Clinical Tools for Working with CNM Clients
Fee: Free. Optional donation to EBTC can be made here. Donations help cover essential supplies, maintain EBTC website, and tend to the overall upkeep of this nurturing space.
Many conversations about consensual non-monogamy in therapy focus on communication skills, boundaries, or ethical structure. While important, these lenses often miss what most reliably determines whether non-monogamy is sustainable for a client: nervous system capacity, relational bandwidth, and values under pressure.
This workshop introduces a mind-body framework for understanding non-monogamy as a question of sustainability rather than ideology. Drawing from attachment theory, somatic psychology, and systems thinking, we’ll explore how to assess what a client’s body can tolerate, what their life can realistically hold, and how their values show up in practice.
The session will include a brief framework introduction, followed by group and case-based discussion. Participants will leave with a practical lens and language they can use to better support clients navigating non-monogamy, relational complexity, and capacity questions.
What Therapists Will Walk Away With
A structured framework for assessing CNM beyond ideology or desire
Example language for client prompts in distinguishing regulation, capacity, and values
A way to track client patterns under pressure vs stated intentions
Increased confidence working with relational complexity and non-traditional structures
Light snacks and refreshments will be served.
Lunarosa Peralta is a researcher and Associate Marriage and Family Therapist who works with individuals and relationship systems navigating non-monogamy, attachment, power, and relational complexity. Her work integrates narrative therapy, attachment theory, and somatic approaches, with a focus on how relational dynamics unfold in the body and over time. She brings both clinical training and lived experience in consensual non-monogamy, with particular attention to the ways nervous system capacity and structural constraints shape relational sustainability. Lunarosa has over a decade of experience facilitating groups and complex conversations, including work as a qualitative researcher and healthcare focus group facilitator. She is also a Mindful Leader with Spirit Rock Meditation Center. Her teaching style is grounded, direct, and relationally attuned, with an emphasis on creating spaces that are both thoughtful and practically useful. Her website is withlunarosa.com for more information.