Esther Perel Instagram – I was trained in the notion that a therapist should not see friends. That if you work with someone, you don’t also want to work with that someone’s friend or loved one. There was a staunch belief that those relationships should be kept separate— in order not to contaminate the therapy container. Once I started to expand my practice, and especially when I began to work more with queer couples, where there was more fluidity around the boundaries between friends, lovers, exes, and current partnership, I realized that these imposed lines don’t really make sense. That they fail to address the reality of social lives and structures today. In this Sessions conversation I had with Diana Adams, she illustrates a beautiful point about therapy with friends. In today’s society, our relational needs are met through many relationships in our lives—romantic relationships may not necessarily be the primary ones. It is assumed that relationship therapy is meant only for couples, but @dianaadamsesq challenges this belief and encourages us to ask ourselves: “who are the core relationships in your life?” No matter the answer, just know that this relationship—familial, platonic, or romantic is valid and worth the space and the time to explore, repair and rebuild. That all core relationships require maintenance, and therapy can be affective for all types of connections. To explore this conversation further, visit the Sessions platform and join my online community of practitioners and clinicians as we untangle these topics month over month.