Hello
My name is Sam
I am Sam, I live in Naarm/ Melbourne. Between taking long walks by the Yarra, visiting farmers markets and having a boogie, I work as a somatic sexologist and counsellor, and facilitator of classes and workshops.
I have training in a range of somatic and therapeutic modalities, plus wide ranging interest in conceptual and applied frameworks for sense-making the self in relationship with others and the world.
My background, life experience, training and interests uniquely position me to work with individuals, relationships to enrich their intimate lives, and with other practitioners to deepen their professional practice.
A bit about me
While studying a Graduate Diploma in Psychology in 2018 I made the decision to quit my harrowing 9-5 and begin working as a sensual masseuse.
Initially the idea was to support myself while travelling the path to becoming a clinical psychologist. However, after witnessing firsthand how conscious touch, guidance in somatic awareness and unpressured pleasure can be creatively crafted into powerful transformative experiences, I enthusiastically tumbled head first down the very sexy rabbit hole of sexual development and education. This decision has paid enormous dividends in my own capacity for intimacy, healthy relating and self-regulation, benefits that I believe are accessible to anyone who intentionally explores eroticism.
Over the years I have pursued a wide range of qualifications around sexuality, somatic therapy, relationships and process work. I still work in sexual containers with clients, alongside my work as a somatic sex educator, presenting Erotic Embodiment classes, developing workshops and coaching students.
Permission to explore, turning novelty into knowledge by meeting the resilient edge, reducing pressure, expectation and judgement and making space for integration are the cornerstones of my professional practice.
What approaches do you draw from when working with clients?
My practice draws from various influences. Centrally, it acknowledges the emotional, cognitive, somatic, social and cultural factors from which intimacy is comprised. As such, my approach employs conversation, education, demonstration, embodied practice and, where all parties deem appropriate, touch. Specifically, my qualification and training includes:
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A BA majoring in history and linguistics and minoring in philosophy, which equipped me with a profound sense of how important socio-historical context is in understanding behaviour and interpersonal dynamics.
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A Graduate Diploma in Psychology, which exposed me to the various ways in which the individual psyche, behaviours and dynamics within smaller relational units have been theorised, pathologised, quantified and reconfigured throughout the last two hundred years.
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A Certification in Sexological Bodywork, which introduced me to with practical ways in which to invite individuals into their present moment felt experience, to get curious about their capacity for sensation and pleasure, to rewire their nervous system and rewrite out of date internal narratives.
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A Certificate of Somatic Sex Education which deepened my coaching and facilitation skills.
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A Certificate In Embodied Counselling to further hone my capacity for attunement and resonance with clients, and add to my toolbox for supporting embodied exploration of personal process (ongoing)
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A Certification in Scar Treatment Remediation and Management With Ellen Heed which allows me to work hands on with a range of issues, particularly those implicated in pelvic pain (ongoing).
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CSSE Graduate Program where I am supporting the CSB program and conducting a research project into altered states in somatic sex education (ongoing)
Other certifications
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ANZPOP's Trauma Informed Facilitation
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ANZPOP's Working with Conflict in Groups
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ANZPOP's Facilitation Masterclass Series
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The Embody lab's Certificate in Somatic Attachment Therapy
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Linda Thai's Certificate in Somatic Regulation Strategies and The Voice Keeps the Score
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Dan Seigel's Mindsight Training in Interpersonal Neurobiology
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An Introduction to Embodied Counselling
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Barbara Carrellas's Urban Tantra for Professionals
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The Blisstitute of Living Aloha Introductory Lomi Lomi Certification
What does Integrating Intimacy mean?
There is a school of thought (represented most notably in the work of Dan Siegel) that views integration as the foundation of wellness. This view sees individuals and relational units as complex systems comprised of specialised parts or roles that come together in optimal functioning. When a system (or individual, or relational unit) is out of balance, the result is too much rigidity (which might look like compulsive/ ingrained habits or lack of action) or chaos (which might look like erratic, explosive, disruptive behaviour).
This definition of wellness sees human being as intrinsically relational, and looks at healthy relationships as those in which individuals are sufficiently individuated so as not to merge identities, but also connected enough not to drift apart from each other. Integration within an individual is characterised by being open to life and others, the ability to be with a diverse range of experiences, to move flexibly between them while recruiting our skills and capacities to meet them.
Through focusing on integrating intimacy, your intimate life is honoured as an ever evolving emergent process. This approach seeks to validate strengths while ushering into fullness the parts of a relationship or individual that could use some more airplay and attention. To find the bits that are working and use these to resource the bits that aren't. Drawing from a variety of modalities and tools supported by current knowledge of the nervous system and emotional regulation we will work to bring parts of yourself and your intimate life into more harmonious relationship.
I will encourage you to develop an integrated support system - for your body, your intellect, your psyche, your emotional landscape, your spirit, your relationships, your purpose and your pleasure.