Coach Training Will Give You The Chance To:
The Intelligent, Compassionate Learning Community For Lesbians++
Welcoming all self-identified women and adjacent non-binary people who love women or want to.
Now Training And Certifying Coaches!
Conscious Girlfriend
Coach Training & Certification
A 6-month, 60-hour program that offers the most comprehensive training available
to help coaches support the lesbian++ community with dating, relationships and sex.
After training, you may apply for certification as a Conscious Girlfriend Coach.
Transmuting Wounds Into Gifts:
The Path Of A
Conscious Girlfriend Coach
Coach Training Could Be Right For You If...
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You're already trained as a coach, therapist or healer, or you've already gone deep with Conscious Girlfriend work, or both.
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You have lived experience on the LGBTQ spectrum, and you're passionate about serving our community.
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You embrace "the path of the wounded healer" around dating and relationships. You know that being an effective coach doesn't require you to have a perfect love life yourself, and you're willing to keep doing your own deep work even as you show up in service to others.
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You love working with clients, but you're not crazy about marketing, so a steady stream of referrals would make you a happy camper.
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Your private practice can sometimes feel isolating, and you'd welcome being part of a supportive community of lesbian and queer coaches.
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You're excited to better understand the specific challenges lesbians, queer women and adjacent non-binary people face in love, and the solutions that can transform our lives.
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You know how challenging lesbian++ dating and love can be, and you want to serve our community with a powerfully compassionate presence and life-changing skills and information -- because we want, need and deserve healthy love.
"I got a new CGA client last week, and a new one just now... I just have to say I love, love, love coaching women coming out late!" - Lisa Madsen, Conscious Girlfriend Academy Certified Coach
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Get trained, mentored and supported by the organization that is changing lesbian and queer love worldwide.
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Fill your private practice with highly motivated clients whom you are uniquely well-qualified to serve.
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Take advantage of the global shift to online coaching and teaching, and create a work life with complete schedule and location flexibility.
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Share a journey of skill-building, healing and expansion with other lesbian and queer coaches, therapists and healers committed to conscious relationships.
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Receive optional additional support and mentorship in group facilitation and teaching.
We Support Our Community.
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Certified Conscious Girlfriend Coaches get seen.
Once you complete the training program, you may apply for certification. Certified Conscious Girlfriend Coaches may pay an additional fee to be listed on the CGA website, which gets thousands of views each month. For those who are interested, there may also be an opportunity to lead CGA classes and support groups.
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We value and support diversity.
CGA serves all self-identified women and adjacent non-binary people who love women, or want to. We especially encourage BIPOC and other underserved members of our community to take part in the coach training. Partial scholarships and/or payment plans are available as needed, to help ensure that we have a training group that reflects the diversity of the people whom we serve.
Six Experiential Training Modules Cover:
MODULE ONE: SUPPORTING THE UNIQUENESS OF LESBIAN++ LOVE
Includes: How to support clients around queer gender and attractions... coming out... the impact of homophobia, misogyny and trauma... vulnerability, courage and resilience... and why our love, sex and relationships matter.
MODULE TWO: DATING AND LIMERENCE
Includes: How to support clients around dating and early relationship challenges, including vulnerability, rejection and resilience, moving from limerence to love, and understanding real compatibility.
MODULE THREE: COMMUNICATION AND CONFLICT
Includes: How to support clients through common lesbian relationship communication challenges and conflicts. We'll cover why lesbian communication can get so hard so fast, and how to avoid "processing" loops. .
MODULE FOUR: BONDING AND ATTACHMENT
Includes: Why lesbian attachment can be more complex, and how to support your clients in building healthy bonds. Understanding attachment trauma, nervous system regulation, and attachment healing.
MODULE FIVE: LESBIAN BED DEATH AND LIFE
Includes: How to support clients around common lesbian sexual challenges and opportunities, including desire disparity, different sexual needs, lowered libido, and shame.
MODULE SIX: LESBIAN BREAKUPS, LOSS AND HEALING
Includes: How to support clients through the intense pain of lesbian breakups and addictive relationship cycles, and help them reach real healing.
ALL MODULES INCLUDE:
Opportunities to practice using psychoeducation, transformational empathy, parts work, tools drawn from Emotionally Focused Therapy, and brain rewiring skills to support healthy lesbian dating, bonding, sexuality, breakup recovery and resilience.
2024 Coach Training Dates
Module One:
Sundays, June 30 & July 14
9:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m. Pacific Time
Module Two:
Sundays, July 28 & August 11
9:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m. Pacific Time
Module Three:
Sundays, August 25 & September 8
9:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m. Pacific Time
Module Four:
Sundays, September 22 & October 6
9:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m. Pacific Time
Module Five:
Sundays, October 20 & November 3
9:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m. Pacific Time
Module Six:
Sundays, November 17 & December 1
9:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m. Pacific Time
Can't attend every session live? No problem; they will all be recorded.
But since much of the training will be experiential, we ask that you miss no more than two training days in order to graduate with your cohort.
Optional Practice Sessions:
We will offer 12 hours of practice sessions during the coach training. Practicing the skills and concepts we're discussing... is the best way to learn them.
Coach trainees are also encouraged to set up additional practice times with other coach trainees, Academy members, and others!
Dates will be chosen based on participants' availability.
FAQs About The Coach Training Program
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How will this training help me change lives?
This training will give you a big-picture understanding of lesbian patterns, so you can give your clients a map they've never had -- and it will also give you tangible tools to help your clients rapidly change problematic patterns in their dating and relationship lives.
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What is the path to Conscious Girlfriend Coach Certification?
Taking the CGA coach training can be an end in itself, or the first step on your path to applying for CGA certification (additional fees apply.) Once certified, you may also choose to list on our website, and participate in offering CGA courses and events. This is the best way we know of for new LGBTQ coaches to get seen by thousands of motivated potential clients!
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Why would I want to practice as a coach rather than a therapist?
Coaching is a self-regulated profession that offers far more flexibility than psychotherapy, which is one reason that many licensed therapists also develop coaching practices. For instance, coaches may work across state and national lines. Coaches are also more free to explicitly draw from personal experience in their work. CGA coaching lacks the top-down feel of some forms of psychotherapy, and is a client-centered, radically affirming and empowering approach.
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What if I'm struggling with dating and/or relationship challenges in my own life?
Of course you are. You're human. The good news is that understanding our clients' challenges from the inside actually makes us more effective coaches -- plus, the training will not only prepare you to help others, but will also give you a greater skill-set and community to support you in your own life.
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Can I take the training even if I'm not sure I want to work with clients?
Yes. You may take the training and decide later if you want to develop a coaching practice.
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Can I take the training if I identify as heterosexual and/or male?
We are grateful for our allies! However, at this time the CGA Coach Training is only for self-identified women and adjacent non-binary people who love women, or want to.
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Why would clients want Conscious Girlfriend coaching instead of therapy?
Although Conscious Girlfriend coaching is not a replacement for deep attachment work, somatic trauma healing, or other psychotherapeutic work, it offers a faster, more affordable, skills-based source of help. Plus, just as CG coaching is not a replacement for therapy, therapy is not a replacement for CG coaching. Many women who have done years or decades of therapy still benefit from Conscious Girlfriend skills to help them with lesbian/queer dating and love.
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What kinds of skills do Conscious Girlfriend coaches learn and utilize?
Conscious Girlfriend coaching includes psychoeducation, empathy, insight inquiry, nervous system regulation, attachment theory, brain rewiring tools, and cognitive behavioral work.
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Do Conscious Girlfriend coaches work with couples as well as single women?
Yes, although working with couples generally requires additional training due to its complexity.
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Can I take the Conscious Girlfriend coach training if I'm not a certified coach or therapist?
Yes. However, if you wish to become certified, you must also have or obtain additional certification or licensure in coaching, counseling or therapy.
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What is the tuition, and how does it compare to the tuition for similar coach training programs?
This is a 6-month, 60-live-hour training with over 60 hours of additional recorded content. Regular tuition is $3297, but you can save $400 on the early bird registration fee by signing up before the early bird deadline. We also offer scholarships to increase accessibility, so please don't let money stop you from applying.
This coach training is priced low for its level of live depth. For instance, Coach Training at the Relationship School costs $10-15K for a program of only 32 hours. Training at the Personal Development School costs only $2500 but lasts only 60 days and is almost all pre-recorded. Also, CGA is unique in providing a robust private practice growth path and very strong referral base for our certified coaches.
Meet Your Mentor
Ruth L. Schwartz, Ph.D.
- Founder and director of the Conscious Girlfriend Academy, Ruth is the author of eight books, including the Amazon bestseller Conscious Lesbian Dating & Love.
- Ruth is also a certified Somatica Method Sex & Intimacy Coach, and trained with Gay & Katie Hendricks, authors of Conscious Loving.
- Ruth has taught at Mills College, California State University Fresno, and six other colleges and universities.
- A proud member of the LGBTQ community since 1982, Ruth has extensive personal experience with both the joys and challenges of lesbian dating and relationships.
- Students say Ruth's teaching style is accessible, compassionate, rigorous, vulnerable and empowering.
- Ruth's schedule rarely allows her to do 1:1 or couples work herself, so she is excited to train new Conscious Girlfriend coaches!
Program Details and Fees
Tuition includes 6 months of Deep Dive Academy Membership (valued at $1000),
so as part of your training, you will get access to everything we've got!
If you are already a Deep Dive member, please email us, so we can pro-rate your Coach Training tuition.
Admission is by application only, but if the training feels right to you, don't let money stop you from applying.
We are committed to accessibility, and will work with you on the finances if need be.
*Discounted promo rate extended until June 30. After that, the full-payment rate will be $3,297
TWO-PAYMENT PLAN
(one payment now, second payment within 6 months)
$1,750
Why the World Needs Conscious Girlfriend Coaches,
And Lesbian/Queer Coaches Need This Training
Lesbian++ relationships are different. Our relationships can be the very best relationships on the planet, with levels of depth, healthy bonding, intimacy and sexual pleasure beyond what most couples of other genders can even imagine.
Yet few lesbians and queer women find ourselves able to find, create or sustain this quality of relationship, and few coaches or therapists can help clients with the unique challenges and opportunities our community faces.
You can help change that!
When you truly understand lesbian dating and love,
and combine that knowledge with a powerful coaching skill-set,
you can change the world, one queer love life at a time.
Here are just a few ways our community's needs are different:
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Many lesbians say they have never dated. We often bond and get deeply involved much too fast, which leads to both an extremely intense limerence period, and a much faster end to the neurochemical honeymoon. Limerence in lesbian relationships often drops dramatically at around three months, leading to intense trigger cascades which many young relationships don't survive.
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While heterosexual women often get many of their emotional intimacy needs met in non-sexual female friendships, women in lesbian relationships tend to seek high levels of emotional and sexual intimacy with a partner, placing far more pressure on romantic relationships.
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Since women tend to have easier access to emotions, female-female couples experience much deeper emotional bonding and many more triggers. Attachment is far more complex in lesbian relationships -- which means it takes more skill for our relationships to survive.
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Although women's ability and willingness to communicate about emotions leads to deeper intimacy, it can also have a down side: when we lack self-responsibility and emotional regulation skills, it can lead to endless, draining "lesbian processing."
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Homophobia impacts us. Being closeted and/or facing family rejection and discrimination adds levels of stress to our relationships that heterosexual couples never face. Statistically, female-female couples also have more children and less income, creating further stressors. Of course, this also means that substance abuse, depression and anxiety are high in our community.
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Long-term sexual fulfillment in challenging in lesbian relationships for many reasons, including: 1) Most lesbian relationships include at least one, and often two survivors of sexual trauma. 2) Female sexuality, including arousal and orgasm, are complex, and homophobia and misogyny don't prepare us for open, joyful, shame-free exploration, 3) Many women are wired more for responsiveness than initiation, which can lead to a stalemate. 4) Since both partners may experience a steep decline in libido after menopause, lesbian relationships have a double challenge to weather.
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In heterosexual relationships, the female partner initiates the majority of divorces. Lesbians are "women squared," resulting in much higher breakup and divorce rates than other couples.
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Given the intensity of lesbian bonding, our breakups are especially traumatic. Many lesbian couples go through multiple reconciliations and partings, and/or struggle to move on, even after very brief relationships.
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Once a woman has been through this cycle multiple times, she tends to become wary of intimate relationships. Frequently, the only thing strong enough to push her into a relationship is extremely strong attraction -- which often leads to another rapid, intense limerence period, followed by another painful relationship ending.
It's no wonder that we struggle with dating, relationships and sex!
And all of these struggles can be helped by the right coaching.
Lesbians and queer women are incredibly motivated to learn to love well.
Our community desperately needs and wants to gain skills to help us date wisely, understand real compatibility, manage triggers, and create long-term, happy, healthy, conscious relationships -- and long-term sexual fulfillment, too.
But we need support to pull this off -- support that has simply
not been available to most of us.
That's where you come in, as a certified Conscious Girlfriend coach!
Questions? Please email [email protected]
Who and What is Conscious Girlfriend?
Well, we wrote the book (literally) on Conscious Lesbian Dating & Love.
And we've been featured in:
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