The following is a guest post from my friend and colleague Karen Grierson. ?Karen is a Registered Psychotherapist, specializing in individual and relationship therapy with adults. She is experienced with a broad spectrum of relationship styles and power-exchange dynamics, gender identities, and sexual orientations, including almost 30 years with the BDSM, polyamory, and swingers communities in Southwestern Ontario. Karen has also trained as a support group facilitator for those who have offended sexually, through Waterloo Region?s Community Justice Initiatives. ?For more information about Karen, please visit her website.

One of the many interesting issues our clients sometimes bring to us in the course of relationship counselling is the idea of contemplating “open relationships”. Opening a relationship generally means a transition from monogamy to an introduction of other (sexually and/or emotionally) intimate partners. This can mean a lot of very different things, because there are as many ways of opening a relationship as there are people considering open relationships, so from the outset, part of our work as therapists is to make sure everyone is on the same page with the language being used to describe intentions and interests. Continue reading An Introduction to Ethical Non-Monogamy →