Ariel Giarretto, MS, LMFT, SEP, CSSE

Ariel Giarretto, MS, LMFT, SEP, CSSE (she/they) is a body-oriented therapist, trainer, and Somatic Sex Educator based in Delft, Netherlands. After completing post-graduate education in counseling psychology and becoming licensed as a marriage and family therapist in California, USA, she studied a wide variety of somatic and touch therapies. She was introduced to Peter Levine's Somatic Experiencing (SE) in 1999 and became full-time teaching faculty in 2005. Throughout the 1990s, she was on staff at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, CA, as a workshop and group leader, private therapist, and part of the bodywork and massage crew, where she studied with sexuality and tantra experts including Carolyn and Charles Muir, Margo Anand, Jack Rosenberg, and Paul Carter, among many other somatic teachers and touch practitioners.

In 2015, Ariel certified as a Somatic Sex Educator at The Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality in San Francisco. She is the co-developer of the Full Embodiment Model, which offers gentle, transformative workshops for people wanting to heal from the effects of sexuality trauma, sexual abuse, and disembodiment. She specializes in sexual and gender-based violence, as well as all sexuality and relationship challenges, and has been called to train therapists dealing with Ukraine war refugees and war rape. She has extensive training in prenatal and birth therapy with Ray Castellino, as well as attachment and early developmental trauma.

As early as age 16, Ariel identified as non-binary and pansexual and has long-term involvement in sex-positive and LGBTQ+ communities. Although she has closed her private practice, she continues to offer individual and group online consultations and workshops internationally. Originally from the US, she is currently based in Delft, Netherlands with her partner Jeffrey and their animals.