Services
Staying Connected for Couples with Infants & Young Children
It is hard to fathom how much a baby is going to change your relationship to your partner, and how lonely that can be. Research shows that children fare better on scales related to depression, academic performance, resilience, and adaptability when they grow up in households with two parents (as long as there is not high conflict or violence involved). Being able to offer a stable and loving home environment for children really starts before their birth. Maintain communication and deepen intimacy with guided somatic practice, family planning, and parent education.
Asking for What You Want & Dealing with Disappointment
Recondition your framework for asking for what you want. As a society, we are often conditioned to believe that sex is trivial or there is a right way to do it. Women are often taught to be passive, and men are taught to be the initiators. Many believe that if they are not perfect, they do not deserve to ask for what they want. Some people don't know what they want because it has been a kind of taboo to explore it and express it, so they suppress it.
Women's Clinics
I offer mentoring and partnering in helping women to learn how to be more empowered, sexually fulfilled women. Through practice sessions, you can learn how to be skillful in identifying what you want out of your emotional, physical, intellectual, and spiritual facets of your life. You may practice asking for what you want or how to be mindful and aware of your boundaries, and to learn how to be empowered when your boundaries shift. Part of our work may be in helping you develop "Self"-ness, connecting with your desire, finding your voice, understanding your patterns in relationship and where they came from. You may want to learn how to become aroused and to identify what arouses you in different contexts, gain a stronger voice, surrender to your desires, surrender to another's desire, receive pleasure, and initiate your desires.
As a Sex & Relationship Doula, I Do Not:
Perform any clinical tasks
Unlike a licensed mental health professional, I am not your vehicle for change--you are. You are accountable to that work. At any time, however, if you feel you need help with deeper psychological issues, I will recommend and encourage you to seek help.
Men's Clinics
In our work together, I am going to give you permission to have your feelings and desires, and will help you express them in a way that will get you closer, in mindful practice, of getting them heard, met, and expressed--first verbally, and then physically. Our work will include mentorship and practice in loving yourself and understanding your patterns in relationship and dating. I will help you deal with a person's boundaries and deal with the disappointment of bumping up against someone's boundaries without becoming shut down, either through negative self-talk or by becoming angry or despondent. We may discuss surface-level attraction and true chemistry if that's something that speaks to you. We may work on asking for what you want, surrendering and deepening intimacy with a partner.
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My clients frequently want all this, and they present with issues related to function, what they describe as over-use or addiction to porn, too-frequent masturbation, and shame. They may deeply want connection and don't know how to get it. They may feel deep shame over the frequency of their desire. They may feel disconnected to their long-term partner and pursue unethically outside of the relationship.
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Every man is unique to his experience. Our work is to help you identify the goals of your work and to then work on it experientially.
Changes Along the Lifespan
The shifting stages of development are so apparent in infancy, toddlerhood, and throughout childhood and adolescence. Then people think they are an adult and spend the rest of their lives "adulting," as if there is a proscribed method for doing so. The truth is, we are shifting throughout our lifespans. And these lifespans are long. We "do relationship" as if once the contract with our partner is set, it is done and never shifts and never needs to be talked about again.
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Guess what? It does.
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Staying in conversation, communication, negotiation, and authentic relating with intimacy helps difficult conversations even as they deepen intimacy.
Libido & Desire
Partners with varying levels of libido or desire can talk about their needs and their desires while also learning skills for how to stay in connection. Many couples find this to be a difficult conversation. I'm here to help with the conversation, as well as with negotiations that necessarily must occur, without one partner feeling badgered and/or the other partner feeling shame over what has come to feel like badgering.
Relational Necessities
Understanding your Love Language, how you relate, how you like to be seen, how you like to show your affection frequently have to do with early childhood attachments. Understanding your attachment style, the need for individuation within relationship, and the skills for repair are necessities to every relationship.
Make decisions for you
The notion of self-determination guides my work with you. It is your work, your life, your relationship, your body. My work is to help you embody who you say you are in the world and to offer immediate feedback to you according to the goals of your work.
Disclose our work with anyone outside of our practice together
You made the decision to work on yourself in this way, as an individual or as a couple. This is your work. It is completely confidential and unique to you.
Project any of my own beliefs onto your experience
From my website and my writings, you will have a good idea of who I am and the objectives of my work. I will be attuned to you and will align myself to the relationship of our work together. You will have chosen me because you felt my attitudes about your goals were in alignment to how you want to be. I will not shame or blame you when my personal beliefs are not in alignment with yours because I operate from the perspective that YOU are the expert on you.
Shame you
Much of our shame in today's society feels like trauma. You don't need more of it here. You will be received, nurtured, cared for, and attuned to within the boundaries of our work together.
Why do I call myself a "Sex & Relationship Doula"?
What is a Doula?
The word 'doula' — pronounced 'doo-la' — is a Greek word meaning 'woman servant or caregiver'. More recently, it refers to someone who offers emotional and physical support to a woman and her partner before, during and after childbirth. A doula believes in 'mothering the mother'. In this context, I believe in nurturing the client and being in service to the client at all times. It starts with vulnerability as a two-way street, but first modeled by me, in service to you.
I am a social science researcher in the realm of family systems and developmental psychology. I have a B.A. in Social Sciences, and am currently enrolled in graduate school in clinical psychology. Previously, I studied Behavioral Economics at the Chicago School of Professional Psychology. In addition, I am a Somatica Institute-trained sex and intimacy coach, and a certified mediator.
Phone & Email Support
I am available by phone, Skype, Zoom, FaceTime, and email. All services must be prepaid by going to The D-I-V Design Agency, LLC booking page and selecting Relational Consulting.