Tag: Non-monogamy
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“They Must Be Sick”: How Therapists See Non-Monogamous Clients
A look at “They must be sick: consensual nonmonogamy through the eyes of psychotherapists” by Katarzyna Grunt-Mejer and Agnieszka Łys (2022) Imagine walking into therapy for help with low mood and leaving with the strong impression that your real problem is your relationship. That’s despite you being perfectly happy in it. For many people in…
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When Two Is Too Few: A Therapist’s Guide to Polyamory
A look at “When two is too few: Addressing polyamorous clients in therapy” by Brittany Trexler (2024) Couples therapy has a built-in assumption right there in the name: couples. But what happens when a “system” of three, four or more people walks into the room, or when one person in a polyamorous network wants help…
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The Less-Talked-About Letters: Therapist Bias Against Asexual, Polyamorous and Kinky Clients
A look at “Mental health provider bias and clinical competence in addressing asexuality, consensual non-monogamy, and BDSM: a narrative review” by Cara Herbitter, Michelle D. Vaughan and David W. Pantalone (2024) When we talk about LGBTQIA+ affirming therapy, some letters tend to get more airtime than others. The “A” for asexual, and the many people…
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A Plot Twist in the Polyamory Story: Minority Stress and Mental Health
A look at “Minority stress in consensually non-monogamous individuals: mental health implications” by Nicholas C. Borgogna, Stephen L. Aita and Lilah J. Aita (2024) In several posts in this series, we’ve seen researchers point out that people in consensually non-monogamous (CNM) relationships are no less mentally healthy than monogamous people. So here’s a study that…
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Neutral-ish, Until You Compare: What People Really Think of Non-Monogamy
A look at “Review and Critique of the Quantitative Literature Regarding Attitudes toward Consensual Non-Monogamy (CNM)” by B. J. Rye (2024) Ask people how they feel about polyamory or open relationships and many will shrug: “Each to their own.” But put a monogamous couple and a polyamorous couple side by side, and something shifts. This…
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Measuring the Side-Eye: A New Tool for Attitudes Towards Non-Monogamy
A look at “Multidimensional Measurement of Attitudes Toward Consensual Non-Monogamy” by S. Skakoon-Sparling, N. Fairbrother, P. Socha, M. Faaborg-Andersen, S. W. Noor and T. A. Hart (2025) We’ve spent several posts looking at how people, therapists included, judge consensually non-monogamous (CNM) relationships. But how do you actually measure that judgement? This Canadian study set out…
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A Magnifying Glass for Love: Why People Choose Consensual Non-Monogamy
A look at “‘It’s a magnifying glass for your relationship’: a thematic analysis of motivations, benefits, and challenges in consensually non-monogamous relationships” by Rebecca Codrington and Daniel R. du Plooy (2024) Open relationships, polyamory, swinging, relationship anarchy: consensual non-monogamy (CNM) comes in many flavours. Estimates suggest around 5% of people are currently practising it. Yet…
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Secure Attachment, Times Three: Emotionally Focused Therapy for Polyamorous Relationships
A look at “The use of emotionally focused therapy with polyamorous relationships” by Caitlin Edwards, Robert Allan, Nick Marzo, Ted Wynfield and Ryan Hicks (2023) Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) is one of the best-researched approaches to couples therapy. It’s built on attachment theory: the idea that we all need a secure emotional bond with the…
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Kink, Attachment and the Past: Untangling a Tricky Question
A look at “Childhood Sexual Abuse, Adult Attachment Styles, and Involvement in BDSM Practices in Adult Intimate Relationships” by Maja Selič and Vesna Jug (2025) There’s an old, tired assumption that anyone into kink must be “damaged” in some way. It’s an assumption that has done a lot of harm to people who simply enjoy…
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Three Hours to Kink-Aware? Therapists, BDSM and Feeling Ready to Help
A look at “Are we ready to serve? Couple and family therapists’ attitudes toward BDSM and their perceived competence to help BDSM practitioners” by Zachary Lane Berman, Mona Mittal, Mariana K. Falconier and Jessica N. Fish (2025) In “Queer, Kinky and Coming Out Twice: What Clients Want from Sex Therapy”, queer kinky clients said they…
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Good Intentions Aren’t Enough: The Ethics of LGBTQIA+ Therapy
A look at “Ethical considerations in LGBTQI+ clinical care” by Thomas G. Plante (2026) Most therapists would describe themselves as LGBTQIA+ friendly. But being friendly and being ethical aren’t quite the same thing. This short American paper, by a psychologist and ethics specialist, walks through the core principles of the American Psychological Association’s ethics code…
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Non-Monogamy and Therapy: What to Expect and What to Ask
Polyamory, open relationships, relationship anarchy, swinging: consensual non-monogamy (CNM) comes in many shapes. It’s also far more common than many people assume. Yet plenty of people in CNM relationships go to therapy for help with something entirely unrelated, only to find their relationship structure becomes the focus. Here’s what the research tells us, and how…
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The Bedroom and the Inner Critic: What Shapes Sexual Satisfaction for Gay Men?
A look at “A Theoretical Model for Predicting the Derivation of Sexual Satisfaction in Gay Men” by Rusi Jaspal, Anthony Gifford and Udo Scheinpflug (2026) Great sex isn’t just about technique or chemistry. It’s also about what’s going on in your head, including the voices you’ve absorbed over a lifetime. For many gay men, one…
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Welcome to the United Kink-dom: Furries, Pet Play and Beyond
A look at “A Survey of the United Kink-dom: Investigating Five Paraphilic Interest Groups and Their Demographic and Psychological Correlates” by Ashley Brown, Edward D. Barker, Stella Friedrich and Qazi Rahman (2026) With a title like that, we were always going to cover this one. Researchers at King’s College London surveyed people in five communities…
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Player Two Has Entered the Relationship: How Gaming Together Brings Partners Closer
A look at “Relationship Benefits of Gaming Together: A Phenomenological Approach” by Kaitlyn Swecker, Carissa D’Aniello-Heyda, Kayleese Martinez, Abigail Nixon, Jaclyn C. Pickens, Alyssa Costa, Stephen T. Fife and Dana Weiser (2025) Most research on video games and relationships tells a familiar tale: one partner (usually imagined as a straight man) disappears into a headset,…
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Busting the Monogamy-Superiority Myth: What 35 Studies Say About Satisfaction
A look at “Countering the Monogamy-Superiority Myth: A Meta-Analysis of the Differences in Relationship Satisfaction and Sexual Satisfaction as a Function of Relationship Orientation” by Joel R. Anderson, Jordan D. X. Hinton, Alena Bondarchuk-McLaughlin, Scarlet Rosa, Kian Jin Tan and Lily Moor (2026) Throughout this series, we’ve met plenty of studies hinting that people in…
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Mostly Good News (With Some Glitches): Queer Clients’ Experiences of Therapy
A look at “Therapy and counselling experiences of queer adults in Germany” by Sonja Bröning and Agostino Mazziotta (2024) After the rather gloomy picture in “‘They Must Be Sick’: How Therapists See Non-Monogamous Clients”, here’s something a little more cheering. This German study asked nearly 500 queer adults about their actual experiences of therapy. The…
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Coming Out at Any Age (and in More Than One Way)
Coming out is often imagined as a single, dramatic moment, usually in your teens, usually involving a nervous family dinner. In reality, it’s rarely that tidy. Many people come out in their thirties, fifties or seventies. Many come out more than once: as queer, as trans, as polyamorous, as kinky, or as neurodivergent. And most…
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In It Together: Relationships, Drugs and Sexual Health for Queer Men in Open Relationships
A look at “Interdependence and Sexual Health: Relationship factors associated with sexual behavior among sexual minority males in non-monogamous relationships who use drugs” by Tyrel J. Starks, Joseph R. Hillesheim, Juan Castiblanco and Demetria Cain (2026) Most sexual health research treats people as solo decision-makers: one person, one choice about condoms, one risk. But for…
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“I Couldn’t, I’m Way Too Jealous!”: How Polyamorous People Really Handle Jealousy
A look at “‘How Do You Manage It? I Couldn’t; I’m Way Too Jealous!’ A Qualitative Research on How Polyamorous People Deal with Their Partners’ Relationships” by Natalia Spada, Marco De Vettor, Nicola Carone, Arianna Feligioni, Gabriele Lo Buglio, Vittorio Lingiardi, Guido Giovanardi and Tommaso Boldrini (2026) Tell someone you’re polyamorous and there’s a good…