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Supporting Yourself While Supporting Your Partner
Balancing Emotional Needs in Relationships: Strategies for Supporting Yourself While Supporting Your Partner and Nervous System Regulation In any relationship, especially couples, balancing your emotional needs with your partner’s can be challenging. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed by the demands of taking care of your own well-being while also supporting your partner. However, achieving this
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Balancing Mental Load in Portland Relationships
Introduction to managing Mental Load In today’s fast-paced world, many couples in Portland juggle various responsibilities, from work and family obligations to social commitments and personal goals. As a result, it’s common for one partner to bear the weight of the “mental load”—the invisible burden of managing tasks, planning, and decision-making within the relationship. Understanding and
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Portland LGBTQIA+ Mental Health Professionals Meetups – Fall 2024
Are you craving community with other LGBTQIA+ mental health professionals that isn’t centered around clients? We are too, so we’ve created some opportunities to gather in casual settings outside of standard work hours to get to know one another beyond the couch. The Portland LGBTQ mental health professionals meetup aims to foster these connections and
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Essential Tools and Tips for Premarital Couples
Embarking on the journey of marriage is an exciting and significant milestone. While the wedding day is a special celebration, the true foundation of a successful marriage is laid long before the vows are exchanged. Premarital counseling is a crucial step for couples who want to strengthen their relationship and prepare for a lasting, healthy
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Cultivating Compersion in Polyamorous Relationships
Cultivating Compersion in Polyamorous Relationships Polyamorous relationships offer a unique and fulfilling way to experience love, connection, and intimacy with multiple partners. However, managing emotions like jealousy can be challenging. One powerful way to counter jealousy and strengthen emotional bonds in polyamorous relationships is by cultivating compersion. Compersion in poly relationships is the feeling of
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Navigating Body Image in the Gay Bear Community
Introduction Body image significantly impacts our self-esteem, mental health, and relationships, particularly within the gay bear community. While this community embraces body positivity and diverse expressions of masculinity, many bears still grapple with body image issues that can affect their mental health and relationships. In my couples therapy practice, I’ve seen how these challenges manifest
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Exploring Your Identity in a Heteronormative World
Growing up in a world that mostly assumes everyone is cis-gendered and heterosexual can feel isolating. For those who are asking important questions like “Who am I?” or “How do I express my gender?” this journey of exploring your identity can feel even harder. Questions like these are deeply personal, and without support, they can
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Getting Your Emotional Needs Met in Relationships
As social beings, we all rely on relationships to fulfill our basic emotional needs. From early childhood, we begin learning how to get these needs met, but some methods work better than others. Here are a few practical steps to help you meet more of your needs in the relationships that matter most. Step 1:
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The Transformative Power of Couples Therapy
You’ve probably heard the phrase, “You can’t love others until you love yourself.” While there’s some truth in this, it’s also true that we can love both ourselves and others at any stage of our healing journey. By exploring what holds us back and learning to be kinder to ourselves, we can nurture love within
