We train Somatic Intimacy Coaches & Bodywork Practitioners to coach a wide range of somatic (body-based) tools and practices to support you in developing your erotic and emotional fluency in relational intimacy.
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 & Bodyworkers, as well as our certified Body Poets, to you. Our practitioners help you inhabit new ways of authentic being.
Relational Harmony Institute Directors.
Katie Sarra and Dr Phoebe Garland each bring over 40 years of clinical practice and research across a range of specialisms, contributing to the unique weave of perspectives that inform the REEF™ (Relational Erotic and Emotional Fluency) Model, which includes Body Poem as a way of facilitating radical acceptance in the self-organising intelligence process of integration and trusting spontaneity.
We are dedicated to upholding standards of ethical practice, supporting practitioners in realising their creative potential.
Katie Sarra - Co -director of the RHI training programs & founder of Body Poem
Dr Phoebe Garland - Co-director of the RHI training & Professional Supervision Programs
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.
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 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
Meet some of our RHI Graduates
Katie Sarra and Phoebe Garland have developed a syllabus that incorporates Clean Language, Body Poem, Wheel of Consent, and Right Use of Power training into the curriculum to support ethical practice in a field where working with arousal and altered states has resulted in so many ruptures without these micro-skills in place
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.
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.
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.
Meet some of our RHI Graduates
First Year - The 12-month Certificate in Somatic Intimacy Coaching
Practitioners learn Somatic intimacy coaching skills that can be facilitated online or in person, which is inclusive of practitioners who are interested in coaching intimate and erotic self-touch somatic practices without “hands-on” engagement.
This also enables practitioners to practice somatic intimacy coaching in parts of the world where professional erotic touch is illegal or against the codes of ethics and professional conduct of existing modalities.
The curriculum is online, with a special focus on live, interactive learning in the community and in paired and triad practice groups with classmates. Somatic Intimacy coaches deepen their in-person intimacy skills with the two-way clothed wheel of consent practices and coaching non-touch erotic and intimate practices.
Second Year - The 12-month Certification in Somatic Intimacy Bodywork Practitioner Program
This training includes an 11-day in-person embodiment retreat for practitioners wishing to learn and practice hands-on Bodywork skills and practices.
During this time, participants learn a variety of modalities supporting body identity acceptance, gender identity acceptance, mapping & massage, anal acceptance, mapping & massage, scar tissue remediation, chest acceptance mapping & massage, belly acceptance mapping & massage, active receiving self-directed erotic massage and practising radical acceptance with erotic embodiment self-pleasuring solo practices.
During these explorations, aspects of the self are touched and awakened into awareness, illuminating core erotic themes that may be emerging that can prepare the ground for understanding your unique purpose as a practitioner in service.
During the online parts of the training, we are joined by Marin Marie, who guides our understanding of genital anatomy, and by Ellen Heed, who guides our practice working with scars and emotional and physical repair processes.
It is estimated that 15-25 hours of study time per week are required for the online waves of both training programs.
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.
SOMATIC SEXOLOGY is the meeting of somatics, which relates to the sensate body, with sexology, which relates to 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.