From early on in her career, Dr. Gina knew she wanted to help people with sex and relationships. Her work delved into the more uncommon areas such as discernment counseling, conscious uncoupling, and consensual non-monogamy.
Her work today revolves around a diverse group of clients, which she calls expansive relationships. Dr. Gina explains expansive relationships as relationships between partners that want to explore and encompass more of themselves, people who want to “color outside of the lines.”
Looking Deeper into Our Stories
Gina deals with many stories and talks about how we all have stories. She notes that we need to look at our own actions and history in a healthier way and finds that this can bring us to realizations in our lives that help us better understand ourselves. Exploring our norms does not mean we need to scrap them but rather encourages us to better tailor them to our current relationship needs.
Intimacy
Dr. Senarighi highlights that vulnerability and intimacy are not the same but that handling vulnerability with care can deepen intimacy in a relationship. She explains intimacy as a deep connection with people and explores the different kinds of intimacy around us.
Communication
She explains that trust and openness go hand in hand and shares how we can cultivate that openness for ourselves. Dr Gina discusses her book and how important communication is in relationships. It is filled with tools and actionable steps for couples to use to strengthen their communication and deal with obstacles. She uncovers a few examples to give us some insight into what she means.
A few key elements she unpacks that help communication are clarity of boundaries, having a clear and compassionate accountability process and trust and stability in relationships
Background
Dr. Gina Senarighi, PhD, CPC is an author, teacher, sexuality counselor and certified relationship coach based in the U.S. She’s been supporting clean fights and dirty sex in happy healthy relationships since 2009. Gina has written several books and currently leads couples retreats and coaches clients all over the world to have deeper intimacy and more meaningful connection.
Call for a free consultation to rethink the way you do relationships.
About Gina
Dr. Gina Senarighi, PhD, CPC is a couples’ therapist turned relationship coach, retreat leader, and author specializing in intimacy, authenticity, shame-resilience, and connected communication for diverse relationships.
For over twelve years she has supported hundreds of clients creating fulfilling integrity-based relationships according to their own rules. In that time she’s developed a solid framework based in neuroscience, nonviolent communication, and positive psychology research that has transformed diverse relationships around the world.
In 2020, she published her first book, Love More Fight Less, A Communication Workbook for Every Couple with Penguin Random House. She earned her Masters in Marriage and Family Therapy in 2010 from Saybrook University, her Bachelor’s degree in Education from the University of Wisconsin in 2002, and a Masters in Education with a minor in Human Sexuality from Indiana University in 2004. In 2019 she completed her PhD in Spiritual Studies and Pastoral Counseling.
Gina was named Portland’s Best Life Coach in 2019 and has taught psychology courses, communication workshops, couples intimacy retreats, and guest lectured on alternative relationships and sex-positive therapy at universities across the US. Students love her no-nonsense “real talk” presentation style.
Her podcast, Swoon has helped over 10,000 listeners build a more compassionate, creative, confident, and fulfilled society. Gina offers practical, proven skills to transform relationships in deeply meaningful ways.
As a retreat coach, her background in psychology, mediation and communication training has enabled her to offer uniquely powerful tools to help clients overcome stuck patterns. Her uniquely non-judgmental, inclusive approach to couples work puts even the most concerned participants at ease. She is not your average sit-and-nod supporter- she’ll call you out, and always help you grow. Gina has created thousands of tools, worksheets, guides and authored a few books to support relationships. Get on her email list if you’d like access to her tool library.
When she’s not working you can find her in her gorgeous urban garden, cooking dinners for friends, playing with her two adorable kids, or traveling the world with her partner, Rae.
Links and Resources:
Website – http://heygina.com
Book – Love More Fight Less, A Communication Workbook for Every Couple – https://www.amazon.com/Love-More-Fight-Less-Communication/dp/0593196651/
Website – http://Nonmonogomous.com
More info:
Book and New Course – https://sexwithoutstress.com
Podcast Website – https://www.intimacywithease.com/
Sex Health Quiz – http://sexhealthquiz.com/
Webinar:
How to Make Sex Easy Without Making It Feel Like an Obligation – http://intimacywithease.com/training
James Hamilton Healy
