Can a genuine, warm connection with another person facilitate healing and enhance your well-being? YES!

Relational Healing Through Trusted Touch and Platonic Connection - Allowing for a Corrective Emotional Experience

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Human Connnection Lab

Michelle Renee - Human Connection Coach and Cuddle Therapist

Offering Relational-Based Touch for Relational-Based Healing

  • I collaborate with individuals of all genders, with a majority being single.

    My focus is on clients seeking support related to body image, recovery from childhood sexual assault, and healing from mother wounds.

    Clients are often looking for an emotionally corrective experience, making this an ideal environment for experiential learners.

    • Navigating anxiety and depression

    • Developing social skills

    • Establishing boundaries, articulating needs, and desires

    • Gaining empowerment and healing from past trauma

    • Recovering from experiences of abuse and neglect, including sexual, physical, and emotional trauma

    • Enhancing self-esteem and addressing body image concerns

    • Breaking free from codependency and attachment issues in relationships

    • Reevaluating the concepts of consent and obligation, recognizing that early lessons about authority figures controlling our bodies can be challenging to un

    • Navigating anxiety and depression

    • Developing social skills

    • Establishing boundaries, articulating needs, and desires

    • Gaining empowerment and healing from past trauma

    • Recovering from experiences of abuse and neglect, including sexual, physical, and emotional trauma

    • Enhancing self-esteem and addressing body image concerns

    • Breaking free from codependency and attachment issues in relationships

    • Reevaluating the concepts of consent and obligation, recognizing that early lessons about authority figures controlling our bodies can be challenging to unlearn.

  • A session begins with exploring your desired form of connection, a significant yet often challenging question for many clients. We will work together to uncover your needs from the outset. Throughout each session, I apply various exercises and coaching techniques organically, responding to what arises in the moment. My role is to help you slow down, remain present, and tune in to your body's truth during our time together. This process resembles a live experiment where we aim for authenticity, confronting fears in a safe environment that allows for risk-taking. As your comfort grows, we will gradually introduce new challenges at a pace that feels right for you. Consider our sessions as a form of therapy within the context of social interaction.

    These sessions are referred to as “Foundations of Human Connection” and can last from 60 minutes to 3 hours, tailored to each client's needs and availability. We will explore this further during our intake call to make a collective decision. Typically, I suggest beginning with a 90-minute or 2-hour session.

  • Whether you are seeking cuddle therapy or human connection coaching, we always begin by asking, “How would you like to connect?” We invite you to schedule an exploratory call to discuss your needs.

  • The next step is to contact me.

  • It's hard to predict how many sessions you will need, but most people work with me for several months.

    When a client is local to San Diego, sessions are usually scheduled weekly or every two weeks. My San Diego location is in Rancho Bernardo, near the 15 freeway. If you want me to come to you, there's a $50 travel fee for areas within western San Diego County, around a 30-minute drive from Rancho Bernardo.

    Clients in the Los Angeles or Orange County areas can see me once a month when I’m in their area.

    Clients in the Mid-Atlantic can schedule quarterly sessions when I’m in the Baltimore/DC area.

    Clients outside of those areas can create their own schedules. I’m open to travel, and San Diego is a beautiful destination.

    Cuddle Therapy and Human Connection Coaching are intense touch therapy processes for both the client and the practitioner. I aim to offer this work to underserved populations while avoiding burnout, so I can provide my best self to all clients. Therefore, I use a sliding scale fee structure, where those who can pay more help support those who can't. During our intake process, you’ll determine your rate. Please see rate information here.

  • If you're not in San Diego, that's fine. Clients can visit for a multi-day one-on-one workshop, or I can visit you. We'll create a schedule that fits your needs. If you're in Los Angeles or Orange County, I see clients there once a month. On the East Coast, I return to the Baltimore/DC area quarterly for client sessions.

  • Cuddle therapy and human connection coaching don't require a talk therapist, but I think using both in conjunction is more effective.

  • "Reset your baseline" means helping your nervous system feel safe and secure. Our nervous systems grow from infancy, shaped by our main caregiver. If that caregiver is stressed or distracted, it can impact our development. Luckily, our brains can adapt, allowing us to change some of those early experiences. If you've experienced trauma or difficult relationships, your nervous system may not feel safe now. I focus on helping clients feel safer in their nervous system. With my guidance, you can become more comfortable in your body and with others, allowing you to carry that confidence into all your relationships.

If you have more questions, please check the FAQ. If you can't find the answer there, you can email your questions using 'Let's Connect.'

“Few practitioners can blend their own humanity with their expertise as readily and sincerely as Michelle. Her openhearted, well-boundaried poise is the hallmark of her distinct brand of compassionate professionalism. Her character and practice model a soft power, firm courage, and guiding discipline that is aspirational to clients and colleagues alike.”

— Brandon Hunter-Haydon, MSW, CSE, RYT and Surrogate Partner

"[You are] the very smart trauma-informed [practioner] I’d most want to have a beer with because of your relatable and lively and playful self.”

— Sharyn Wolf, R-LCSW

Meet Michelle Renee

I'm Michelle, a Connection Coach and Cuddle Therapist in San Diego, California, helping clients in Southern California and the Mid-Atlantic since 2015, with over 1,300 hours of hands-on sessions. I've seen my clients grow as they experience safety, trust, acceptance, and empowerment. I view my work as physical therapy for emotional health. I aim to help you discover and love your true self, enabling you to share that love and acceptance with others repeatedly.

  • A story of hope and healing in process - a client’s words
  • I reached a dark place of self-loathing, hopeless, depressed and so much shame. I didn’t believe I was worth being helped or being hugged or being held. I disqualified myself, too broken and too damaged!
  • In my work with my therapist and Michelle, it is a quality of life I never knew or dreamed possible. I am still in process and healing yet holding on to hope.
  • In my work with them realizing I am worth being heard, being helped and being held. It’s as if I have had a change in my lens, from self loathing to self loving.
  • One of the bravest things I have ever done was ask for help!
  • Taking you from self-loathing to self-loving through touch-based relational healing

"Michelle is one of the most compassionate and thoughtful human beings on this planet. Not only that but Michelle is extremely, and I mean extremely, dedicated to her work. She is constantly doing more to expand the field, serve her community, open doors for clients and clinicians. Michelle lobbied me to do a course on Surrogate Partner Therapy (SPT) which was tremendously helpful in our clinical work together. She is consistently learning more about different therapeutic techniques and interventions. She even bought and read a dense trauma book made for clinicians to understand more about exposure therapy. Working with Michelle has truly opened my eyes to the immense power and healing of SPT. I am grateful that she was my first experience working with a surrogate partner and I know this relationship will go on for the rest of our careers."

—Vanessa Cushing, LPC

  • The following are common goals around human connection - the connection with yourslef and your connection with others. Do you have any of the same goals?
  • I want to lean how to be authentic. Who am I? Ihat it is that I want? What it is that I don't want?
  • I'd like to be comfortable in my own body.
  • I want to learn that it's OK for me to want things, to hae needs; that I'm not a bad person for having needs, wants, and preferences; that my wants don't have to replicate the person I'm with.
  • I want to learn how to advocate for my needs and wants in a way that isn't harmful to others.
  • I want to learn how to feel pleasure in my ody, that feeling good in my body isn't a bad thing.
  • I want to know that the way I touch could be a source of pleasure for someone else.
  • I want to approach human connection with an attitute of joy and anticipation, not fear and self-doubt.
  • I want to know what it feels like to feel safe in my body and with another person.
  • Do any of these common goals resonate? These goals can be addressed across the spectrum of my offerings in human connection from platonic to erotic, from cuddle therapy to surrogate partner therapy, and intimacy coaching. These goals

"Michelle Renee is a gifted [practioner], who I had the joy of working with this past  fall (2022 ). Michelle responded promptly to my inquiry, initially we met on FaceTime, where her knowledge and awareness of the triadic relationship of surrogate work was clearly communicated.

During the initial 3 way meeting with my client, her warmth, sensual and sexual knowledge along with a clear sense of professional boundaries was easily communicated. She presents her authentic self with a healthy sense of humor and naturalness.

As she worked with my client she made valuable astute observations along with well crafted and detailed written feedback of her sessions with the client. My client was very pleased and benefited greatly from the work.

It is with great pleasure that I recommend Michelle as a surrogate partner and colleague.

Additionally, I want to thank Andrew Hartman co-creator of Surrogate Partner Collective for referring me to Michelle.”

—Bryce Britton, MS

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