Polyamory: A Clinical Toolkit for Therapists (and Their Clients)

by Martha Kauppi author of Polyamory: A Cl

Overview

Your favorite long-term client tells you they want to open up their relationship. Are you ready to help them?

This groundbreaking guide to consensual nonmonogamy offers a reading experience that feels like consulting with a trusted advisor. Martha Kauppi equips you with the skills to be a true ally to clients who want to explore polyamory. Learn from the expert who trains experts as she debunks myths and shares the exact tools she uses with her own clients.

Flip to any chapter for an understanding of what is possible, where things break down and why, and how to help. You’ll learn how to conceptualize complicated relational dynamics in a way that leads to effective treatment, and how to identify and disrupt maladaptive relational patterns without perpetuating negative cultural bias. A must-read for anyone looking for a framework to simplify the complexities of polyamory.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781538129906
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	05/15/2021
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	500
File size:	825 KB

About the Author

Martha Kauppi is a marriage and family therapist, educator, and AASECT-certified sex therapist and supervisor with a lifelong career in health and sexuality. Martha specializes in working at the intersection of sex and relational issues. She creates and presents educational materials that are based in theory and scientific knowledge while also being practical, effective, and immediately applicable by therapists and their clients. For more information, educational opportunities, and a blog, visit www.instituteforrelationalintimacy.com.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction

PART I: POLYAMORY FROM A THERAPIST’S PERSPECTIVE

Chapter 1: Consensual Non-Monogamies: What Are The Options?

Chapter 2: Polyamory: What the Research Tells Us

Chapter 3: Overlapping Marginalized Populations and Intersectionality

Chapter 4: Polyamory Theory, or Why Polyamory Makes Sense to Some

Chapter 5: Who Can Benefit From Consensual Non-Monogamy?

PART II: CREATING A STRONG FOUNDATION FOR THERAPY WITH POLYAMORY

Chapter 6: The Therapist: Bias, Strengths, and Challenges

Chapter 7: What Makes a Good Relationship?

Chapter 8: Conceptualizing the Case: If Polyamory Isn’t The Problem, What Is?

Chapter 9: Using The Initiator/Inquirer Process to Support Differentiation and Move Toward Decisions

Chapter 10: Getting Polyamory Therapy off to a Strong Start: Understanding the Change Process

PART III: POLYAMORY IN THE THERAPY ROOM: COMMON PRESENTING PROBLEMS

Chapter 11: Negotiating Polyamory: Forming Good Agreements

Chapter 12: Negotiating Polyamory: Talking Points for Partners

Chapter 13: Understanding and Addressing Jealousy

Chapter 14: Infidelity, Broken Agreements, and Building Trust

Chapter 15: Working with Mono-Polyams and Reluctant Polyams

Chapter 16: Recovering from Polyamory Gone Wrong

Chapter 17: Role-Related Challenges and Benefits: Primaries, Secondaries, Hinges, Etc.

Chapter 18: Relationship Transitions: New Relationships Energy, Relationship Decisions, Shifting Between Partners, and Breakups

Chapter 19: Polyamorous Families With Children and Coming Out Issues

PART IV: PROFESSIONAL CONSIDERATIONS

Chapter 20: Ethical Considerations

Chapter 21: Marketing Yourself as a Polyamory-Friendly Therapist

Appendices

A: Relationship Concept Worksheets

B: Emotional Balance Worksheets

C: Preparation for Communication Worksheets

D: Relationship Enrichment Handouts

E: Creating Change Worksheet Set

F: Crafting Your Unique Open Relationship Handout Set

Bibliography

Index

About the Author

Editorial Reviews

Beyond excellent! It is a rare book that so boldly advances the field. Martha provides thoughtful support for marginalized individuals while challenging unconscious biases and providing exceptional therapeutic tools for growth. Don’t miss reading this one.

Ellyn Bader

Martha Kauppi has written a book on much more than polyamory. To be poly-informed, she skillfully teaches how one needs to understand other populations such as LGBTQIA, kink and fetish communities, and other erotic orientations. Her work is based on current research and recognizes clinicians’ need to be versed in understanding relationships focusing on differentiation. It is exhaustive and includes the nuances, complexities, and diversities that exist within the poly community. This book is destined to become a classic.

Joe Kort

Polyamory is a book that should be on every sex and relationship therapist’s shelf. It is an indispensable and comprehensive guide to not only understanding polyamorous relationships, but also providing affirmative therapy for clients with diverse relationship structures. Casual readers looking to enhance their relationship skillset can also benefit from the book’s straightforward approach and practical exercises.

Justin J. Lehmiller

Martha Kauppi has written the book for all therapists working with open relationships and polyamory. It is chock full of ideas for being poly or managing fluid relationship agreements, including how to have tough conversations and how to self-soothe. This author is masterful at helping people create change. These are skills that have been missing in the literature, until now. I can't recommend this book enough.

Dr. Tammy Nelson

In the tremendous new book Polyamory: A Clinical Toolkit for Therapists (and Their Clients) Martha Kauppi examines the clinical side of serving polyamorous clients in a mental healthcare setting. Using data from her own and others’ research, Kauppi provides a solid grounding in theory, explains the intersections between consensual nonmonogamy and kink/BDSM and LGBTQ+ populations, and takes on therapeutic bias and ways for therapists to look beyond CNM to other issues in the relationship. Kauppi offers clinicians tools to approach clients’ common issues such as forming agreements, managing jealousy, cheating, healing from past relationship trauma, and a mismatch in desire for CNM. Polyamory: A Clinical Toolkit for Therapists (and Their Clients) concludes with ethical and professional considerations, and a wealth of useful worksheets and handouts. The most comprehensive toolkit for therapists serving clients in consensually nonmonogamous relationships to date, Polyamory: A Clinical Toolkit for Therapists (and Their Clients) is required reading for culturally competent CNM mental health care provision.

Dr. Elisabeth Sheff

In the tremendous new book Polyamory: A Clinical Toolkit for Therapists (and Their Clients) Martha Kauppi examines the clinical side of serving polyamorous clients in a mental healthcare setting. Using data from her own and others’ research, Kauppi provides a solid grounding in theory, explains the intersections between consensual nonmonogamy and kink/BDSM and LGBTQ+ populations, and takes on therapeutic bias and ways for therapists to look beyond CNM to other issues in the relationship. Kauppi offers clinicians tools to approach clients’ common issues such as forming agreements, managing jealousy, cheating, healing from past relationship trauma, and a mismatch in desire for CNM. Polyamory: A Clinical Toolkit for Therapists (and Their Clients) concludes with ethical and professional considerations, and a wealth of useful worksheets and handouts. The most comprehensive toolkit for therapists serving clients in consensually nonmonogamous relationships to date, Polyamory: A Clinical Toolkit for Therapists (and Their Clients) is required reading for culturally competent CNM mental health care provision.

Elisabeth Sheff