Conscious Dating & Relating Coaching Research: Exploring Approaches & Benefits

Posted on June 10, 2025 by Danielle Hall, One of Thousands of Life Coaches on Noomii.

About Danielle Hall (AKA Dani Dares) danidares.com

Danielle Hall is a women’s empowerment coach specializing in self-love, dating, relationships, and business. As a certified Somatic Dating and Relationship Coach, she helps individuals attract and build conscious relationships by fostering self-awareness, identifying and overcoming unconscious patterns, improving communication, and promoting healing, connection, and growth.

Conscious Dating & Relating Coaching: Exploring Approaches & Benefits

Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it and embrace them. ~ Rumi as cited in Fishman (2020)

This paper examines how 1-1 coaching can be transformative for individuals navigating dating and relationships by looking at relevant theories & thought leaders. It explores the key challenges individuals face in modern dating and relationships, the psychological theory that underpins them, and how coaching can provide tools and insights for overcoming these issues.

Literature Review

This paper has looks at both historical theory focused on psychology and the human psyche, such as Internal Family Systems (IFS) framework by Richard Schwartz (2023), and Non- violent Communication (NVC) by Marshall Rosenberg (2015). It also incorporates modern dating and relationship advice from leading therapists and coaches such as Esther Perel (2017) and Sabrina Zohar (2024).

I have included my own supporting learnings directly from my own coaching practice, and insights from my Live Embodied Dating and Relationship Coaching Qualification (2024) with The Embody Lab. My trainers are leaders in dating and relationship coaching and somatic work, including Relationship and Depth Psychologists Dene Logan and Vanessa Bennett (2023), Kai Cheng Thom (2024), who specializes in diversity and somatic intimacy, Amy Chan (2024), who specializes in breakups, and Dr. Scott Lyons (2024), who works with somatic awareness and embodiment in fostering intimacy and connection.

Modern Challenges in Dating and Relationships

The quality of our relationships determines the quality of our lives. Relationships are where we are at our most human and most vulnerable. ~ Esther Perel, (2024)
Modern dating and relationships are shaped by technology, cultural shifts, and psychological factors. Dating apps, while increasing accessibility, often create a “paradox of choice,” leading to dissatisfaction and commitment issues. Coaching helps clients navigate these challenges by helping them find clarity around their values and needs, along with communication support.
Whilst non-traditional relationship models such as polyamory and shifting gender roles bring new opportunities for conscious communication that is sometimes suppressed in traditional roles, they also provide new confronting scenarios that arise for individuals. Coaching provides a space to explore these dynamics, helping clients identify what aligns with their authentic desires and communicate boundaries effectively.

Hookup culture, especially among Gen Z, has further influenced perceptions of intimacy and commitment. Coaching supports clients in redefining their relational goals, encouraging them to approach dating with intentionality rather than defaulting to cultural norms.
As women take on leadership roles and greater independence, their masculine energy may increase, potentially creating challenges in romantic dynamics when both partners operate from similar energies. Similarly, as men embrace more feminine traits like empathy and nurturing, relational dynamics may shift. Honouring these evolving energies is key to finding balanced relationships that maintain individuality and attraction. Polarity, the balance of contrasting energies, is considered vital for sustaining desire in relationships as frequently discussed by Layla Martin in her Podcast, “This Tantric Life.” Finding safety and desire can be one of the most important things to balance explains Esther Perel.

Individual Challenges in Dating and Relationships

“Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.” ~ Carl Jung (1964) as cited by Malchiodi, C (2010)

Reasons for Seeking Coaching

Clients often come to coaching to address issues like finding a life partner, improving communication skills, breaking unhealthy patterns, clarifying relational goals, navigating online dating, or recovering from breakups. Coaching helps clients move beyond surface level strategies, finding deeper self-awareness and empowering them to take actionable steps toward growth.
Through coaching and some somatic exercises, coaches can help clients uncover limiting beliefs, identify triggers, and develop new patterns that support healthier relationships. Clients often find that coaching not only improves their relational lives but also enhances their overall well-being. (The Embody Lab, 2024).

Psychological Theory Underpinning Issues in Dating and Relationships & Relevance for Coaching

Exploring the Disowned Psyche

R Schwartz (2023) emphasizes that one of the main reasons for conflict in relationships is that unresolved internal struggles are often projected onto partners. In coaching, this insight is used to help clients identify and integrate disowned parts of themselves. For example, in my practice we may explore feelings of inadequacy or fear of rejection in certain circumstances or whatever else may be coming up for them and sitting with those feelings and accepting them, encouraging them to take ownership of these emotions rather than placing the burden on their partner. Through somatic practices, clients learn to recognize where these feelings manifest in their bodies, creating an opportunity for release and healing.

Communication Skills and Emotional Intelligence

Marshall Rosenberg’s Nonviolent Communication (2015) provides a framework for teaching clients how to express needs and feelings constructively. Coaching uses NVC principles to help clients shift from blame-based communication to compassionate dialogue.
For example, in my practice if someone is struggling with a communication, if it felt aligned for them, we might role-play difficult conversations, helping my client to practice making clear, actionable requests rather than resorting to criticism or withdrawal. This skill not only improves relationships but also builds the client’s confidence in navigating conflict. They can then explore any feelings of resistance or discomfort in these scenarios in a supportive environment.

Attachment Strategies

Understanding attachment styles, as outlined by Levine & Heller (2011), is key in relationship coaching. Clients often come to coaching unaware of how their attachment strategies—whether anxious, avoidant, secure or disorganized may be impacting their relational dynamics.
Coaching helps clients identify their attachment tendencies and develop strategies, feel in their body when they are activated so they can catch them in real time, and then to move toward secure connection and self-soothing. For instance, in my practice an anxiously attached client might work on self-soothing techniques to reduce dependence on external validation, while an avoidant client might practice tolerating vulnerability in small, manageable steps.

Specific Relational Challenges

Hyper-Independence and Avoidance

Hyper-independence, often rooted in avoidant attachment, can create barriers to intimacy by framing vulnerability as weakness. Coaching addresses this by helping clients reframe vulnerability as courage and collaborating with them in communicating needs without fear of rejection (And ultimately releasing control in these moments). Brene Brown’s work on vulnerability has been extremely helpful in this area.
Somatic practices, like grounding exercises, help clients regulate their nervous systems, making it easier to stay present in moments of relational tension.

Conflict Avoidance and People-Pleasing

Cultural norms often lead clients to adopt roles like the “good girl” or “chill girl,” prioritizing harmony over authenticity and encouraging them to suppress their own needs (Perel, 2006; 2017). These societal expectations can lead to struggles in defining deal breakers and setting boundaries, causing resentment and breakdowns in intimacy when needs go unmet, or settling in wrong relationships.
Coaching can support clients in challenging these patterns by helping them identify their needs and establish healthy boundaries. Tools like journaling prompts, visualisation exercises, and role playing enable clients to envision and practice asserting themselves, nurturing balanced and fulfilling relationships.

Overthinking and Anxiety

Often individuals can be more focussed on their partner or dating prospects, or the future, than themselves, leading to attempts to control and manipulate their partners/dates, often unwittingly, in their search of safety. Helping individuals to draw their focus inwards to understand what is coming up in their internal world, often through somatic experiencing and taking different perspectives (Embody Lab, 2024), clients are able to take ownership and make changes that ARE in their control.
They often find that these internal changes have a greater impact on their external world lens, as they then create safety within themselves. There is “always something to own” in every situation (Bennett. V ; Logan D, Embody Lab 2024). This understanding can have a ripple effect in energy and through inspiration rather than control which can often feel like pressure for partners and dates. Learning to lean in or lean out when they are activated in an attachment strategy and to focus on the breathe with gentle enquiry.

Idealizing Relationships, Seeking Perfectionism & Co-dependency

“We expect one person to give us what once an entire village used to provide. Is it any wonder relationships are crumbling under the weight?” ~ Esther Perel

Perel suggests relationships require realistic expectations and a cultivation of external social support systems. Additional to this, the ability to self soothe and to create emotional intelligent and stability within is important. Coaching can support people to determine what are realistic and unrealistic expectations, and to work out a clear view of how they want to feel in a relationship, this can lay out a map for when they feel dysregulated to refer back to. (Zohar. S, 2023)

Clients are encouraged to explore what a “successful” relationship looks like for them, often through guided visualisation or values clarification exercises. This process helps them move away from rigid ideals and toward more authentic, fulfilling connections.

Low Self Worth

“Your worth is not determined by whether someone chooses you, It’s about how you choose yourself” Sabrina Zohar

Coaching Applications and Tools

Somatic Coaching

Somatic tools are invaluable in helping clients process emotions and gain deeper insights into their relational patterns. Breathwork, guided visualisations, and movement based exercises allow clients to connect with their bodies, uncovering hidden fears or desires (McConnell, 2020).
For example, a client struggling with avoidance might use a visualisation exercise to imagine opening up emotionally, exploring how this feels in their body. This practice builds familiarity with vulnerability, making it less intimidating over time.

Understanding Boundaries and Deal Breakers

Sabrina Zohar (2023) highlights the importance of defining boundaries and deal breakers. Coaching provides clients with structured tools, such as worksheets or journaling prompts, to clarify their non-negotiables and relational goals.
Practicing boundary-setting in coaching sessions builds confidence, allowing clients to assert themselves more effectively in real-life scenarios.

Radical Self-Acceptance and Growth

Carolyn Elliott (2019) emphasizes that self-acceptance is the foundation for relational success in her book “Existential Kink” – in which she encourages people to get turned on by their own shadowy parts. This helps full radical acceptance in a new and fun way. In relationships, when you have accepted your own shadow, you become a lot less judgemental towards other people’s shadows. This creates an environment where both partners are able to be themselves and feel more free.

A Note on Coaching vs. Therapy

As this paper references psychological theory which is often used in Therapy, it is important to re-state the difference between therapy and coaching. These theories are important for coaches to understand when working in relational coaching, but also to know when to refer to a psychotherapist if the client needs.

Therapy: Focuses on discovering and exploring past trauma and relational issues. It can sometimes offer diagnosis for mental health issues.

Coaching: Coaching can look at the past if it is brought up by the client, and it is often used to understand how it is impacting the client’s current thoughts, actions and behaviours to support change. Coaching is typically more focussed on the current situations and forward-focused, empowering clients to create change in their lives.

Conclusion

Dating and relationship coaching provides clients with tools to build self-awareness, emotional intelligence, and effective communication skills. By integrating somatic practices, attachment theory, and non-violent communication techniques, aswell as creating a supported environment for clients to be seen and heard, coaching offers a holistic approach to relational growth. Clients gain not only better relationships but also greater clarity, confidence, and fulfillment in all areas of life.
Future research could explore the long-term impact of combining somatic and relational coaching on overall life satisfaction.

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