Relationships Books

Books about romantic relationships, attachment, communication, and conflict. These cover the spectrum from attachment science and couples communication frameworks to rebuilding trust after betrayal and navigating non-traditional relationship structures. If you are working on your relationship, more about our couples therapy.

  • Mothers, Daughters, and Body Image: Learning to Love Ourselves as We Are

    McBride’s first book asks a question most body image research skips: not what goes wrong, but how some women ended up at peace with their bodies anyway. The sample is narrow and the editing is rough. The ladder metaphor is worth the trouble.
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  • The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters by Priya Parker, book cover

    The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters

    A facilitator’s book on hosting with purpose, read here for what it offers someone designing a hard family gathering, a chosen-family ritual, or a memorial with no inherited script.
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  • How We Show Up by Mia Birdsong — a community and relationships resource recommended by Blue Canary Psychotherapy

    How We Show Up: Reclaiming Family, Friendship, and Community

    Mia Birdsong argues that isolation isn’t just a personal problem. How We Show Up makes the case for chosen family, deeper friendships, and community as the antidote to the loneliness baked into American life.
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  • Unfuck Your Boundaries by Faith Harper — a boundaries therapy resource recommended by Blue Canary Psychotherapy

    Unfuck Your Boundaries

    Faith G. Harper breaks boundaries into seven concrete categories and gives you practical tools for consent and communication. A direct, no-nonsense read for people who understand boundaries in theory but keep failing at the execution.
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  • ADHD and Sex book cover by Dr. Lyne Piché

    ADHD and Sex: A Workbook for Exploring Sexuality and Increasing Intimacy

    If you’re in the middle of sex and you suddenly notice the radiator clicking, or the way the sheet is touching your leg, or that you forgot to respond to a text from three hours ago. And the whole thing falls apart from there. You are not broken, and you are not bad at sex….
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  • Feel It All: A Therapist's Guide to Reimagining Your Relationship with Sex by Casey Tanner — book cover

    Feel It All: A Therapist’s Guide to Reimagining Your Relationship with Sex

    A groundbreaking guide to sexuality that dispels the stale cultural attitudes about sex that leave too many feeling inadequate, and offers an expansive, attachment-based framework to free us and develop bolder, more satisfying relationships with our sexual selves. When it comes to sex, most people feel insecure. But it’s not because we’re deficient; it’s because we’ve been under-resourced and miseducated.Certified sex therapist Casey Tanner argues that our sex lives are a microcosm of every untruth we’ve internalized about gender, sex, relationships, our bodies, and ourselves. Most of us were taught that healthy sexuality is only for a certain kind of person, in a certain kind of relationship, with a certain kind of body. As a result, the way we’ve learned how to define “good sex” is reflective of how good, worthy, and loveable we see ourselves. Sex Therapy is a comprehensive guide to help everyone uncover their personal misconceptions about sexuality and relationships. Tanner helps you recognize and assess your core beliefs surrounding relationships, sexuality, gender, and more; identify past trauma; find pathways to healing that work for you; and redefine sex based on knowledge and possibilities, rather than potential consequences.Comprehensive yet accessible, informative, warm, and nonjudgmental, Feel It All provides a pathway for personal healing, creating stronger relationships, and achieving deeper intimacy.
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  • Set Boundaries, Find Peace by Nedra Glennon Tawwab — a boundaries therapy resource recommended by Blue Canary Psychotherapy

    Set Boundaries, Find Peace: A Guide to Reclaiming Yourself

    Nedra Glover Tawwab’s bestselling guide is for people who were rewarded for absorbing everyone else’s feelings. Plainspoken and worth reading — with a blind spot for queer and trans readers that most reviews don’t mention.
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  • The Power of Attachment by Diane Poole Heller — an attachment therapy resource recommended by Blue Canary Psychotherapy

    The Power of Attachment: How to Create Deep and Lasting Intimate Relationships

    Most attachment books stop at naming your style. Diane Poole Heller’s approach goes further, using somatic techniques to actually shift the patterns — not just understand them. An honest review of where it delivers and where it’s best used alongside therapy.
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  • The Science of Kissing by Sheril Kirshenbaum — an intimacy resource recommended by Blue Canary Psychotherapy

    The Science of Kissing: What Our Lips Are Telling Us

    Sheril Kirshenbaum digs into the neuroscience, chemistry, and evolutionary biology of kissing. A genuinely interesting premise with uneven execution — here’s what lands and what doesn’t.
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  • Secure Love: Create a Relationship That Lasts a Lifetime by Julie Menanno — book cover

    Secure Love: Create a Relationship That Lasts a Lifetime

    Julie Menanno’s Secure Love applies Emotionally Focused Therapy to everyday couples conflict, with communication scripts and the EVICT framework for interrupting repeating patterns. Covers all four attachment styles, with particular focus on how styles collide in practice.
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  • Attached by Amir Levine and Rachel Heller book cover - attachment styles in adult relationships

    Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find—and Keep—Love

    The book that launched a thousand Instagram infographics about attachment styles. A useful starting point — just don’t use it to diagnose your partner at dinner.
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  • In Each Other's Care by Stan Tatkin — a couples therapy resource recommended by Blue Canary Psychotherapy

    In Each Other’s Care: A Guide to the Most Common Relationship Conflicts and How to Work Through Them

    Stan Tatkin breaks down the fights couples have on repeat — money, sex, chores, all of it — and gives you actual tools to stop the cycle. Grounded in neuroscience, written like he’s talking to you.
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  • Polyamory For Dummies by Jaime M. Grant — a polyamory guide recommended by Blue Canary Psychotherapy

    Polyamory For Dummies

    If you’re poly-curious or newly polyamorous and drowning in questions, this research-backed Dummies guide covers the basics without condescension — jealousy, consent, coming out, and building relationships that actually work.
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  • The Mistress Manual by Mistress Lorelei — a guide to female dominance recommended by Blue Canary Psychotherapy

    The Mistress Manual: The Good Girl’s Guide to Female Dominance

    A playful starter guide for women curious about dominance and power exchange in their relationships. Dated in spots but still full of creative ideas for anyone figuring out what control and surrender actually look like for them.
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  • Fight Right by John and Julie Gottman book cover

    Fight Right: How Successful Couples Turn Conflict Into Connection

    The Gottmans’ research says you can predict how a fight ends based on the first three minutes. Fight Right breaks down why, and what to do about it.
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  • Wired for Love by Stan Tatkin book cover - neuroscience-based approach to couples therapy

    Wired for Love: How Understanding Your Partner’s Brain and Attachment Style Can Help You Defuse Conflict and Build a Secure Relationship

    The couples book therapists hand to each other. Less about feelings, more about what’s happening in your nervous system when you and your partner can’t stop fighting about dishes.
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  • Unfuck Your Intimacy by Faith Harper book cover — a guide to sex, relationships, and intimacy

    Unfuck Your Intimacy: Using Science for Better Relationships, Sex, and Dating

    Dr. Faith Harper gets into the tangled mess of intimacy — shame, trauma, kink, consent, attachment — with the same no-nonsense science she brought to Unfuck Your Brain.
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  • Different Loving by Brame, Brame & Jacobs — a kink-aware therapy resource recommended by Blue Canary Psychotherapy

    Different Loving: A Complete Exploration of the World of Sexual Dominance and Submission

    One of the first books to let kink practitioners tell their own stories. The language is dated — it’s from 1993 — but the core insight holds: BDSM is a form of loving, not a diagnosis.
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  • Cover of Monogamy? In this Economy? by Laura Boyle — a practical guide to finances, housing, and cohabitation in polyamorous relationships

    Monogamy? In this Economy?: Finances, Childrearing, and Other Practical Concerns of Polyamory

    Skip the jealousy talk — this one is about who pays the electric bill, whose name goes on the lease, and how to split groceries between four adults and two kids.
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  • No Holes Barred by Mandii B & Weezy WTF — a sex therapy resource recommended by Blue Canary Psychotherapy

    No Holes Barred: A Dual Manifesto of Sexual Exploration and Power

    Born from the wildly popular podcast WHOREible Decisions, this NYT bestseller is raw, funny, and genuinely insightful about sex, desire, healing, and owning your pleasure without apology.
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  • The Jealousy Workbook by Kathy Labriola — a polyamory therapy resource recommended by Blue Canary Psychotherapy

    The Jealousy Workbook: Exercises and Insights for Managing Open Relationships

    A practical guide to understanding and managing jealousy in open relationships, with exercises developed over decades of polyamory counselling work.
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  • Sexual Intelligence by Marty Klein — a sex therapy resource recommended by Blue Canary Psychotherapy

    Sexual Intelligence: What We Really Want from Sex

    Marty Klein’s “Sexual Intelligence” argues that the real problem with sexual dissatisfaction isn’t your body or desires, but the impossible cultural standards we’re taught to measure ourselves against that create anxiety and shame.
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  • Building Open Relationships by Liz Powell — a polyamory therapy resource recommended by Blue Canary Psychotherapy

    Building Open Relationships: Your hands on guide to swinging, polyamory, and beyond!

    Powell turns the complex landscape of ethical non-monogamy from theory into practice, and gives readers the emotional intelligence tools and practical frameworks to build real open relationships.
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  • Open Monogamy by Tammy Nelson — a polyamory therapy resource recommended by Blue Canary Psychotherapy

    Open Monogamy: A Guide to Co-Creating Your Ideal Relationship Agreement

    Nelson’s book turns the messy landscape of consensual non-monogamy into a map for couples to create agreements that honour their true selves while keeping emotional safety and mutual respect.
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  • Love in a F*cked-Up World by Dean Spade — a queer relationships resource recommended by Blue Canary Psychotherapy

    Love in a F*cked-Up World: How to Build Relationships, Hook Up, and Raise Hell Together

    Love in a F*cked-Up World is a new take on relationship problems that many therapy clients will find relatable and useful. Not everyone will agree with all of Spade’s conclusions but the book’s emphasis on communication, emotional awareness and community building is useful for anyone looking for more real and fulfilling relationships.
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  • You Are the One by Richard Schwartz — an IFS and couples therapy resource recommended by Blue Canary Psychotherapy

    You Are the One You’ve Been Waiting For: A New Approach to Intimate Relationships with the Internal Family Systems Model

    This book shows how developing a loving relationship with your own internal family creates the foundation for real intimacy, frees your partner from the impossible task of healing your wounds and opens space for connection based on wholeness not need.
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  • Tell Me No Lies by Ellyn Bader & Peter Pearson — a couples therapy resource recommended by Blue Canary Psychotherapy

    Tell Me No Lies: How to Face the Truth and Build a Loving Marriage

    A practical guide for couples dealing with the everyday dishonesty that erodes connection — the withheld resentments, the “I’m fine” when you’re not — and how to build a relationship where truth can actually exist.
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  • Getting It by Allison Moon — a sex therapy resource recommended by Blue Canary Psychotherapy

    Getting It: A Guide to Hot, Healthy Hookups and Shame-Free Sex

    An inclusive, shame-free guide to navigating casual sex and hookups — covering communication, consent, and the emotional stuff that most hookup guides conveniently skip.
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  • Smart Girl's Guide to Polyamory by Dedeker Winston — a polyamory therapy resource recommended by Blue Canary Psychotherapy

    The Smart Girl’s Guide to Polyamory: Everything You Need to Know About Open Relationships, Non-Monogamy, and Alternative Love

    A friendly, balanced introduction to polyamory that doesn’t sugarcoat the challenges — with honest self-assessment tools and practical advice for personal growth in open relationships.
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  • The New Bottoming Book by Dossie Easton & Janet Hardy — a kink-aware therapy resource recommended by Blue Canary Psychotherapy

    The New Bottoming Book

    More than just a technical guide to submission — this book digs into the psychology of bottoming, with a focus on self-awareness, communication, and personal agency in power exchange.
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  • Hold Me Tight by Sue Johnson — a couples therapy resource recommended by Blue Canary Psychotherapy

    Hold Me Tight: Seven Conversations for a Lifetime of Love

    Sue Johnson’s research-backed approach to couples therapy boils down to one core idea: lasting relationships depend on learning to be emotionally accessible, responsive, and engaged with your partner.
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  • Healing Sex by Staci Haines — a sex therapy and trauma recovery resource recommended by Blue Canary Psychotherapy

    Healing Sex: A Mind-Body Approach to Healing Sexual Trauma

    A body-centered approach to reclaiming sexuality after trauma — practical exercises and somatic techniques for survivors who want to move beyond coping toward genuine reconnection with pleasure.
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  • After the Affair by Janis Spring — a couples therapy resource recommended by Blue Canary Psychotherapy

    After the Affair: Healing the Pain and Rebuilding Trust When a Partner Has Been Unfaithful

    Discovering an affair is devastating, and this book doesn’t push you toward staying or leaving. It maps out what both paths actually look like, with decades of clinical work behind it.
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  • Inner Work of Relationships by Toni Herbine-Blank — a couples therapy resource recommended by Blue Canary Psychotherapy

    The Inner Work of Relationships: An Invitation to Heal Your Inner Child and Create a Conscious Relationship Together

    “The Inner Work of Relationships” offers spiritual tools for couples seeking healing together, complementing traditional therapy while acknowledging that true transformation happens through conscious partnership.
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  • Mating in Captivity by Esther Perel — a couples and sex therapy resource recommended by Blue Canary Psychotherapy

    Mating in Captivity: Reconciling the Erotic and the Domestic

    Esther Perel asks the uncomfortable question: why does good intimacy not always lead to good sex? A provocative look at the tension between security and desire in long-term relationships.
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  • She Comes First by Ian Kerner — a sex therapy resource recommended by Blue Canary Psychotherapy

    She Comes First: The Thinking Man’s Guide to Pleasuring a Woman

    Ian Kerner’s guide to oral sex puts female pleasure front and center — valuable for its anatomical clarity and focus on communication, though it has real limitations around inclusivity.
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  • Conscious Loving by Gay & Kathlyn Hendricks — a couples therapy resource recommended by Blue Canary Psychotherapy

    Conscious Loving: The Journey to Co-Committment

    A couples guide built on emotional honesty, personal responsibility, and conscious communication — the tools are practical and still useful even though the overall framework feels a bit dated.
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  • The New Topping Book by Dossie Easton & Janet Hardy — a kink-aware therapy resource recommended by Blue Canary Psychotherapy

    The New Topping Book

    A self-reflective guide to the dominant side of BDSM that focuses on communication and ethical power exchange rather than just technique — a good companion to The New Bottoming Book.
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  • Opening Up by Tristan Taormino — a polyamory therapy resource recommended by Blue Canary Psychotherapy

    Opening Up: A Guide to Creating and Sustaining Open Relationships

    One of the first mainstream books on open relationships, with solid tools for communication and boundaries — though some of its frameworks reflect an earlier era of non-monogamy thinking.
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  • More Than Two by Franklin Veaux & Eve Rickert — a polyamory therapy resource recommended by Blue Canary Psychotherapy

    More Than Two: A Practical Guide to Ethical Polyamory

    A detailed guide to the emotional and practical challenges of polyamory — communication, jealousy, boundary-setting, and building ethical connections with multiple partners.
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  • Polywise by Jessica Fern — a polyamory therapy resource recommended by Blue Canary Psychotherapy

    Polywise: A Deeper Dive into Navigating Open Relationships

    The practical follow-up to Polysecure — Fern and Cooley dig into the day-to-day challenges of consensual non-monogamy with strategies for communication, emotional resilience, and personal growth.
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  • Polysecure by Jessica Fern — a polyamory and attachment therapy resource recommended by Blue Canary Psychotherapy

    Polysecure: Attachment, Trauma and Consensual Nonmonogamy

    Jessica Fern connects the dots between your attachment style and how you show up in polyamorous relationships, with practical tools for building real security across multiple partnerships.
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  • The Ethical Slut by Dossie Easton & Janet Hardy — a polyamory therapy resource recommended by Blue Canary Psychotherapy

    The Ethical Slut: A Guide to Infinite Sexual Possibilities

    The book that put ethical non-monogamy on the map. Now in its third edition, it covers consent, communication, jealousy, and how to build fulfilling relationships outside the monogamy box.
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  • Come Together by Emily Nagoski — a sex therapy resource recommended by Blue Canary Psychotherapy

    Come Together: The Science (and Art!) of Creating Lasting Sexual Connections

    Emily Nagoski’s Come Together explains why pleasure matters more than desire in long-term relationships. A practical guide to sexual connection, communication, and understanding what really drives intimacy – with insights for LGBTQ+, poly, and kink communities.
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