACSB) and appear on the Practitioner listing pages. We have a historical agreement for your inclusion with the Somatic Sex Educators’ Association of Australasia (SSEAA) and the Association of Somatic and Integrative Sexologists (ASIS). Certified graduates can be admitted to the World Association of Sex Coaches (WASC) with no further requirements.This course is recognised by The Association of Somatic and Integrative Sexologists as offering a training of sufficient depth for practitioners to be eligible for insurance for their work. See the-asis.org for more details.
Upon completion of all requirements, The Relational Harmony Institute awards the Certificate in Somatic Intimacy Coaching (CSI) in the First year, The Somatic Intimacy Bodywork Practitioner (CSIB) with dual certification as a Sexological Bodywork (CSB) in the second year, and in the third year the Coaching Certificate of Somatic Sex Education (CSSE) and in the fourth year the advanced CSSE Professional Supervisor Certificate of Somatic Sex Education.
Your Application and Enrolment Process
Meet some of our RHI Graduates
Learning to explore, and try out, discovering new, self-expressive ways of being.
Practice in privacy before coming out.
These are journeys into deeper self-acceptance that build your confidence to make changes in your relationships and life choices, moving away from what is not right for you and towards what brings you a sense of gratitude.
Your practitioner is trained to support your confidence in co-creating informed, intimate decision-making and to help you heal from the emotional hangovers of times when you might have been in endurance or suffered from decisions that have not worked well for you.
Deepening our attuned relationship with our body supports being informed by it, rather than by our mind’s projections, as we navigate agreements in intimate relationships.
We are most disabled when we are unable to represent ourselves. This may be due to not knowing what we want, losing sensory awareness or sensation. Part of the problem when we do not have enough sensory input for our decision-making is that we will invariably feel anxious or lose confidence.
Our practitioners are trained to support you with erotic and emotional fluency and regulation so that whatever arises in a session can be welcomed and navigated together - including trauma responses. There may be aspects of your life you feel some shame or shyness about and want to be liberated from, and your practitioner can be alongside you, helping you out of loneliness that is so common when we are experiencing shame.