Lily Allen’s new album West End Girl has sparked fresh conversations about what it really takes to open a relationship with care. Consensual non-monogamy isn’t about pressure or freedom from responsibility—it’s about communication, honesty, and emotional steadiness. This piece explores the key questions couples should ask themselves before considering CNM, and how to navigate the complexities with intention.

You can have hard conversations whenever you want because you can create the conditions for it to go well...In this blog, we aim to provide some insights around co-regulation and how to use different tools of awareness and embodiment cues to help you have a more effective conversation...in understanding attachment more, we can identify how we are in a relationship and how our partners are in a relationship. What we and they tend to do to cope is helpful when getting into activating conversations.

The quality of our relationships determines the quality of our lives. In fact, humans need quality, connected relationships to be healthy and have prolonged lives…Communication is only one of many important relationship skills, not THE most important relationship skill. I want to outline a number of other vital, relationship skills that often get overlooked when we’re primarily thinking that the key to successful relationships is communication. Read on for seven additional relationship skills to help you improve the quality of your relationships.

In relationships, misalignment of communication styles, boundaries, and values leads to more disagreements, isolation, an uneven sharing of workload, feeling dismissed, and an overall lack of attunement to your partner(s.) Read on for essential questions from a Couple Therapist to ask your partner to help you navigate holiday celebrations and family visits while staying emotionally connected.

In therapy, it is very common to have questions about yourself, the therapeutic process, and your therapist. Over the years that I have practiced as a therapist, I have seen a common thread of questions that are frequently asked by my clients. We hope the answers to these six common therapy questions will help you understand therapy better and feel validated in your experience.

When we practice validation, we’re letting someone know that their internal experience and feelings are understandable and we’re communicating that they are okay to feel. By validating someone else’s experience you’re not invalidating your own--two people can be having different experiences and they’re both completely valid. Here’s 3 steps on how to validate others’ feelings.

When we have intimacy with other human beings, rushes of neurochemicals are delivered to these systems in our brain and immediately our hearts are filled with warmth and fulfillment. Being connected to others creates a feeling that (literally) soothes every layer of our being.