Pelvic, Sexual & Mental Health Therapy
Lauren Cummings (she/her) is a Mental Health Occupational Therapist and Somatic Sexologist with a specialist focus on sexual health, intimacy, and body connection. Back in My Body Therapies offers rights-based, evidence-based compassionate care for individuals across the Sunshine Coast and beyond.
Back in your body. Back in your pleasure.
Appointments available via telehealth or in-person on the Sunshine Coast, QLD
Phone 0434 567 428
Sexual Dysfunction
Support for difficulties with desire, arousal, orgasm, and pain during sex using a body-based and evidence-based Mental Health therapy approach to help you feel like yourself again.
Pelvic Pain & Intimacy
Support for vaginismus, vulvodynia, dyspareunia, and other conditions that make sex painful or impossible.
Body Image & Sexual Confidence
Therapeutic support for shame, avoidance, and disconnection from your body, helping you rebuild a healthy, confident relationship with yourself and your sexuality.
Mental Health & Sexual Wellbeing
Medicare endorsed Mental Health Occupational Therapy for anxiety, depression, shame, and the emotional barriers that quietly erode your sense of self, connection, and pleasure.
Nervous System & Trauma
Somatic and ACT approaches for those whose sexual health challenges are rooted in stress, burnout, trauma, or a nervous system stuck in survival mode.
Sexuality After Diagnosis
Evidence-based support for adapting to changes in sexual function, body image, and intimacy following chronic illness, disability, cancer, or significant health events.
I support people living with health conditions, chronic illness, disability and injury to reclaim their sexual health, function, expression and connection with their body.
I proudly welcome and celebrate people of all genders, sexualities, cultures, backgrounds, abilities, and relationship dynamics.
I am a qualified Mental Health Occupational Therapist and Somatic Sexologist based on the Sunshine Coast, QLD, working with individuals and couples across Australia and internationally. Sexual health and pelvic pain can touch every part of life - your body, your emotions, your relationships and your sense of self. My dual qualifications enable me to support you across varying aspects of your experience: physical, emotional, psychological, and relational.
I work collaboratively with GPs, Gynaecologists, Physiotherapists, and other specialist members of your care team because Sexual Health and Pelvic Pain require a whole-team approach.
I am located on the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, and provide telehealth and in-person support. As a Medicare Mental Health Endorsed Occupational Therapist, I can also accept referrals under a Mental Health Care Plan from your GP, making my services accessible with a Medicare rebate (see fees for more information).
FAQs
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Pelvic pain
Vaginismus & vulvodynia
Dyspareunia (painful sex)
Sexual changes after injury or treatment
Pelvic floor dysfunction
Dissociation & disconnection from the body
Nervous system dysregulation
Difficulty reaching orgasm
Low libido/low arousal
Mismatched libido/mismatched desires
Reduced genital sensation or numbing
Performance anxiety
Sexual shame
Sexual anxiety
Difficulty with sexual communication & boundaries
Sensory sensitivities, overwhelm or “checking out” during sex
Challenges with sex after illness, childbirth, injury, or surgery
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I create an inclusive, affirming, and safe space for individuals of all genders, sexualities, and identities. I create a sex-positive & LGBTQIA+ inclusive space, with support for gender affirmation and neurodivergence. I provide trauma-informed care and work with people of all abilities and disabilities.
Medicare Mental Health Care Plans
Medicare Chronic Disease Management
NDIS Participants
Private Paying
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Mental Health Occupational Therapists are allied health practitioners who understand how emotional wellbeing, trauma, stress, pain, sensory processing, and life experiences can affect your day-to-day functioning.
When it comes to sexual health, that means working with you to navigate the physical, emotional, and relational impacts of chronic illness, pelvic pain, trauma, or complex health conditions.
We’re problem-solvers.
With my dual qualifications, I am able to look at what’s getting in the way and then work with you to find creative, practical, body-based strategies that help you feel safer, more connected, and more like yourself.
What does that look like in practice?
— Managing sexual changes after a diagnosis: We might work through how to manage your fatigue, pain, body image, changes in desire or arousal, and how to communicate all of that with a partner/s.
— Pelvic pain: Together we might explore what's driving the pain response, learn pain science, build your body awareness, reduce fear and avoidance, and find ways back to comfortable, connected intimacy.
— Dissociation and sexual health: For people who feel disconnected from their body during intimacy, (whether from trauma, chronic illness, or pain) somatic approaches can help rebuild that felt sense of safety and presence in your own body.
— Chronic illness: We might work on strategies to navigate your symptoms, understand your desire pathways, what triggers your pain flares, and the emotional weight of a diagnosis; finding ways to reconnect with yourself and your partner/s on your terms.
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A Sexologist is someone who has studied the science of sex; the anatomy, physiology, psychology, and cultural influences that shape how we experience arousal, desire, and pleasure.
Somatics refers to the body and our felt sense of it. Somatic practices work with the nervous system and physical sensations to deepen body awareness and strengthen the connection between what we feel physically and what we experience emotionally.
Somatic Sexology brings these two things together. Rather than only talking about sexual health, we work with what the body is actually holding, tension, fear, numbness and disconnection and gently move through it.
For many of my clients, illness, pain, trauma, or a difficult diagnosis has changed the way they experience their body. Sex and intimacy can start to feel unsafe, unfamiliar, or simply out of reach. Somatic Sexology is about changing that — rebuilding body awareness, restoring a sense of safety, and finding your way back to pleasure on your own terms.
Applications of Somatic Sexology include:
Rebuilding the connection between body and mind: Through guided body-based work we can use the brain's own capacity for change to build new pathways, restoring sensation, awareness, and safety from the inside out.
Boundary and desire clarification: Learning to recognise, trust, and communicate what your body wants — and what it doesn't — so intimacy feels safe, clear, and authentically yours.
Addressing sexual challenges: Whether it's low desire, difficulty with arousal or orgasm, or discomfort during intimacy, we work with the body directly to understand what's getting in the way and gently shift it.