Martha Kauppi

12/29/2025

Have you heard? My new podcast with Dr. K. Skye Henry Smith will drop in just two days (January 1)! Watch this space for a link. We believe EVERY therapist should be prepared to work with s*x issues — and we want to help you get there. (Not a therapist? Eavesdrop anyway — you’ll learn a lot, and have fun doing it.)

12/19/2025

I've been working on a secret project... a brand-new podcast with Dr. K. Skye Henry Smith. It's called Untangling Intimacy: Build Your Therapy Toolkit, and it's designed to help therapists and other caring professionals have fearless conversations about s*x, intimacy, and relationships of every shape and style. We had a lot of fun in the recording booth, and we think you'll have a lot of fun listening!

12/15/2025

When you started working as a therapist, what surprised you the most?

12/11/2025

Did you know we're on BlueSky? Check out our profile there!

Martha Kauppi is a marriage and family therapist, educator, author, speaker, and AASECT-certified s*x therapist and supervisor. She trains therapists all over the world to work more effectively with relational intimacy challenges and s*x issues.

12/08/2025

" There is actually stuff that you can do differently that will change your attraction to your partner. And that's a real pivot compared to, societally, culturally, what we believe is if I'm not attracted to my partner, there's something my partner needs to change about themselves to make themselves more attractive to me. What a load of crap."

12/05/2025

We need to stay flexible in our expectations and what we measure as success for our partner. If we don't, they may experience it as dismissive of their goals. This can compound issues in the relationship.

12/03/2025

Sexual trauma is all too common, and its lasting impacts shape our client’s relationships with their bodies, with their partners, and with their world. My training “Pathways to Intimacy After Trauma: 7 Steps For Helping Clients Heal” is about contending with the long-lingering ramifications of trauma, and helping your clients forge a path forward.
https://www.instituteforrelationalintimacy.com/pathways-to-intimacy-after-trauma

12/01/2025

" There is nothing about s*xual function that say stays the same over the lifespan for anybody of any gender under any circumstances." - Martha Kauppi

11/28/2025

" I'm always very interested to hear what the lower desire partner actually has bandwidth for. And sometimes it's hypothetical. If you felt very secure, a hundred percent certain that your partner would not pressure you for s*x, what would you have bandwidth for?"

11/26/2025

Have you heard of New Relationship Energy (NRE)? What if we imagined a counterpart, Durable Relationship Energy? "It’s what emerges over the course of years or even decades of partnership. Durable relationship energy is created through the experience of being chosen, again and again, by someone who truly, deeply knows you — the good, the bad, and the ugly. It happens when each partner is free to express themselves while feeling safe to do so." Learn more in this blog post!
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/relational-intimacy/202511/the-importance-of-durable-relationship-energy

11/24/2025

"What are you telling yourself about the experiences that you're having? So if I tell myself this is scary and horrible and dangerous and something bad is gonna happen, it means something awful about myself, that's gonna create a different experience than if I tell myself, I'm learning."

11/21/2025

What do you do when one client throws a barb during therapy? Your instinct may be to tend to the wounded partner, but actually, I think you should address the one who threw the barb first. " The person who got wounded is probably gonna take a deep breath because for the first time, possibly ever, somebody is handling their partner."