Does Therapy, or Intimacy, Heal Trauma? Trauma is relationship rupture. Maybe this is especially true for sexual trauma – where violence so often occurs in an intimate, relational environment, and we get wounded at our very core. Therapy helps, sure. But I needed more. And I still need experiences of careful, caring, erotic attunement, with people who are knowledgeable, patient, and well-trained – and also loving. I need to touch and to be touched by people who have a deep understanding of trauma’s impacts. I need the company of friends, and professional Intimacy Educators, who are unafraid of the wounded core of me, and who are familiar with their own wounds and triggers. That’s why a major focus of my Intimacy Educator Training program is on intimacy and attunement, in a trauma-informed practice of erotic ritual exchange. We can learn to practice empowered choice and voice, choose pleasure, and access ecstatic embodiment – while in the vulnerable give and take of intimate connection with one another. Creating erotic rituals, where one person at a time can be the focus, is a way we can meet trauma in our different neural learning zones. We can learn to play with friends, and clients, in the dance of sacred intimacy – where trauma gets healed, and love can flourish.
