A clinical, developmental approach to sexuality.

Origin & lineage

Sexual Grounding Therapy® was developed by Dutch clinical psychologist Willem Poppeliers in the early 1990s. It draws on three lineages: the developmental insight of Freud, the somatic and characterological work of Wilhelm Reich, and the lifespan vision of Jungian developmental psychology.

Refined across three decades of clinical practice and trainings in twelve countries, the method has been documented in peer-reviewed contexts and is the subject of a 2021 Routledge volume by Geoff Lamb.

The clinical frame

SGT is practiced in a closed group of around twelve participants, led by two certified trainers — typically one woman and one man. The group is the therapeutic instrument: it provides a stable, witnessed field in which earlier developmental experiences can be recognised, named, and re-grounded in the body.

Every session operates within an explicit consent framework, a published code of ethics, and a continuous supervision structure. Participants choose, at every moment, the level of engagement that is right for them.

The developmental stages

The method follows eight stages from earliest infancy to the end of life. Each stage carries a specific developmental task — when met, it grounds the next; when interrupted, it leaves a felt incompleteness that often surfaces decades later in adult intimacy.

Who it is for

SGT addresses adults — partnered or not — who experience an unresolved difficulty in their sexual or relational life: blocked desire, recurring relational patterns, difficulty receiving, dissociation from the body, or a sense that some essential developmental experience never quite happened.

It is also a professional training path for psychotherapists, psychologists, body workers and sexologists who wish to integrate a developmental, embodied approach to sexuality in their clinical practice.

Evidence & training

The full certification path spans four years of training and supervised practice. Practitioners are listed in our public directory only after meeting these requirements and signing the FSGT code of ethics. Continued certification requires ongoing supervision and refresher work with senior trainers.