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As her graduate project at the Design Academy in Eindhoven, designer Nienke Helder has created a collection of sensory objects that can be used to aid and comfort women who have experienced sexual trauma. The therapy tools have been developed for use away from a clinical environment, inviting their user to focus on exploring what feels good, in order to relieve fear and pain. Helder’s ‘Sexual Healing’ objects feature a sensor that rests on the abdomen and lights up to notify tense breathing, an ergonomically designed mirror, a brush with long hair (that can be used with a partner to experiment with sensations of touch) and an object that measures pressure in the pelvic floor muscles. “If you have a trauma, it can be really difficult to talk about it,” Helder explains. “But by giving someone an object and making them part of the therapy, it opens a lot of doors for conversation. Trauma creates certain reflexes in your body that comes from your subconscious mind. To break that cycle, you need to rationally understand what is causing these processes in order to overcome them emotionally.”
All images © Nienke Helder
