For Therapists
Somatic skill-building that supports the work you’re already doing. HELD offers a structured, six-session somatic intimacy series for couples who have a foundation of self-awareness and are ready to practice connection in the body. Through guided experiences in attention, consent, supportive touch, nervous-system collaboration, and play, couples develop relational skills they can carry into therapy and everyday life
Attend
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Attend Together
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Encourage Ease
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Play Together
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Encourage
Attend ✳︎ Attend Together ✳︎ Encourage Ease ✳︎ Play Together ✳︎ Encourage
The HELD Couples Experience
“My role is to support and extend the work you are already doing with a couple. You remain their therapist and primary clinical provider; I offer a structured space where clients can practice connection through attention, consent, supportive touch, nervous-system collaboration, and play. With the couple’s permission, we can align around shared goals, communicate about their progress, and ensure that any clinical material that emerges returns to the therapeutic relationship. I see this as a true partnership: you help couples understand and heal their patterns, and I help them practice new ways of being together.”
How we collaborate
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You remain the couple's therapist and the primary provider for clinical treatment. HELD serves as an adjunctive, experiential resource: translating insight into embodied practice through a clearly defined coaching series.
With the couple's written permission, collaboration may include:
A brief consultation before referral to assess readiness and fit
Shared goals for the skills the couple will practice
Concise updates about participation, strengths, and areas for continued support
Referral back to therapy when clinical material emerges or greater stabilization is needed
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The Six-Session Series
The series develops five connected skills:
Attending Inward - noticing sensation, breath, tension, ease, and internal boundaries
Attending Together - staying connected to oneself while offering curious presence to a partner
Supporting Ease - using consensual touch to offer support without force, fixing, or agenda
Following and Supporting the Response - listening to the body's impulses and responding together with choice and trust
Playing Together - communicating curiosity, making invitations, and experimenting with flexibility and consent
Each partner may also schedule an individual session to create a personalized meditation and breathwork practice that supports their participation in the shared work.
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HELD is designed for couples who:
Have basic self-awareness and can communicate consent and boundaries
Are willing to take responsibility for their own experience
Have enough relational stability to practice closeness without coercion or fear
Want to move beyond insight and develop embodied skills together
Are engaged in therapy, have completed meaningful therapeutic work, or have another established practice of reflection and care
HELD is not appropriate when there is active abuse, coercive control, untreated crisis, significant instability, or a need for clinical assessment or treatment beyond the scope of coaching.
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Therapy helps couples understand and heal what has shaped their relationship. HELD helps them practice what connection can feel like now.
Together, we create a coordinated path from insight to lived experience - while keeping consent, scope, and the couple's therapeutic care at the center.
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If you are wondering whether HELD may complement your work with a couple, I welcome a brief consultation.
Lauren Christian
Somatic Relationship Coach | Couples Therapist in Training
heldrelationships.com