An Interdisciplinary Professional Development Workshop
& community building event
for sex positive therapists.working
TogetherA Practical Guide to Collaborating with
Sex-Positive Bodyworkers
By 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.
Why This Workshop Exists
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 Bodyworker and a licensed therapist who regularly co-refer and consult, 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.
🌿 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
You don’t need to be convinced. You just need to be curious.
💡 Why This Might Matter to You
Therapists who attend this workshop often say they leave with:
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
🤝 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.
🌟 A Bigger Vision for Mental Health Care (Therapist-Real)
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.
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case studies
🤍 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, LPC, 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, a certified Sexological Bodyworker and co-facilitator of this workshop, offers the equally necessary view from the other side of the collaboration gap. Despite operating within a clearly defined and ethical scope, Nicole 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.