Polywise

Overview

As polyamory continues to make its way into the mainstream, more and more people are exploring consensual nonmonogamy in the hope of experiencing more love, connection, sex, freedom and support. While for many, the move expands personal horizons, for others, the transition can be challenging, leaving them blindsided and overwhelmed. Beyond the initial transition to nonmonogamy, many struggle with the root issues beneath the symptoms of broken agreements, communication challenges, increased fighting and persistent jealousy. Polyamorous psychotherapist Jessica Fern and restorative justice facilitator David Cooley share the insights they have gained through thousands of hours working with clients in consensually nonmonogamous relationships. Using a grounded theory approach, they explore the underlying challenges that nonmonogamous individuals and partners can experience after their first steps, offering practical strategies for transforming them into opportunities for new levels of clarity and intimacy.Polywise provides both the conceptual framework to better understand the shift from monogamy to nonmonogamy and the tools to navigate the next steps.

Reviews

For Polysecure:

“A deeply compassionate book, Polysecure is a great read for both therapists who serve people in consensually nonmonogamous (CNM) relationships and laypeople who are interested in what makes for secure attachments in such relationships. It offers an excellent summary of conventional attachment theory, critiques and re-interprets attachment theory for CNM relationships, and provides a roadmap for people in CNM relationships who want to establish emotionally intimate and securely attached relationships with multiple partners. One of the most important insights from Fern’s delightful book is that secure attachment is a product of relationship experiences rather than relationship structures.” —Dr. Elisabeth Sheff, author of The Polyamorists Next Door, Stories from the Polycule, When Someone You Love is Polyamorous, and Children in Polyamorous Families 
 

“Secure attachment is absolutely central to successful polyamorous relationships, and insecure attachment is at the core of the jealousy and other challenges in open relationships of all kinds. This book can help poly people, as well as clinicians, get to the heart of their struggles and pain. It can help them to take concrete steps to become more comfortable with their nonmonogamous relationships and trust their partner’s love and commitment. This is required reading for people in open relationships and should be used as a textbook for every therapist who works with people in polyamorous relationships." —Kathy Labriola, counselor, nurse, and author of The Polyamory Breakup Book

 

"Polysecure is likely to become for people interested in polyamory, what Love Languages is for understanding romance. It gives people a way to understand how they may be recreating those old patterns by bringing their own childhood attachment styles into their adult relationships. And even more importantly, it offers concrete skills for how to use this knowledge to create healthier, more satisfying and secure relationship dynamics.” —Max Rivers, intimacy coach and author of Loving Conflict: How Conflict Is Really Your Relationship Trying to Go Deeper

 

“An extremely helpful addition to the literature on consensual non-monogamy, and the first self-help book to focus on applying attachment theory to non-monogamous relationships. Taking the reader by the hand, Jessica Fern explains how perfectly secure attachment styles are rare, and how all of us can usefully work with our attachment issues, whatever our way of doing relationships. Weaving together research findings with therapeutic literature and personal experience, Fern does an excellent job of challenging the popular view that non-monogamous people are more likely than anyone else to struggle with attachment. She presents an extremely helpful model locating our relationship patterns within our wider culture and community as well as within our family background and relationship experiences. The notion of openly discussing whether we want an attachment-based partnership or not is worth the price of the book all by itself, as is the chapter on developing a secure attachment with yourself. This is gold!”—Dr. Meg-John Barker, author of Rewriting the Rules: An Anti Self-Help Guide to Love, Sex and Relationships

 

“I find Jessica’s work not only highly useful but absolutely essential to building healthy, secure open relationships. What a gift this intelligent, inspired piece of literature is to the broader non-monogamous community, as well as those about to embark on this brave frontier of multiple loves! I whole-heartedly recommend this book to anyone interested in self-acceptance and self-mastery, as well as their own emotional well-being as they build loving, sustainable, healthy multiple relationships.”—Kitty Chambliss, ACC, CPC, ELI-MP, relationship coach and author of Jealousy Survival Guide: How to Feel Safe, Happy and Secure in an Open Relationship

Author Biography

Jessica Fern is a psychotherapist, public speaker and trauma and relationship expert, and the author of Polysecure: Attachment, Trauma and Consensual Nonmonogamy. In her international private practice, Jessica works with individuals, couples, and people in multiple-partner relationships who no longer want to be limited by their reactive patterns, cultural conditioning, insecure attachment styles and past traumas, helping them to embody new possibilities in life and love. David Cooley is a professional restorative justice faciliitator, diversity and privilege awareness trainer and bilingual cultural broker. His work incorporates trauma-informed care, attachment theory, somatic practices and other modalities.