A Unicorn Reflection on the “Opening Up” course, led by Niki D and Alex Sanderson-Shortt (2026)
Every so often a piece of training comes along that changes not just what you know, but how you sit with clients. This autumn I completed Opening Up, a CPD course on working therapeutically with open and polyamorous relationships, run across two residential blocks by Niki D and Alex Sanderson-Shortt. I thought it was fantastic, and I’d wholeheartedly recommend it.
What the course covered
The course was impressively thorough. Rather than offering a quick tour of polyamory terms, it built a whole way of thinking, layer by layer.
- A social justice foundation. The course was grounded in intersectional feminism, decolonising perspectives on love and sexuality, and the GSRD (gender, sexual and relationship diversity) competencies developed by Pink Therapy. It looked at how colonialism imposed monogamy and the nuclear family as “the norm” in many parts of the world, and how mononormativity (the assumption that monogamy is the natural default) can show up in therapists as much as anyone.
- Practical models. We worked with Niki D’s 7-Stage Model for co-creating an open relationship (Imagining, Discussing, Contracting, Experimenting, Checking-in, Fine-tuning and Stabilising), and Niki and Alex’s FREEDOM Model, a lens for affirming, ethically grounded work with open and polyamorous clients.
- The tricky bits. Relationship hierarchy, jealousy and compersion (taking joy in a partner’s joy with someone else), consent and boundaries, hinge partners, polyfamilies and chosen family, coming out, break-ups, and intimate partner violence and abuse. Nothing was avoided.
- Minority stress and intersectionality. Research such as Witherspoon and Theodore’s (2021) study of minority stress in polyamorous people sat alongside honest discussion of racism, fetishisation and the under-representation of racialised people in polyamorous communities.
- Skills in action. Observed practice sessions, case vignettes, practice work and group supervision meant ideas were always brought back to the therapy room.
What made it stand out: neuroinclusion
What struck me most was how genuinely neuroinclusive the course was, both in how it was run and in what it taught. Each day had a clear, predictable timetable with regular breaks, and opened and closed with structured check-ins and check-outs. The coursebooks were clear and well organised, so you always knew where you were.
Neurodivergence was also woven into the content itself, not tacked on. The materials suggest adapting relationship exercises for people with aphantasia (who can’t visualise images), making relationship check-ins neurodivergent-friendly by having them while walking, doing a jigsaw or journalling, and recognising that neurodivergent clients may need more explicit agreements, because ambiguity can cause distress. There was also a clear warning against therapists policing clients’ communication styles, or assuming that one way of communicating is the “healthier” one. For a practice like mine, that matters enormously.
A grain of glitter ✨
In the spirit of this blog it’s worth being honest about the evidence. The 7-Stage and FREEDOM models are practice-based frameworks drawn from clinical and lived experience. They’re thoughtful and genuinely useful, but they haven’t yet been tested in research, with Niki and Alex were very open about. On a similar note, the wider research base on consensual non-monogamy also remains small, and much of it comes from white, Western, middle-class samples, something the course itself named openly. If anything, that honesty was one of its strengths.
Why this matters
If you’re in, or considering, an open or polyamorous relationship, you deserve a therapist who won’t treat your relationship structure as the problem, and who has done the work of examining their own assumptions. This course was a big part of that work for me. It means I can offer a space where your relationships are welcomed, your challenges are taken seriously, and your neurodivergent brain is accommodated rather than worked around.
Some unicorns run with a herd of one; others prefer a whole galloping polycule. Either way, there’s room in this stable.