Introduction to Body Movement Observation & Assessment for Sexual Issues

Course Description:

This class presents an observational system that assesses your client’s somatic architecture and guides you in facilitating a somatic creative process. We will explore the foundations of this system including embodied consent, the somatosensory realm and developmental movement, erotic Bodyfulness practice, and the sociocultural embedded nature of the body. We will build on the foundations to introduce the 4 main aspects of body expression and how Total Body Connectivity supports the somatic creative process. We will also discuss ethical considerations and a trauma-informed approach when working with embodiment assessment and intervention. You will learn how to support your client’s own body wisdom to challenge habitual somatic patterns to support a more fully embodied and resilient sex/ual/ity.

Learning Objectives:

1. List the fundamental components and guidelines that support body movement observation and assessment.
2. Describe how arousal anatomy is impacted by their socially embedded experiences.
3. Participants will be able to guide a client (individual, couple, or group) through the erotic Bodyfulness practice.
4. List the 4 main aspects of body movement observation & assessment and how to utilize this as a tool in session to help clients access somatic resilience and repatterning of stuck or ineffective habitual patterns.
5. Describe ethical considerations when facilitating embodiment and somatic creative process work.
6. Demonstrate how to facilitate embodiment and somatic creative process work in a trauma-informed way.

Speaker Bio:

Melissa is a Licensed Professional Counselor, AASECT Certified Sex Therapist, Dance/Movement Therapist and Somatic Psychotherapist who specializes in sex and relationship therapy for couples and individuals. A graduate of Naropa University in 2009, Melissa weaves together her Masters level training with additional training in Pragmatic/Experiential Therapy for Couples (PET-C), Sex Therapy, Psychodrama, and Authentic Movement. She is also certified in Somatic Archaeology and is a SomaSource LifeCycle Practitioner. Melissa is former adjunct faculty at Naropa University where she taught Counseling Ethics & Professional Orientation for 4 years.

Through study and work, Melissa has crafted the Somatic-Concentric Sex Therapy (S-CST) model for working with clients. S-CST is a confluence of dance/movement therapy, somatic, contemplative, and sexology theories. This model harnesses the client’s actualizing tendency, a tendency towards growth and complexity, toward a fully embodied experience and expression of the sexual self. This model includes the practice of Erotic Bodyfulness, full-body arousal anatomy with a whole-person approach to the human sexual response, and embodied expressivity toward one’s personal erotic potential and healthy relational sexuality.

Her book, Whole-Body Sex: Somatic Sex Therapy and the Lost Language of the Erotic Body was published in January 2021. Whole-Body Sex supports the somatic dismantling of the shame and performance-centric model of sexuality to craft a personally meaningful and sexuality-affirming embodiment of self.
Melissa offers supervision and a 20-hour course in S-CST for counseling students and professionals, as well as a yearly couples erotic embodiment retreat in Anguilla & St. Martin.