An interdisciplinary workshop and community gathering for therapists who:

  • are hungry to reimagine how we approach sexuality, embodiment, and collaboration in clinical care.

  • are exploring the edges of what’s possible in ethical, whole-person care.

  • are values-driven and seeking more integrated, embodied, and client-centered approaches to healing intimacy challenges.

Date & Time: TBD (stay tuned!)

Touch

Exploring Ethical Collaboration Between Therapists & Sex-Positive Bodyworkers

With Jessica Warner, LPC &
Nicole Siegel, Certified Sexological Bodyworker

Therapy is ready to evolve. Healing is ready to be more integrated. Practitioners are ready to stop working in silos. And this evolution requires us — all of us — to face our conditioning, update our ethics, and begin collaborating in ways that truly serve the whole person.

Invite only- email
bodycompass.me@gmail.com
to attend

points

Touch Points is a Collaboration Between two facilitators:

Jessica Warner, MA, LPC-S
at Dove + Wolf

Nicole Siegel, Certified Sexological Bodyworker®
at Body Compass

If you're a therapist who is curious about Sexological Bodywork®…

If you're a therapist and you're curious about how Sexological Bodywork® might support your client's goals around intimacy, embodiment, or sexual healing, Nicole offers a free 30-minute consultation to help you understand the modality, how it complements talk therapy, and whether it might be an appropriate referral.

This is a no-pressure, information-focused call designed to give you clarity, ask questions, and make an informed recommendation.

Schedule your consult with Nicole here.

I’m really looking forward to connecting with you. I know this work can feel unfamiliar at first, so don’t worry about having all the right words or knowing exactly what to ask—you can just bring your curiosity.
—Nicole

What Is Sex-Positive Bodywork — and Why Does It Matter?

For many clients, especially those navigating sexual shame, trauma, body image issues, or disconnection from their physical selves, talk therapy can only go so far. They understand the stories. They’ve explored the beliefs. But they still can’t feel differently — not in their bodies.

You might hear it in the therapy room when a client says:
– “I know my partner isn’t doing anything wrong, but my body still shuts down.”
– “I’ve worked through the trauma, but I still can’t feel anything during sex.”
– “I feel numb, checked out, or like my body isn’t mine.”
– “Touch makes me anxious, even when I want it.”

These are not moments of therapeutic failure.
They’re moments where sex-positive bodywork may offer a crucial missing piece.

Sexological Bodywork® is a trauma-informed, consent-based, and ethically scoped modality that supports clients in reconnecting with their bodies, genitals, pleasure, boundaries, and somatic responses — all in service of healing, integration, and empowerment.

It’s not massage. It’s not surrogate partner therapy. And it’s not “hands-on sex education.”
It’s a structured and professionally boundaried practice rooted in nervous system awareness, embodiment, and client-led exploration.

When clients access this kind of support alongside psychotherapy, the results can be transformative:

  • Deeper integration of therapeutic insights into felt experience

  • Improved capacity for boundaries, intimacy, and sexual expression

  • A significant reduction in body shame and dissociation

  • The emergence of pleasure, agency, and self-trust — not as abstract goals, but as lived experiences

And yet — most therapists don’t learn about these modalities in their training.
Many aren’t sure how to talk about them with clients, or whether they’re even appropriate to reference.
Some have never heard of sexological bodywork at all.

This workshop is here to change that.

We’re not asking you to become an expert in this field —
we’re here to help you understand what it is, why it matters, and how to navigate collaboration with these practitioners in an ethical, informed, and professionally boundaried way.

If you’re committed to supporting your clients in healing not just their thoughts, but their bodies, this conversation belongs in your practice — even if you’re still learning the language.

Why Haven’t You Heard More About This?

Because modern therapy is still catching up to something ancient, relational, and biologically true:

Touch heals.

From the moment we’re born, safe, attuned, consensual touch regulates the nervous system, fosters attachment, and supports development. Infants who are not touched do not thrive. Adults deprived of physical connection often struggle with depression, anxiety, and disembodiment.

This isn’t controversial. It’s well-established in attachment theory, polyvagal research, and trauma recovery literature. Books like Touch by Tiffany Field and The Science of the Art of Psychotherapy by Allan Schore explore the neurobiological and emotional importance of touch in co-regulation and emotional healing.

And yet — in mainstream psychotherapy, touch is almost entirely absent.

Not because it lacks therapeutic value. But because it has been professionalized out of the field — largely in response to historical abuses, risk management policies, and a cultural discomfort with embodiment, particularly sexual embodiment.

In contrast, many Indigenous and ancestral healing traditions have long recognized touch as central to healing.

Whether through laying on of hands, ritual bathing, dance, or physical presence during grief and transformation, touch has always been a part of how communities supported one another’s healing. It was relational, somatic, and ritualized — not pathologized.

It’s only in recent Western history, particularly through colonial, patriarchal, and white-bodied frameworks of professionalism, that healing has become largely verbal, cognitive, and individual. We talk about the body — but we rarely engage it.

So where does sex-positive bodywork fit in?

Sexological Bodywork is one modern attempt to bridge this gap — to reintroduce touch into healing, not as a violation of therapeutic ethics, but as a carefully held, scope-conscious practice for supporting embodiment, nervous system repair, sexual healing, and body-based trauma recovery.

And yet, because it exists outside licensure — and because it includes the erotic body — most therapists have never encountered it in their training, supervision, or continuing education.

Even among therapists who recognize its potential value, collaboration often feels out of reach due to unclear language, ethical fears, or lack of shared frameworks.

so, It’s not surprising that you haven’t heard more about this.

What is surprising — and encouraging — is how many clinicians are beginning to ask new questions:

  • What if talk isn’t enough?

  • What if there’s a way to support my clients in their bodies — without stepping outside my role?

  • What would collaboration look like if we trusted each other more — and had the tools to communicate clearly across our disciplines?

This workshop exists to support those questions.
Not to idealize touch. Not to prescribe a model.
But to offer clarity, safety, and honest conversation about how therapists and bodyworkers might better serve clients — together.

What Becomes Possible in a Collaborative, Triadic Model of Care

When therapists and sex-positive bodyworkers collaborate with clarity, trust, and shared purpose, clients benefit from a more integrated and embodied healing process. The triadic model — in which therapist, client, and bodyworker each maintain distinct but mutually supportive roles — allows for a level of depth and transformation that talk therapy alone may not always reach.

In our own collaborative work, we’ve witnessed outcomes that speak to the power of this approach:

  • Clients with long-standing body dysmorphia beginning to inhabit their bodies with a sense of acceptance and even appreciation — after years of intellectual insight had failed to shift their internal experience.

  • Women who had experienced decades of sexual disconnection reporting a renewed sense of erotic vitality and emotional openness — including the ability to initiate vulnerable, desire-centered conversations with long-term partners.

  • Men who had spent most of their lives emotionally disconnected developing the capacity to recognize, name, and express their internal states more fully — particularly in the context of intimate relationships.

  • Gender-diverse clients with complex trauma histories reporting increased comfort with sexual expression, greater regulation during physical intimacy, and a sense of agency in reclaiming their bodies as safe, sovereign spaces.

  • Queer men with deep-seated touch aversion gradually becoming more open to non-sexual and erotic contact — some describing, for the first time, the ability to initiate physical intimacy from a place of choice rather than fear.

These outcomes are not the result of any single modality, but of an intentional, relational ecosystem in which talk-based exploration and body-based integration support one another.

In this model, the therapist continues to hold the broader emotional, psychological, and relational context, while the bodyworker facilitates somatic experiences that allow the client to metabolize and embody the work in ways that are safe, attuned, and consent-led.

When done thoughtfully, this kind of collaboration does not blur boundaries — it honors scope, deepens client agency, and helps bring the therapeutic process into the body, where so much of our pain — and potential — lives.

This Workshop Emerged from Lived Professional Tensions — Not Prescriptive Certainty

This workshop is not the result of a fixed position or clinical agenda. It was developed in response to the real-world questions, concerns, and relational gaps that continue to arise in interdisciplinary care — particularly between mental health professionals and somatic, sex-positive practitioners.

Jessica Warner, MA, LPC-S, brings to this offering her perspective as a licensed professional counselor who has spent much of her clinical career navigating uncertainty around collaboration with body-based providers. Like many therapists, she has confronted recurring questions such as:

  • How do I ensure ethical alignment when referring to practitioners outside my discipline?

  • Is this type of collaboration within the bounds of my license and scope?

  • How do I support clients exploring somatic or sexuality-centered work without compromising my role?

  • How might my peers perceive these choices?

These are not theoretical concerns — they reflect legitimate professional tensions informed by licensing ethics, liability structures, and cultural narratives about what constitutes clinical appropriateness.

Jessica’s contributions to this workshop are grounded in personal experience: the discomfort of those early questions, the fear of doing harm or being misunderstood, and the shift that came through real, respectful collaboration with somatic practitioners — including sexological bodyworkers.

Nicole Siegel, Certified Sexological Bodywork® and co-facilitator of this workshop, despite operating within a clearly defined and ethical scope, has frequently encountered hesitation, misunderstanding, and at times, outright dismissal when initiating contact with therapists — even in cases where mutual clients would benefit from integrated support.

These interactions often reveal implicit bias or lack of familiarity, not malice. Still, the effect is alienating. When bodyworkers are treated as professionally suspect or incompatible with mental health care — despite being trained in consent, boundaries, and trauma-informed practice — meaningful interdisciplinary collaboration becomes difficult to build.

This workshop exists because of these tensions.

We are not offering a prescriptive framework, nor are we asking therapists to take on new roles or abandon caution. Instead, we aim to create a professional space where:

  • Clinicians can explore the roots of their discomfort and name common fears without shame

  • Therapists and bodyworkers can examine the cultural and structural reasons collaboration feels risky

  • Participants receive clear, clinically relevant information about sexological bodywork

  • Case studies, scope boundaries, and referral tools provide clarity around what’s possible — and what’s appropriate

We know many therapists are doing thoughtful, trauma-informed work — and are also aware that their clients’ challenges around embodiment, intimacy, and sexuality are not always fully met through talk therapy alone. This workshop does not suggest otherwise. Instead, it invites an honest, grounded inquiry into how we might serve our clients more effectively through collaboration that honors everyone’s role and limitations.

If you’ve felt unsure about how or whether to engage with somatic professionals — particularly in areas related to sex and the body — this space was created for you.

No certainty required. Just a willingness to reflect, question, and expand the possibilities for truly integrative care.

Meet your facilitators:

Jessica Warner, MA, LPC-S at Dove + Wolf

Jessica is a licensed professional counselor and the founder of Dove & Wolf, a private practice devoted to trauma-informed, identity-affirming, and relationally attuned psychotherapy. With a clinical background in attachment, trauma, and somatic psychology, Jessica brings a deep sensitivity to the complexities of healing work — and the professional fear that can arise when we’re invited to do things differently.

She has worked with clients navigating disembodiment, sexual shame, and relational ruptures, and understands firsthand the tension therapists can feel when sexuality and touch begin to emerge in the room. Jessica entered this collaboration not from certainty, but from curiosity — and now brings the wisdom of real-world co-referral experience to help other therapists explore this terrain with care and confidence. Jessica has been providing collaborative care with sex positive bodyworkers since 2016.

Nicole Siegel, CSB®

Nicole is a Certified Sexological Bodyworker® and the founder of Body Compass, where she supports clients in reconnecting with their erotic selves through somatic practices, trauma-informed bodywork, and pleasure-centered healing. Her work bridges the gap between sex education, embodiment, and nervous system repair — especially for clients whose trauma, shame, or disconnection can’t be resolved through talk alone.

Nicole has spent years navigating the challenges of building trust with therapists and other clinical providers, and has experienced firsthand the prejudice, silence, and misunderstanding that often meet sex-positive practitioners. She brings to this workshop a grounded, ethical, and collaboration-ready approach to body-based care — as well as a commitment to helping therapists feel safe, informed, and empowered to explore this work on their own terms.

We created this workshop because we’ve seen what’s possible when therapists and bodyworkers collaborate — and we’ve also seen how hard it can be to get there.

As a Certified Sexological Bodywork® and a licensed therapist who have regularly co-referred and consulted for years, we’ve had honest conversations about the fears, assumptions, and uncertainty that often come up — especially when it comes to hands-on or alternative modalities.

We know there’s not enough accessible training or language for this kind of collaboration. We also know that many bodyworkers are eager for partnership — not to step into the therapist’s role, but to offer trauma-informed, somatic support that complements therapeutic care.

This workshop is part of our effort to grow a more interconnected, ethical, and client-centered model of care.

It’s also personal:

We know it can feel isolating to practice in these fields — to hold space for clients in such intimate ways while navigating professional silos.
We’re looking to grow our own circle of thoughtful, values-aligned peers. If you’re someone who cares deeply, wants to better serve your clients, and is open to learning across disciplines — we’d love to be in conversation with you.

🤝 Our Commitment to Inclusivity

This space is welcoming to all genders, sexual orientations, relationship styles, cultural backgrounds, and levels of familiarity with sex-positive or somatic approaches.

We recognize that conversations about sexuality, embodiment, and professional roles can bring up discomfort — especially for those who carry personal or cultural experiences of marginalization, harm, or professional risk.

We will hold this space with care. You are welcome here exactly as you are.

Accessibility information and accommodations will be available upon registration.

What You’ll Learn — and What You’ll Walk Away With

This workshop isn’t just about understanding what Sexological Bodywork is. It’s about reshaping what’s possible in your clinical practice — expanding your confidence, your referral toolkit, and your ability to support clients in the places where talk therapy often hits a wall.

We’ll cover:

  • Why embodiment and erotic healing matter — even if you're not a sex therapist

  • What Sexological Bodywork actually looks like in practice, and how it can support clients struggling with shame, touch aversion, dissociation, numbness, or sexual trauma

  • The unspoken fears therapists carry around collaboration — and how to work through them without compromising your values or your scope

  • How to hold your professional boundaries and support embodied, integrated healing

  • Real case studies from our own collaborations — what worked, what didn’t, and what we learned

  • How to talk to clients about body-based support in a way that’s clear, ethical, and trauma-informed

🌿 What You’ll Gain

  • A clear understanding of what sexological bodywork is (and what it isn’t)

  • Language for talking with clients about somatic and sexual concerns while staying within your scope

  • A practical framework for safe, ethical collaboration with body-based professionals

  • Examples of real-world interdisciplinary partnerships and how they work

  • A chance to reflect on your own relationship to touch, embodiment, and collaboration in clinical care

  • Optional networking opportunities with values-aligned professionals

  • More confidence and ease when working with clients navigating sexual, embodied, or trauma-related concerns

  • A broader referral network they trust

  • A sense of relief in no longer being the only support person for complex client needs

  • A more integrated and sustainable vision of care — for their clients and themselves

What’s Included

You’ll leave with practical tools, confidence in your ethical footing, and new ways to support the full complexity of your clients' healing journeys — especially when sex, touch, and the body are involved.

Your resource bundle includes:

  • A Therapist’s Guide to Sexological Bodywork — clear, scope-conscious, and myth-busting

  • Scripts & Language Tools for client conversations around somatic referrals

  • An Embodied Scope of Practice Map to help you understand your own edge and comfort zones

  • A Collaboration Checklist — what to ask, how to assess, and how to stay in alignment

  • A Post-Workshop Integration Plan to help you apply what you’ve learned without overwhelm

  • Access to a growing referral and collaboration network of like-minded, values-driven professionals

This isn’t about doing more — it’s about being better resourced.
If you’ve ever wished you had a more complete way to support your clients — especially when the work moves into the body — this is for you.

we’ve got A Bigger Vision for Mental Health Care

You became a therapist because you care deeply.
You believe in healing, in people’s capacity to change, in the power of being seen.

And if you’re like many of us, you’ve probably also felt the weight of working in a system that doesn’t always support the kind of care you want to give.

You’ve felt the limits of talk therapy — especially when it comes to trauma, embodiment, and sexuality.
You’ve sat with clients whose pain lives in their bodies, whose shame runs deep, and you’ve wished you had more tools, more language, or more people on the team to support them.

You’ve also felt the pressure to stay in your lane, to protect your license, to be “appropriate.”
And maybe, at times, that’s kept you from collaborating across disciplines — even when your gut told you it could help.

This workshop is for therapists who are starting to ask bigger questions:

  • What does ethical, integrated care actually look like?

  • How do we work with other professionals in ways that feel aligned and safe?

  • What’s my role when clients start exploring body-based work — or when I think they might benefit from it?

  • And how can I keep doing this work without burning out, feeling isolated, or holding it all on my own?

We’re not here to push you into anything.
We’re here to invite you into a conversation — one that many of us have been longing for.

A conversation about working together. About naming what’s missing. About giving our clients — and ourselves — more options, more clarity, and more care.

This workshop is informed by the growing call — voiced by leaders like Dr. Jennifer Mullan in Decolonizing Therapy — to rethink how mental health care replicates colonial systems of disembodiment, control, and separation.

We believe therapists deserve more support. That ethical care can be embodied. That collaboration doesn’t have to mean chaos.

And that our clients deserve a model of healing that honors their full selves — including their sexuality, their relationship to touch, and their right to thrive in their bodies.

We believe the future of mental health is more collaborative, more embodied, and more human.
This workshop is one small but powerful step in that direction.

What Clinicians Often Ask Us

  • No. This workshop is designed specifically for licensed therapists who want to stay firmly within their ethical and professional boundaries — while gaining more clarity and comfort referring out or collaborating with sex-positive, body-based professionals.

  • Absolutely not. This is not a recruitment pitch. It’s an opportunity to understand what’s possible — and to make informed decisions that fit your practice, values, and comfort level.

  • Sexological Bodywork and similar somatic practices are trauma-informed, client-led, and consent-based. We’ll break down exactly what they are (and what they’re not), and give you tools to assess safety and fit for your clients.

  • We hear this a lot. Many therapists feel isolated in their desire to offer more embodied or integrative care. This workshop is designed to de-shame that curiosity and connect you with other practitioners navigating the same questions.

  • Nope. This is a practical, professionally-held space grounded in ethics, scope of practice, and real-world clinical considerations. It’s for therapists who care deeply about doing good work — not bypassing discomfort with buzzwords or vague ideas.

  • You don’t have to have it all figured out. This workshop is a starting point — not a certification, not a leap, just a place to explore the questions you already carry with guidance, care, and context.

  • Yes. This workshop is specifically designed to support licensed mental health professionals in understanding how to ethically collaborate with somatic and sex-positive professionals while staying firmly within their clinical role.
    You will not be asked to practice outside your scope or take on work that belongs to another discipline.

  • No. This is not a clinical training in bodywork or touch-based practice.
    This workshop provides context, language, and collaboration tools so that therapists can understand what bodyworkers do — and how to refer or partner when appropriate.

  • Yes — a growing body of interdisciplinary and trauma research supports the value of integrated, somatic-informed care for clients experiencing chronic shame, nervous system dysregulation, or sexual trauma.
    This workshop will provide frameworks and real-world case examples, not medical claims.

  • We will cover assessment considerations, ethical boundaries, and collaboration agreements to help you feel more confident when exploring body-based referrals. You will leave with questions to ask, red flags to watch for, and guidance on staying grounded in your scope.

  • That’s okay. This workshop is a low-pressure, educational space where we expect participants to come with mixed feelings, questions, and uncertainty.
    You do not need to have it all figured out — just a willingness to explore and reflect.

  • This is a values-informed workshop, not a political debate. We acknowledge that therapy has historically been shaped by white-bodied professionalism, sex-negativity, and pathologization of embodied experiences.
    We aim to create space for reflection and learning — not ideological pressure.

  • There’s no catch. We’re offering this workshop at no cost because we’re invested in growing a network of thoughtful, ethical, collaborative care providers.
    We believe this work is important, and we want to reduce barriers for therapists who are curious but cautious.
    If it resonates, we may invite you to continue the conversation — but there’s no obligation to sign up for anything further.

  • We will not be recording any of the participants — in order to protect participant privacy and allow for honest conversation.

    The only recording will be of the facilitators during the initial educational portion of the workshop.

  • You don’t need to be.

    This workshop is not just for sex therapists — it’s for any clinician who supports clients navigating trauma, relationships, body image, shame, identity, nervous system regulation, or life transitions.
    In other words: all therapists.

    Sexuality, touch, and embodiment are not “special topics” — they are part of our clients’ everyday lives. When we avoid them, we may unintentionally reinforce silence, shame, or fragmentation.

    This workshop will help you:

    • Feel more comfortable when these themes arise — even if you don’t specialize in them

    • Understand when and how to refer out safely for deeper body-based support

    • Recognize the limits of talk-only therapy in this realm — without overstepping your role

    • Expand your confidence, clarity, and compassion when clients bring these experiences into the room

    You don’t need to “be a sex therapist” to support sexual healing.
    You just need to be open, curious, and committed to ethical, whole-person care — which you already are, or you wouldn’t be here.

  • We’ve chosen to make this workshop invite-only in order to keep the space intentional, safe, and aligned with the values of the work.

    Because we’re exploring topics like embodiment, sexuality, and interdisciplinary collaboration — areas that can stir discomfort, vulnerability, and even controversy — it’s important that participants are coming in with shared respect, curiosity, and readiness to engage with nuance.

    This format allows us to:

    • Keep the space professionally attuned and clinically relevant

    • Foster real connection and conversation among participants who are already invested in client-centered, ethics-informed work

    • Protect the integrity of the learning environment, so it doesn’t become diluted, performative, or ungrounded

    There’s no exclusivity for the sake of exclusivity — this isn’t a gatekeeping move.
    It’s about building trust and growing a network of thoughtful practitioners who genuinely want to explore this work together.

    If you were invited, it’s because we believe this work resonates with what you already care about.
    And if you know someone you think belongs in this space, let us know — we’re always open to expanding the circle intentionally.

    If you’re interested in attending, please contact Nicole directly here.

Our clients deserve a care model that sees all of them —
not just their stories,
but their sensations, their fears, their longing, their joy.