Coaching Specializations
The Somatica Certification Training offers you in-depth education about how to coach a diverse clientele over a wide range of topics.
Sometimes there are goals, challenges, or communities where more specific knowledge can greatly increase your ability to support your clients. Part of our mission at the Institute is to ensure you have the most comprehensive set of tools necessary to help each of your clients thrive. In service of this goal, we have recently added a number of coaching specializations.
As part of your overall training, you are required to complete two of these specializations. However, you have access to all of them and can decide which ones are most pertinent to your client “sandbox” – those people you want to attract or who are most likely to show up in your practice. You can then list the specializations on your website or other marketing materials so your clients can see that you’ve taken the time to gain extensive knowledge about their specific coaching goals.
The following specializations are included in the certification training:
In addition to these specializations, Somatica graduates can participate in advanced training, including:
Relationship Design
The relationship design specialization covers different relationship structures including monogamy, open relationships, polyamory, and more. You will learn how to help people experiment and navigate decisions around the right relationship structure for them.
But relationship design is so much more than this. It’s also about life choices – both big and small – that individuals and couples (or throuples, etc.) need to make to create the relationship that suits them best. This can include preferences around children, cohabitation, religion or spirituality… and the list goes on. Supporting clients in talking through these important decisions takes skill and patience. With the relationship design specialization, you learn how to most effectively assist couples tackle them with grace and empathy.
Sexuality Around Childbirth and Postpartum
Childbirth and the time after having a child can create tremendous challenges in relationships. It’s also a time of transformation and possibility.
As a sex coach working with parents and parents-to-be, it is important that you understand the issues that can arise for new parents.
In this specialization, you will better understand the changes that occur in pregnancy, childbirth, and after childbirth and how to guide your clients through this time while keeping their sexual connection intact.
Sexuality and Aging
Aging is a normal part of life everyone has to face. Yet so many people are blindsided by the changes that come with age – including menopause and andropause, as well as emotional and bodily changes that can impact our sexual desire and function.
Aging can be a time of shutting down desire – or it can be a time of expansion and deepening self and other awareness. As a coach, you can help guide people in how to continue to have a fulfilling and joyful sexual life at every age.
Body Image
There are so many poisonous messages about our bodies surrounding us every day. In the face of this, many people suffer from negative body image and all of the pitfalls surrounding it – including not feeling lovable or desirable, disconnection from sexuality and partnership, and eating and exercising disorders.
When you invest the time in your coaching practice to guide people towards a positive relationship to their bodies, you empower them to live a much more embodied, celebratory, and connected life. The body image specialization will help you do just that.
LGBTQ+
We still live in a homophobic, biphobic, and transphobic society where people are supposed to conform to societal ideas of what the right identity, gender, and sexual behavior is. In the face of this oppression, people are fighting for the freedom to be who they are, and beautiful, supportive communities have grown out of this adversity.
To work with folks across the sexuality and gender spectrum, it’s important to understand the unique challenges of living in a society rife with these phobias. Awareness around the challenges in the dating, sex, and relationship lives of LGBTQ+ folks is also crucial. In this specialization, we will look at the bigger picture of liberation, the unique obstacles LGBTQ+ people face, and the kind of support they need from their coach.
Sexuality Across the Ability Spectrum
Each of us exists on a different ability spectrum and throughout our lives, our physical and mental abilities will continuously shift and change. It’s important for you as a coach to know how to work with people across the ability spectrum to support everyone in maximizing their sexual potential and relational fulfillment.
You may come across clients experiencing chronic illness, neurodivergence, or physical challenges such as paraplegia. Knowing how to work with these different populations, and support them in the face of their particular social, emotional, or physiological challenges is vital. Each person has the right to find their own unique erotic and emotional place of joy – and you can be an advocate to guide them on their journey.
Empowered Dating
Dating can be challenging – especially if your client falls into one of the many dating pitfalls that we see in our offices every day. These may involve feelings of unworthiness, uncertainty about desires, insecurity about self-presentation, or inadequacy in romantic roles.
By taking the empowered dating specialization, you will be able to expertly guide your clients to deepen their self-awareness, confidence, and dating skills. Then, when they go out into the world, they are able to get what they really want – whether that’s love, sex, partnership, or new adventures.
Sexual Dysfunction
So many people seek out sex and relationship coaching because they are dealing with a particular dysfunction.
As a coach, it’s vital for you to know what those dysfunctions are, and how and when they might show up. Only then can you guide your clients on the two-pronged path to resolving their issues. Part one is about seeing what’s possible in the realm of functionality. Part two is about supporting them in experiencing the most amazing sex life possible, no matter whether the dysfunction is actually resolvable.
This delicate balance must be understood and practiced. After taking this coaching specialization, you will have the expert ability to move your clients from a state of anxiety and inadequacy to pleasure and connection.