Loving Someone Who Has Sexual Trauma : A Compassionate Guide to Supporting Your Partner and Improving Your Relationship

Create a supportive and secure relationship with a partner who has experienced sexual trauma.

If your partner is a survivor of sexual trauma, they may experience anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, or feel triggered by intimate situations. And you may feel confused, overwhelmed, or unsure of how to support them. This gentle guide will give you the tools you need to help nurture intimacy and trust, and cultivate a secure relationship.

In Loving Someone Who Has Sexual Trauma, marriage, family, and sex therapist Megan Lara Negendank offers self-compassion and attachment-based communication skills to support your partner. You’ll also learn powerful, trauma-informed techniques and strategies to help you understand the full impact of your partner’s past experience, increase feelings of safety and connection, and ultimately improve your relationship in the here and now.

In this gentle guide, you’ll discover:

• Communication skills to help promote trust
• How to avoid or deescalate from common triggers
• How to identify attachment styles and soothe conflict patterns
• Emotional and physical bonding skills

If you’re ready to move beyond fear, anger, and disconnection to a thriving intimate relationship where you both can feel loved, safe, and connected, this book can help you get started.

Megan Lara Negendank, LMFT, CST, is a licensed marriage and family therapist, and a certified sex therapist. She is founder of Love Heal Grow, a psychotherapy center in Northern California where she specializes in trauma-informed, relationship-focused psychotherapy for survivors of trauma and their partners. She has been featured as a relationship expert on PBS, NPR, and in Sacramento Magazine.

Foreword writer Stephanie Buehler, PsyD, CST-S, is a licensed psychologist, certified sex therapist and supervisor, and fellow of the International Society for the Study of Women’s Sexual Health. She is author of What Every Mental Health Professional Needs to Know About Sex.