Whole-Body Intimacy

Melissa Walker, LPC, CST, R-DMT, is Licensed Professional Counselor, American Association for Sex Educators, Counselors, and Therapists (AASECT) Certified Sex Therapist, and Dance/Movement Therapist, and the director of Embodied Relationships Counseling and Training Center in Colorado. Her first book, Whole-Body Sex, received the 2023 AASECT General Audience Book Award

• INTRODUCTION: A Vision of Bodyful Intimacy SECTION 1: Fundamentals Of A Whole-Body Intimacy 1. Embodying Consent As A Practice 2. Embodying Communication 3. Sexual Wiring In Relationships: How Nervous System States Impact Your Arousal Anatomy 4. Introducing The Whole-Person Sexual Response Cycle In Relationship SECTION 2: Navigating Sexuality Challenges Together 5. The Six Stages Of The Whole-Person Sexual Response Cycle 6. Navigating Sexual Challenges 7. Sexuality Challenges Due To Hormone-Related Life Events And Transitions SECTION 3: The Rhythms Of Intimacy 8. Shared Values In Action 9. Finding Somatic Attunement 10. Movement Fundamentals and Attachment Dynamics 11. Attunement Through Contact: Bodyful Touch Practices 12. Your Intimate Dynamic: Erotic Mapping For Resilience AFTERWORD: Practice, Integrate, Transform

“With the publishing of Whole Body Intimacy, Melissa Walker has singlehandedly extended and deepened our understanding of sexuality, relationship, and embodiment in both conceptual and practical ways. Taking the idea of whole body to heart, she deftly guides us through the complexities of pleasure, intimacy and sexuality with a grace and wisdom that feel both sensible and transformational. She introduces us to many different ideas and practices, such as Moving at the Pace of Connection, Sex as Self-Defined, Intimacy as both freestanding (as in sexual acts) and embedded (as in moment-by-moment sensations, feelings, glances), the Whole Person Sexual Response Cycle, Everyday Eroticism, Erotic Mapping, and Pleasure Heals the Body. Both accessible and comprehensive, she casts a clear eye on thorny topics such as consent, health challenges, desire differences, aging, and infidelity with grace and wisdom, then gives us meaningful and powerful practices to investigate these areas in our own bodies and relationships. Whoever you are, whatever your sexual nature at this point in your life, this book is written for YOU.”Christine Caldwell, PhD, LPC, BC-DMT Professor Emeritus, Naropa University Somatic Counseling Psychology, author"With clarity and compassion, Melissa Walker gently guides the reader into whole-body listening, inviting attuned awareness of the body’s rhythms, histories, and signals within intimacy. Whole-Body Intimacy offers an integrative framework that honors personal process and supports honest, bodyful partnerships rooted in embodied consent. A nourishing contribution for readers and clinicians alike seeking intimacy beyond assumption and toward embodied understanding."Christina Devereaux, PhD, LMHC, LPC, LCAT, BC-DMT, NCC, board-certified dance/movement therapist, international trainer, educator, author“Melissa writes with a compassion and precision that made the book feel immediately relevant, offering an accessible guide for softening nervous-system overwhelm and reclaiming intimacy through embodied consent. Whole Body Intimacy offers the language, practices, and somatic maps many of us were never taught, illuminating the developmental realities of pregnancy, menopause, andropause, non-sexual seasons, and perimenopausal and post-menopausal transitions with a clarity that feels both validating and liberating. Her approach invites us to rediscover and re-create our arousal anatomy, cultivate everyday pleasure, and return to the erotic gateways that make us feel vividly alive.”Tomoyo Kawano, PhD, BC-DMT, LCAT, NCC Associate Professor & Director, MA in Dance/Movement Therapy at Antioch University“Whole-Body Intimacy is an essential glimpse into the vast psychological and physiological principles of intimacy. Melissa Walker leads readers into territory that is rarely addressed but entirely necessary, outlining constructs that cover skills-based, somatic paths toward fulfilling relationships. This book is an invaluable resource for creating an attuned and embodied relational life.”Holly Richmond, PhD, author of Reclaiming Pleasure: A Sex-Positive Guide for Moving Past Sexual Trauma and Living a Passionate Life