India
She/Her
2023 Cohort
Utkarsha Jagga is a counselling psychologist and a narrative practitioner, based in New Delhi, India. Her therapy practice is trauma-informed, queer affirmative, and follows a rights-based approach. She has been an SRHR advocate, both inside and outside of the therapy room, and have the experience of working with intersections including gender, sexuality, religion, and other facets of individual identity.
Resource book on stories of reclaiming pleasure amongst women who have been survivors of sexual assault/sexual violence 
Utkarsha is a counselling psychologist, narrative practitioner, and founder of The Coping Central. She’s a trauma-informed, queer-affirmative, sex-positive, and kink-affirmative therapist with a deep interest in pleasure-based sexual health. As a 2023 Pleasure Fellow with The Pleasure Project, her work centers on de-stigmatizing conversations around sexuality, pleasure, and relationships. Utkarsha supports individuals and couples through concerns related to trauma, attachment, anxiety, sexuality, and intimacy using narrative and client-centered approaches. Her lens is rooted in feminist and social justice principles, and she create compassionate spaces where people can reclaim agency, reconnect with their bodies, and re-author their relationship with pleasure.
During her fellowship, Utkarsha put together Taboo Talkies – stories of pleasure, resilience and healing, a trauma-informed, sex-positive anthology centered on survivors of sexual abuse. Rooted in narrative and social justice therapy, it explores how survivors reclaim agency and pleasure beyond trauma. The project combines therapeutic insights with personal stories, offering a healing resource for survivors and a reflective tool for therapists. It now informs workshops, therapy practices, and conversations that challenge shame and center embodied joy, connection, and survivor-led healing.
Currently, Utkarsha is expanding Taboo Talkies into a community-based workshop and resource series that helps survivors and therapists explore pleasure, sexuality, and resilience in therapeutic settings. She is collaborating with mental health professionals and educators to develop training modules on integrating pleasure-centered, queer-affirmative approaches into trauma work. Utkarsha is also trying to get it published to be able to access a wider audience. Her work continues to focus on advocating for trauma-informed, survivor-led spaces that center joy, agency, and relational healing, while pushing for a more expansive, justice-oriented approach to mental health and sexual well-being.
Utkarsha plans on developing a guidebook or resource book focusing on stories of reclaiming pleasure amongst women who have been survivors of sexual assault/sexual violence.
Utkarsha’s fellowship project, "Taboo Talkies – Stories of Pleasure, Resilience and Healing," emerged from an urgent need to create a sex-positive, trauma-informed, and survivor-led resource that centers the lived experiences of individuals who have survived sexual abuse. The core intention behind the project was to explore how therapy—specifically intersectional, narrative, and grounded in social justice principles—can serve as a powerful medium for survivors to reclaim agency, reshape their relationship with pleasure, and move beyond the dominant trauma narratives that often define their identities and bodies.
Utkarsha aimed to intertwine therapeutic insight with storytelling, curating a collection of narratives that illuminate the intersections of trauma, sexuality, and healing. The resulting anthology brings together deeply personal accounts from survivors as they navigate the journey of reclaiming pleasure, accompanied by Utkarsha’s reflections and insights as a therapist working with these individuals. Taboo Talkies focuses on the stories of those who have worked to disentangle themselves from their abuse, uncover the hopes and values that endured through their trauma, and co-create new narratives in which they are not only survivors, but also agents of pleasure, connection, and resilience. Utkarsha has presented the project at conferences and developed workshop modules designed to spark conversations around pleasure in the therapy room, particularly in the context of sexual abuse recovery. The impact has been twofold: offering survivors validating, relatable narratives and actionable therapeutic insights, while also broadening the discourse around pleasure-based healing within mental health spaces. Ultimately, the project contributes to a growing movement of survivor-centered, queer-affirmative, and pleasure-inclusive therapeutic practices—ones that hold space for both pain and pleasure to coexist, and for healing to be reimagined through stories of courage, tenderness, and desire.
My fellowship experience was deeply transformative and pleasurable (of course!). Having worked in SRHR advocacy since I was 17, this opportunity felt like a long-awaited homecoming to the world of pleasure-centered healing. It gave me space to centre stories that have been silenced by our cultural context, explore the intersections of trauma and pleasure, and grow as a more grounded, intentional therapist. The fellowship affirmed that storytelling is not only therapeutic, but also political and powerful—a vital tool in reclaiming agency, fostering connection, and imagining new possibilities for collective healing.
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© 2025 The Pleasure Project. All rights reserved.
The Pleasure Project is an initiative by Taking Action for Sexual Health CIC.
© 2025 The Pleasure Project.
All rights reserved.
The Pleasure Project is an initiative by Taking Action for Sexual Health CIC.
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