Helping Clients Recover Sexual and Relational Health After Sexual Trauma
Holly Richmond did most of her clinical hours at a rape crisis centre and came out of it with a specific complaint about her own training. She had been taught well how to treat trauma. She had not been taught what comes next. Her clients would get to a point where the trauma was genuinely processed and they were steady on their own feet, and what they wanted from there was to know how to have a good relationship and a good sex life.
Her framing is surviving and thriving. Surviving is getting through life. Thriving is enjoying it. And her working hypothesis is the interesting part: what if eroticism is a foundation of thriving rather than a reward for reaching it? Rather than waiting for a client to be well enough to rediscover it, she introduces it deliberately along the way. She uses eroticism in the older sense, closer to life force than to sex: vitality, play, imagination, curiosity, creativity. Her line is that it is the bridge between feeling safe and feeling deserving.
Three and a half hours, from a somatic psychotherapist who is also a certified sex therapist. She spends real time on language, because survivors often arrive without words for what happened and cannot separate what happened to them from what is wrong with them. Then a four-quadrant way of reading symptoms across the emotional, physical, relational and sexual, and the body-based work of moving a client from steady toward vital.
You’ll walk away with
- A working distinction between surviving and thriving, and a way to recognise the client who has finished the first and has nowhere to go
- The case for introducing vitality, play and imagination during recovery rather than waiting until a client is judged well enough for it
- Eroticism understood as life force rather than as sex, which is what makes it usable with a client for whom sex is the hardest subject in the room
- Precise definitions of sexual abuse, assault, rape, harassment and violence, including where the clinical and legal lines fall, so a client can locate their own experience accurately
- A considered position on survivor and victim as language, including when each fits and why the choice matters over a long course of therapy
- Consent defined properly, including that it can be withdrawn at any point, and what coercion does to it
- A four-quadrant reading of symptoms across the emotional, physical, relational and sexual, which catches what a symptom checklist misses
- Why disclosure is so often delayed by years, and what that means for how you respond to someone who has just told you something they have held for decades
- Somatic protocols for reclaiming sexual and relational health, grounded first in safety, security and trust
- Case material running through both sessions, showing the movement from steady to alive rather than describing it
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CPD Information For Mental Health Professionals
Enjoy complete flexibility with 100% self-paced learning you can access anytime, anywhere, and on any device. This course is included with your Tatra Training membership, along with every other course in the library.
Course Duration: 3.5 learning hours
Certificate and CPD hours: On completion you’ll receive a Certificate of Completion to support your CPD records. Your certificates are yours to keep.
Assessment: Complete a short quiz at the end (80% pass mark), which you can resit as many times as needed.
Revisit Anytime: Come back to the course as often as you like while your membership is active, whenever you want a refresher for practice.
CPD Eligibility: This program may be suitable for CPD for professionals such as:
- Psychologists
- Counsellors and Psychotherapists
- Social Workers
- Community Workers
- Mental Health Nurses
- General Practitioners (GPs)
- Occupational Therapists
CPD requirements vary between professional bodies, so please check with your association or credentialing body to confirm you can claim CPD hours/OPD points for this program and what evidence they require.
Course Content
Meet Your Instructor
Sexual trauma survivors who struggle to reclaim pleasure and intimacy - or couples trapped in sexless relationships - can need more than traditional talk therapy to heal the complex intersection of mind, body, and sexuality. Holly Richmond has spent over 16 years pioneering somatic approaches to sex therapy, becoming one of North America's leading experts in helping clients recover their full sexual potential through body-based healing.
As Associate Director of Modern Sex Therapy Institutes and author of the groundbreaking book Reclaiming Pleasure: A Sex-Positive Guide for Moving Past Sexual Trauma and Living a Passionate Life (New Harbinger, 2021), Dr. Richmond represents the cutting edge of trauma-informed sex therapy. Her unique Ph.D. in Somatic Psychology from The Chicago School of Professional Psychology, combined with AASECT certification as a sex therapist, gives her rare expertise in addressing both the psychological and physiological aspects of sexual healing. With over 14,000 hours working specifically with sexual trauma survivors, she has helped thousands of individuals and couples move from sexual dysfunction to passionate, pleasure-filled lives.
Dr. Richmond's expertise spans sexual trauma recovery, sexless marriages, compulsive sexuality, desire discrepancies in couples, LGBTQ+ affirmative therapy, consensual non-monogamy, fertility concerns, and alternative sexual expression. Her somatic approach recognises that "there is nothing more body-based than sex," focusing on how trauma gets stored in the nervous system and how healing must address both mind and body. She specialises in cases where traditional therapy approaches have failed, particularly with clients who intellectualise their sexual issues without accessing the deeper somatic patterns that drive dysfunction.
What sets her training apart is integration of cutting-edge research with practical application. Richmond doesn't just teach techniques - she shows practitioners how to help clients reconnect with their bodies' natural capacity for pleasure and intimacy. Her work as a sextech consultant and "Next-Sex" platform research demonstrates her commitment to understanding how technology and sexuality intersect in modern therapeutic practice.
For your practice, expect to gain specific somatic interventions for sexual trauma, tools for working with couples experiencing desire discrepancies, and frameworks for creating sex-positive therapeutic environments. Her approach particularly benefits clinicians working with trauma survivors, couples in crisis, or practitioners wanting to develop specialised expertise in the growing field of sex therapy.
Quick Win: Richmond's "pleasure mapping" technique helps clients identify areas of their body that hold trauma versus areas that remain connected to pleasure - helping to create breakthroughs in body awareness and sexual healing.
Qualifications
- Ph.D., Somatic Psychology, The Chicago School of Professional Psychology, Los Angeles, 2014
- Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist (LMFT), California, Oregon, New Jersey
- Certified Sex Therapist (CST), AASECT, 2014
- Certificate, Sexual Assault Counselor, State of California, 2009
- American Board of Sexology (ABS) recognition
- 16+ years in practice
- Over 14,000 hours working with sexual trauma survivors
Authored Publications
- Reclaiming Pleasure: A Sex-Positive Guide for Moving Past Sexual Trauma and Living a Passionate Life (2021, New Harbinger Publications, groundbreaking examination of somatic and psychological factors in survivors' recovery)
- Over 500 published works since beginning career in journalism (1994)
Teaching & Roles
- Associate Director, Modern Sex Therapy Institutes, West Palm Beach, FL, August 2022–present
- Somatic Psychotherapist, Private Practice, September 2008–present
- Certified Sex Therapist, AASECT, July 2014–present
- Licensed practitioner in California, Oregon, and New Jersey
Specialised Programs & Training
- Developer, Sexual Trauma Certification Program (one of the first in the industry)
- Professional conference presenter on somatic sex therapy
- Training provider for Modern Sex Therapy Institutes
- International sexual health coaching services
Clinical Specialties
- Sexual trauma recovery and somatic healing
- Sexless marriages and relationship issues
- Compulsive sexuality (often called "addiction")
- Desire discrepancies in couples
- LGBTQ+ affirmative therapy
- Consensual non-monogamy and alternative relationships
- Fertility concerns and sexual pain disorders
- Infidelity counseling and fetish exploration
Innovation & Research
- Pioneer in "Next-Sex" platform exploring technology's impact on sexuality
- Sextech industry consultant bridging sexual health and adult entertainment
- Researcher in sexual and technological development trends
- Forthcoming book on sex and technology
Ready to help clients reclaim their full sexual potential after trauma or relationship crisis? Discover how Dr. Richmond's somatic sex therapy methods can transform your ability to address the complex intersection of body, mind, and sexuality in healing.
Feedback & Reviews
This course includes:
- Lessons 3
- Topics 0
- Duration 3.5 hours
- Quizzes 1
- Language English