Appearances

This workshop pulls from mindfulness, tantra, neuroscience and polyvagal theory to take pleasure and connection to the next level.

Great sex engages both our minds and our bodies.

Having sex is both an emotional and physical experience, so it makes sense to use the mind and the body as resources for pleasure and connection. Using methods of mindfulness and tantra practices, and drawing on principals of neuroscience and polyvagal theory, participants will learn to use the mind and body together—not focus on one over the other—to have their best sex ever.

Read more about Dr Holly’s unique areas of sexpertise, the role of technology in modern sex, and how mindfulness can improve our sex lives ahead of her Valentine’s Day themed talk

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100% of ticket sales from this event will be donated to Planned Parenthood.
*free ticket purchases guarantee entry, but not seating.

This workshop offers practical tools for letting go of sexual shame, embracing pleasure and living an erotically empowered life.

Healing from sexual trauma isn’t enough.

Too often survivors feel like they have healed from or pushed through the initial trauma, only to discover they don’t have the tools to embrace a sexually empowered life. This workshop offers comprehensive techniques and practical tools for letting go of sexual shame and moving into integrated experiences of connection and pleasure. Participants will learn about the instructor’s research into the embodied healing of sexual trauma, including ways to replace dysfunctional personal and relational patterns with healthy, sex-positive alternatives.

Event Details

Get Tickets

100% of ticket sales from this event will be donated to Planned Parenthood.
*free ticket purchases guarantee entry, but not seating.

What does erotic intelligence mean to us as therapists, coaches, and relationship professionals?

How do we help our clients cultivate a feeling of vitality? How do we help them go beyond recovering from trauma to come back to life? And how can we help them achieve a deeper connection when we are struggling ourselves?

Eros, also known as eroticism, is a quality of aliveness, vibrancy and vitality that is critical to both life and the clinical relationship. It’s a sense of creativity, agency and pleasure that we often aim for in our clients but neglect within ourselves.

Esther and her guests will share a multi-faceted conceptualization of eroticism and how practitioners can apply it.

Using a multicultural and interdisciplinary lens, Esther and her guests will share a toolkit focused on eroticism to therapists and coaches that will enable you to engage with difficult topics and therapeutic choice points, taking on relational challenges around love and desire with curiosity, renewed energy and confidence.

Next Sex Course

As new technologies arrive and alter our most personal experiences, we are witnessing a transformation in how we connect with one another.  Human sexuality, in all of its idiosyncratic expressions, has long been a driver of technological innovation. It is no surprise that the latest high-tech wave is pushing desire into uncharted terrain, expanding human sexuality and stretching the cultural and physical boundaries of how we have sex, and who—or what—we have sex with.

What do these developments mean for therapists, and how will they change the ways in which we engage with and treat clients? Rather than sitting idly by and fearing these new immersive technologies will push people further apart, we can actively learn to use them in ways that foster healthy individual and relational sexuality, and encourage a greater degree of erotic empathy. The focus of this latest sextech transformation is not on what technology can do to us, but what it can do for us—its potential to positively transform our humanity, changing the way we see ourselves and behave as sexual beings.

Somatic Sex Therapy Course

Sex is almost always a physical act, so why would we not use the body as a resource for better understanding our clients’ experiences? This course draws on many of the main principles in somatic psychology including polyvagal theory, attachment theory, narrative and art therapy, the Braddock Body Process, integrative trauma and PTSD therapies, and the instructors own research into embodied healing for survivors of sexual trauma. It will address somatic memory and holding, as well as ways to reframe and replace dysfunctional psychosomatic patterns with integrated alternatives.

Understanding how the brain and body work together—not focusing on one over the other—informs effective somatic sex therapy interventions. Somatic techniques are most often used as an addition to, rather than a replace for, traditional sex therapy methodology, and inherently offer titrated pacing and client-lead initiatives. Utilizing somatic sex therapy moves clients toward states of embodiment and empowerment, which creates an ideal foundation for holistic sexual health.

Join Dr. Holly on FaceBook Live for a her personal tour of the Museum of Sex’s Celestial Bodies VR experience with creative and artistic director Serge Becker.

Celestial Bodies is an immersive room scale VR installation that brings Diplo’s track “Set It Off” to a new dimension. On view from October 2nd, this virtual reality experience is an exploration of anticipation, sexual attraction, identity, presence, touch, scale, comfort, daring and spatial awareness – around a shared infinite pole dance in space.

Unlike most iterations of VR where participants are static, this exhibition encourages users to move about freely within the controlled environment where user movement and active participation is an integral part of the experience. In addition to a VR headset participants are outfitted with Optitrack motion sensors tracking their movements and up to 6 participants and their VR avatars can interact with each other, creating a dynamic environment. The 1,000 square feet of space has been carefully mapped by the director and by controlling all elements of the user experience, the director is able to methodically impart his own vision upon that of the user. Employing live performers, haptic elements, and three-dimensional sound, this installation traverses the line between physical reality and a virtual simulation.