Sexual Grounding Therapy Trainings
Sexual Grounding Therapy has pioneered ways for building sexual mirroring into participants , so that they have a new experience of both original sexual innocence and full support from parents, as models for male and female identity and everyday relationship. This is a process to sexual re-education, like re-learning the facts of life.
For Sexual Grounding, one of the chief tasks in life is learning to balance the masculine and feminine elements inherited through being born out of the union of a father and mother: our sources of life, gender, and sexuality. Sexual Grounding Therapy helps participants to achieve freedom from inappropriate projections and life-scripts, to regulate and harmonise an inner and outer flow of sexual energy, to place sexuality within the context of relationship, and to feel supported by their parents and ancestors.
In this way, we develop a sexual life that is realistic and concerned with passing on what has been learned. We can then begin to occupy our true human birthright - being rooted in our bodies, supported in our minds, and linked in a line of human care - upheld in our sexual ground. This state could be said to resemble Carl Jung's concept of the ‘Inner Marriage', but in Sexual Grounding Therapy the results are to be experienced much more tangibly, in the body and in one's relationships.
During the training, participants re-experience the natural progression of development - from girlhood to becoming a woman, from boyhood to becoming a man. In dynamic exercises they experience the importance of receiving supportive sexual mirroring, backed by theoretical explanations from the staff team. Participants are said to acquire a ‘cellular' knowledge, through body experience, rather than simply a rational route.
What happens on the courses?
Because it involves the whole body, Sexual Grounding Therapy sometimes requires working without clothes, and with touch. The application of these methods has been the subject of extensive study and safety precautions on the part of the Foundation for Sexual Grounding Therapy (FSGT), which guarantees the qualification and intentionality of all Sexual Grounding Therapists.
Sexual Grounding Therapy is not a training for sexual intercourse, in fact sexual activity is not recommended – not even for couples - during the course periods, so as to let the material evoked percolate deep down within into the psyche. Naturally, the Code of Ethics of the Association for Sexual Grounding Therapists and Trainers (ASGTT) expressly forbids any sexual activity between Sexual Grounding therapists and clients or students at any time. All candidates have to read and sign the SGT Guidelines (downloadable) before participating.
Sexual Grounding Therapy trainings consist of four modules of six days, spread over about 18 months. The International Sexual Grounding Therapy Training is in the English language, with French translation available. Further trainings are available in Holland in Dutch, in Mexico in English and Spanish, in Switzerland in German.
Participants are recommended, though not required, to follow - up each module with a ‘sub-group' in which they may process material arising during the course of the trainings with one of our registered Sexual Grounding Therapists.
Who is it for?
Sexual Grounding Therapy is helpful for all who wish to achieve a better self-concept, deepen the quality of their intimate relationships and to enhance their parenting skills. These trainings have also proven an extremely useful resource for parents, stepfamilies and teachers.
Sexual Grounding Therapy Trainings are intensive and intended to facilitate profound personal development, so people affected by severe trauma should undertake prior psychotherapy.
Candidates from the UK may need to complete a non-residential prerequisite weekend programme, Gender & Identity, Sexuality & Ground , before applying for the training. (link to dates and application form on genderpsychology site) The next course is in London . Part 1, Gender & Identity: 18-19 March 2006, Part 2, Sexuality & Ground: 6-7 May 2006. Please ask for details.
Therapists and related professionals will find that the certificated training is a whole unit in itself, and will more than satisfy Continual Professional Development requirements. Sexual Grounding Therapy Trainings provide a sound theoretical base in a unique modality. Sexual Grounding Therapy has much to offer that most psychotherapy trainings fail to adequately engage with, such as a profound insight into how sexual transference and counter-transference fits into the developmental framework, and can be readily employed to resolve many impasses.
Further work in Sexual Grounding Therapy
The International Foundation Year (also known as Coursework 1 or ‘Basic' Training) concentrates on sexual development up to the end of adolescence. It is followed by the Advanced Training, which continues with the developmental ages until the end of life.
If qualified therapists or counsellors wish to train to work as Sexual Grounding Therapists, after completing both the Foundation Year and the Advanced Training, they may apply for the Sexual Grounding Therapist Education, which is a post-graduate training. On graduation, they will receive a professional qualification in Sexual Grounding Therapy, which will permit them to be members of the Association of Sexual Grounding Therapists, registered in the Netherlands .
Who staffs the courses?
The International Trainings in Europe are be led by Willem Poppeliers (NL), the founder of Sexual Grounding Therapy. Willem will be assisted by Helena Løvendal- Duffell (DK), and Nick Duffell (UK), who were trained and registered psychotherapists in London , are Sexual Grounding Therapists, co-founders of the Centre for Gender Psychology, and co-authors of Sex, Love and The Dangers of Intimacy (Harper Collins Thorsons, 2002).
