If you have trouble creating or sustaining healthy romantic, intimate, or sexual relationships, you may be a suitable client for surrogate partner therapy.

If you desire to be in a romantic, intimate, or sexual relationship, whether it’s monogamous or non-monogamous, short- or long-term, and haven’t been able to make it happen, you may be a suitable client for surrogate partner therapy.

Many of my clients have experienced tremendous barriers to connecting with their own bodies and those of others. They want to develop healthy boundaries and consent practices, and want to explore and feel confident expressing their authentic eroticism. They desire joy, connection, intimacy and depth in their relationships, and want to be fully present while engaging in intimacy.

If this describes you, you might consider working with a therapist/clinician who collaborates with surrogate partners, and exploring together whether this might be the right modality for you.

It varies tremendously, and my work with each client is deeply personal and tailored to the needs of that specific client relationship.

Some of my clients:

• Experience anxiety around sex and intimate relationship, including performance anxiety, intimacy anxiety, body anxiety, or shame around desires/kink

• Are challenged by social norms around sexuality, intimacy, and communication which may not be intuitive or accessible for neurodivergent or otherwise non-normative people

• Experience challenges such as erectile dysfunction, inability to orgasm, delayed or premature orgasm, lack of desire, lack of arousal, and/or vaginal pain

• Struggle with negative self-image, perhaps due to body size, appearance, disability, inexperience, neurodivergence/non-neuronormativity, and/or queer and/or trans identity

• Are unsatisfied with the sexual and romantic experiences and relationships they have been having, and are committed to building intimacy skills and changing deeply-held patterns

• Experience shame around their desires, or pathologize their sexuality

• Have experienced trauma (sexual, physical, emotional, structural, relational, religious)

• Struggle to communicate openly about sex

• Have internalized harmful attitudes about sex

• Have never engaged in sex or physical intimacy

• Have never engaged in emotional intimacy, or healthy emotional intimacy

• Have engaged in sex or intimacy, but it was a long time ago or very limited or painful or traumatic

• Used to engage in sex or intimacy, but haven’t since experiencing a significant illness or injury, receiving a medical diagnosis, experiencing a traumatic event, coming out, or undergoing a gender transitioning

• Are exploring their sexual or gender identity

• Are exploring how to engage sexually and intimately after a gender transition

• Are navigating a recent life change and experiencing themselves through a new lens

• Experienced familial or cultural prohibition or lack of education around sex, intimacy, and dating, perhaps due to religious upbringing, culture, gender norms, homophobia, or transphobia

• Feel discomfort with the subtle and overt ways that sexual attitudes and practices are tied into performance of gender, morality, social status

• Are examining and the impact of patriarchy, white supremacy, toxic masculinity, and/or the gender binary on their sexuality

Surrogate partner therapy is a hands-on, embodied, therapeutic modality. Together we overcome relational and sexual challenges through conversation, touch, learning, games, and intimacy practices. 

We slowly and gradually move through the unique obstacles that block you from creating and sustaining healthy and intimate relationships.

We break down physical and emotional intimacy into small pieces and titrate as you build capacity. 

We show up as our full, authentic selves and build rapport and develop an emotional connection in real time.

We engage in exercises that investigate safety, trust, vulnerability, and self-expression.

We engage in exercises around staying relaxed, staying present, naming your desires, communicating your experience, and working through inhibition, insecurity, and fear.

We explore practices around personal agency and consent.

We practice fully feeling and naming and skillfully communicating what’s happening internally for each of us.

We engage in pleasure-based, LGBTQ2++ inclusive, kink-friendly sexual education.

We practice and develop self regulation skills.

As our work progresses, you develop comfort with your own body and intimacy with the body of another.

Our work is experiential: I become your temporary partner. We both show up to our sessions as our authentic selves and our relationship reflects our genuine personalities.

Our work is expansive – it’s not just about sex! We build skills around relationships, communication, self-awareness, consent, and accountability. These changes will impact all your relationships, from family and friends to work and professional connections.

Our work is slow and steady – although the mind may understand concepts quickly, the body and nervous system move at their own pace. Our intimacy and vulnerability with each other may touch on deep wounds and activate powerful emotions and responses. Learning to remain open and connected with one another through these challenges is part of our work. Navigating misunderstanding, frustration, conflict, and rupture with one another is an important part of our work. 

Our process is deep and long term and our relationship is time bound. Once your therapeutic goals are met, our relationship will end. We will approach the ending of our relationship with care and gentleness, giving space to closure.

Nudity and touch may be introduced as we build intimacy and trust, if it serves your therapeutic goals. 

I remain in ongoing dialogue with your therapist. 

Our work together ends when you’ve reached your therapeutic goals, and/or found a partner with whom you can continue your healing journey.

Many of the people in this world who could be suitable romantic or sexual partners for you – short- or long-term, monogamous or non-monogamous – are people with whom you will not experience immediate, intense physical attraction.

In fact, immediate, intense physical attraction and ‘chemistry’ or the presence of ‘a spark’, however much they can be celebrated in film and media, are a flimsy foundation on which to build a relationship. They can also be an intoxicating force that clouds one’s better judgement.

Surrogate partner therapy focuses on building emotional intimacy, safety, trust, healthy communication, and boundaries. Touch practices center pleasure rather than attraction, and focus on building self-awareness and slowly deepening our connection. The attraction builds from our shared experience of comfort, pleasure, and safety.

As a surrogate partner, I show up as my real self. I express my genuine personality, my genuine preferences, and my genuine desires. I may disclose things about my life outside of my professional practice, and our work together will require that I share many things about my body, sexuality, and emotional landscape with my clients. I seek to model consent practices by not engaging in touch or intimacy that I don’t feel comfortable with or desire.