The Revolution is Relational

Relational Literacy: The Missing Curriculum

Since founding my practice in 2014, I've worked with individuals and couples to develop the awareness, understanding, and skills necessary for navigating the complexities of intimate territory: emotional and erotic connection, resilient boundaries, and dynamic communication.

Relational literacy requires skill building, just like all meaningful subjects of learning. But unlike other subjects, relational literacy isn't explicitly taught; it is implicitly modeled. In the absence of real education, we’re left in a landscape littered with tips, tricks, and magical thinking that fails to develop genuine relational competency.

Relational Skills Are Learnable

The Pillars of Relational Literacy

  • Emotional Literacy

    Embodied and present emotional awareness—foundational for all the other pillars. Less about managing or controlling emotions, and more about developing the capacity to recognize, name, and access the intelligence of emotion.

  • The Psychology of Sex

    Understanding eroticism as primal creative drive of which sex is one expression. What makes sex good, great, and amazing and how erotic power is always available within and beyond sex.

  • Relational Boundaries

    The infrastructure of intimacy, as much about need and desire as they are about limits. Not rigid rules or ultimatums but dynamic practices of mutual care and respect.

  • The Rules of Engagement

    Emotion-centered communication for navigating conflict and deepening mutual understanding. A structured practice that supports relational and logistical problem-solving, and repair after rupture.

Ways to Work With Me

These foundational areas are explored through The Conversations (learning in community) and deepened through Private Coaching (individualized support)

The Pleasure Ethic Conversations
Monthly group workshops for collaborative learning and developing relational capacity alongside others doing the same work.

The Conversations offer both learning and community-building through facilitated exploration of complex topics.

Explore The Conversations

Private Coaching
Individualized support for people wanting a more traditional therapeutic experience.

Private coaching offers personalized support for exploring these frameworks one-on-one, and working through specific relational challenges and transitions.

Learn About Private Coaching

  • “Each session, Elena fostered the group's ability to be uncomfortable AND safe (seriously amazing!)"

    —Conversations (full series) participant

  • “Doing a workshop on emotional literacy is a liberating experience. We aren't taught to be very emotionally literate. Doing this work enables me to name what I'm feeling right now. It's so powerful and it's so helpful.”

    — Emotional Literacy participant

  • "Elena has showed me the power of what 'being seen' feels like in my most vulnerable moments. It's amazing how therapeutic it can be to show yourself to someone who is truly non-judgmental. She has an uncanny ability of keeping the attention of the session on my therapeutic work while bringing in her own story at the perfect times. It's been incredibly helpful to have a practitioner who isn't scared of showing her authenticity."

    —Long-term client