Surrogate Partner Therapy...

A partner surrogate uses touch, breath work, mindfulness, relaxation exercises, and social skill training to help a client meet their specific therapy goals in conjunction with talk therapy facilitated by a professional such as myself. 

Sometimes partner surrogacy includes intercourse, but that all depends on the needs and issues the client. At no point is the therapist watching or directly involved with what’s happening between the partner surrogate and the client. A client meets with their partner surrogate separately, but gives their therapist and partner surrogate the green light to talk to one another about their progress.

The therapist, client, and partner surrogate communicating well and often is an important component to successful surrogate partner therapy.

You actually can’t access a partner surrogate without already having a licensed therapist, so someone who begins working with a partner surrogate has already been in sex therapy for a few months or few years and still has a lot of work to do around feeling comfortable with sex, intimacy, dating, and their body.

The problems that may motivate a client to incorporate a partner surrogate into their healing process range from generalized social anxiety to specific sexual dysfunctions or fears. Some folx who may benefit from the healing powers of partner surrogacy include:

• trauma and abuse survivors

• folx with little or no sexual experience

• penis-owners with erectile dysfunction or early ejaculation

• vulva-owners with vaginismus, or other pelvic floor dysfunction that may make penetrative intercourse painful

• people who struggle with body acceptance or body dysmorphia

• people who have anxiety or fear specifically around sex, intimacy, and touch

• folx with disabilities that make it more challenging to have sex

Unfortunately, because most insurance policies don’t cover surrogacy partner therapy (or sex therapy, for that matter), many of the folks who could benefit from this healing modality can’t afford it. All of my conjunct sex therapy services are unfortunately only offered out-of-pocket. 

Once you and your therapist have decided surrogate partner therapy could benefit you, your sex therapist will reach out to their network of sex and relationship surrogates. Many partner surrogates have online and social media platforms, so if you stumble on a partner surrogate you think might be a good fit for you, bring it up in your therapy session. To actually work with that particular partner surrogate, both your sex therapist and that partner surrogate will have to sign off.

From there the client and partner surrogate will meet to determine whether or not it’s a good fit. The first meeting happens in the sex therapist’s office, but all subsequent meetings happen elsewhere — usually in the surrogate’s office, or the client’s home.

A “good fit” isn’t determined by things like how attracted you are to the surrogate, but rather by feeling like you can (or eventually can) trust them.

Usually, the partner surrogate and sex therapist work together to come up with a treatment plan based on your goals. After that, you and your partner surrogate will work together toward that goal.

Things a treatment plan may incorporate:

• making eye contact

• meditation

• sensate focus

• breathing exercises

• body mapping

• one-way or mutual nudity

• one- or two-way touch (above or below clothing)

• intercourse (guided by safer-sex practices)

There isn’t always, or even usually, intercourse between a partner surrogate and the client, but when there is, focus is on building an intimate foundation first. Surrogate partner therapy is NOT a one-and-done thing.

Surrogates work with the client once a week or so until they reach their goals. Sometimes that takes months, sometimes that takes years. 

Once a client has reached their goals, a few closing sessions are had and then the client is sent off to the world to foster and engage in their own relationships.

While a lot of sex therapists and sex surrogate support sex workers, sex surrogates consider themselves professional and credentialed adjunct therapists and healers.

Sometimes there are sensual and sexual things involved in sex surrogacy, but the goal is healing — not necessarily sexual release or pleasure.

A sex surrogate has a very important role for the client who needs them, but they don’t need academic or clinical training in psychology.

However, those who work in surrogacy need to go through an ethical program and certifying body, like IPSA (International Professional Surrogates Association) Becoming a partner surrogate is a fairly involved process. There’s a multi-week training process, then there’s an internship process where candidates work under a certified surrogate partner, and then if/when they are deemed ready to go off on their own as a certified partner surrogate, they do. 

The IPSA calls out that comfort with one’s own body and sexuality, warmth, compassion, empathy, intelligence, and nonjudgmental attitudes toward others’ choice of lifestyle, consensual sexual activities, and sexual orientation are all prerequisites for becoming a surrogate partner.