• Who We Are
    • Our Clinicians
    • Lauren Canonico, LCSW
    • Asher M. Seruya, LCSW
    • Sophie Kuhn Bedaña, LCSW
    • Sophie Talmadge Silleck, LMSW
    • Lee Warwick, LMSW
  • What We Offer
    • All Services
    • Individual Psychotherapy
    • Couples, Relationship, & Family Therapy
    • Supervision & Consultation
    • Group Psychotherapy
  • Get Started
    • Contact
    • FAQ
    • Check Your Benefits
    • Good Faith Estimate
  • Blog
  • Media
Feeling Lonely in a Relationship? This is Queer Affirming Sex Therapy

Feeling Lonely in a Relationship? This is Queer Affirming Sex Therapy

by Lauren Canonico | Aug 31, 2026 | Sex Therapy, Sophie Talmadge Silleck, LMSW, Thoughts & News from ATC

Nobody in Your Life Gets It. That’s Not a You Problem. That’s a Gap Problem. by Lauren Canonico, LCSW and Sophie Talmadge Silleck, LMSW On the specific loneliness of feeling unknown in your own relationships — and what it actually takes to close that...

Recent Posts

  • Feeling Lonely in a Relationship? This is Queer Affirming Sex Therapy
  • Queer Stigma and Mental Health: What LGBTQ+ People Face
  • Therapy for Neurodivergent and Trans People: What to Know
  • Sex Worker Affirming Therapy NYC | ATC
  • What’s (Romantic) Love Got to do with It? | ATC

Recent Comments

    Poly Friendly Professionals listing logo image - white text on a dark background with overlapping purple circles on the left side.
    Manhattan Alternative logo
    Poly Friendly Professionals listing logo image - white text on a dark background with overlapping purple circles on the left side.
    Manhattan Alternative logo
    Poly Friendly Professionals listing logo image - white text on a dark background with overlapping purple circles on the left side.
    Covid Conscious Therapist Directory link

    Connect With Us on Instagram

    affirmativetherapycollective

    LGBTQIA+ affirmative therapy🌈
    Client Screening Form ⬇️
    Queer therapists who get stigma🫂🏳️‍🌈 🏳️‍⚧️
    NYC + telehealth: NY NJ CO CT FL MI MN PA WI
    You've been doing the research. Googling therapist You've been doing the research. Googling therapists at midnight.🌙 Clicking on bios and closing the tab because nothing quite fits.✋️ You need someone who gets the gender piece and the neurodivergent piece and the body image piece, all at once, without making you explain why they're not separate.✨️ 🏡 Coming Home to You is a virtual group facilitated by Sophie Kuhn Bedaña, LCSW, for trans and nonbinary people who are done starting over with providers who only get half of it. DM us "HOME" and we'll send you the screening form link. . . . #transtherapy #neurodivergentqueer #cominghometoyou #affirmativetherapy #transandnonbinary
    Gender dysphoria and disordered eating don't show Gender dysphoria and disordered eating don't show up as two separate problems. They show up in the same body, feeding the same feeling 😵‍💫 at odds with yourself while the world tells you that feeling is your fault. It can feel isolating, like nobody else has shared this experience. The truth is Sophie B hasn't worked with many trans clients who haven't struggled with this intersection. Sophie B built Coming Home to You for exactly this reason. Body liberation work that actually understands what it's like to be trans, to be at war with your body, and to need tools that hold both at once. 💜 Closed group. 💛 Same faces every week. 🤍 Rolling enrollment DM "HOME" and we'll send you the cohort application 🖤 . . . #TransAffirming #NeurodivergentAffirming #BodyLiberation #ComingHomeToYou #AffirmativeTherapy
    Still looking for a therapist who understands the Still looking for a therapist who understands the intersection of identity, body, and trauma without making you explain why all three are connected? ✨Meet Sophie Kuhn Bedaña, LCSW✨ Associate Therapist at Affirmative Therapy Collective. Sophie specializes in ✨️ Eating disorders ✨️ Transgender issues ✨️ Spiritual and religious trauma ✨️ Kink-aware care AND neurodivergence for kids, teens, and adults. 🫶 Now accepting new virtual and in-person clients! Fill out the client screening form to get started. · · · #AffirmativeTherapist #TransAffirmingTherapist #NYCTherapist #ReligiousTrauma #EatingDisorderRecovery
    You've probably heard "love your body" so many tim You've probably heard "love your body" so many times it stopped meaning anything. The concept might feel almost impossible to imagine. ✨️Here's the truth no one tells you: you don't have to love your body to have peace with it. ✨️A few things we want you to know: Disconnection from your body isn't a personal failure. 🤍 It's often a trauma response, a survival skill, or just what happens when the world has never made room for the body you're in. You're allowed to be in process.🌷 Neutral is a valid stopping point, not a consolation prize. Healing your relationship with your body doesn't mean "fixing" it. It means being able to exist in it.🙌🏻 This isn't about willpower. It's about safety. You don't owe your body a love letter today. You just deserve support figuring out how to get there. Follow for more like this.✨️ #HAES #BodyLiberation #QueerTherapist #AffirmingTherapy #TraumaInformed
    The thing nobody tells you about body image and in The thing nobody tells you about body image and intimacy? It is not just about how you view your own body. It is about what happens in your head the second someone else is in the room with your body. The lights stay off 🕯 You angle yourself a certain way. You are physically there but your brain is running a full evaluation of every tilt, every movement, every possible thing your partner might be noticing. And somewhere in the middle of all of that monitoring, the actual experience of being close to another person slips away.🤍 Nearly half of people with eating disorders report avoiding sexual relationships entirely. Not because they do not want connection. 🙏🏼 Because the mental experience of being in a body during sex, with someone else's full attention on that body, makes genuine presence almost neurologically unavailable. That loop is not a character flaw. It is a learned response. And it is one of the most isolating things a person can carry -- because it is nearly impossible to explain to someone who has not lived it. ✨️This is exactly the terrain Sophie Talmadge Silleck, LMSW works in. As a queer-identified sex therapist specializing in body image, eating disorders, and intimacy, Sophie understands that these things are not separate issues. They are connected at the root. And the work addresses all of it. ✨️Two ways to work with Sophie: One-on-one or couples therapy in person in Manhattan or virtually throughout New York and New Jersey. 🌷Baring It All, a virtual group for all genders 18+ across the US. $90 per 90 minute session. $50 screening session. Complete the screening form to get started. #queermentalhealth #adultcreator #affirmativetherapy #intimacyhealing #shamefree
    ✨️Being present during sex ✨️Wanting it again ✨️Fe ✨️Being present during sex ✨️Wanting it again ✨️Feeling at home in their body ✨️Relationships that don't require translation ✨️Closeness without performance You are not hard to understand. You are just surrounded by people who are working from a completely different map. The version of you that shows up at dinner.🌷 The version that edits the story before you even open your mouth because you already know how it lands. The version that laughs at the right moments and leaves out the parts that would take too long to explain. That is not you being closed off. That is you doing math. Constant, exhausting math about what is safe to say and what is not worth the conversation that follows✨ The loneliness that does the most damage is not the kind that comes from being alone. It is the kind that lives inside your relationships. Inside the spaces where you are ✨physically present✨ but never fully known. You can be loved by people and still feel like a stranger in your own story. Those two things are not mutually exclusive. And pretending they are does not make the gap smaller. There is a version of therapy where none of this requires explanation. Where the context is already in the room before you arrive. Where the work starts from where you actually are. That is what Sophie Talmadge Silleck, LMSW builds her practice around. Complete the screening form to get started.✨🌷 #queertherapist #adultcreator #affirmativetherapy #intimacy #healing
    Your best friend isn't just a placeholder for a pa Your best friend isn't just a placeholder for a partner you haven't found yet. ✨️ Normalize saying my best friend is my person 🖤 Normalize saying I don't need a romantic partner to feel complete 🩶 Normalize saying platonic love isn't a downgrade 🤍 Normalize saying my friendships are permanent, not placeholders 💜 Normalize saying aro/ace people write their own relationship rules ✨️Happy International Friendship Day!✨️ We're taking today to talk about something the culture skips: for a lot of aromantic and asexual people, friendship isn't a backup plan. It's the main relationship 🌟 and we can all learn from that, regardless of our own identity or relationship experience. And we all deserve the same respect, commitment, and celebration that we default to in romantic partnerships. Here's what that looks like: ✨ Platonic love holding the same weight as romantic love, not a lesser version of it ✨ Chosen family that shows up for the hard stuff, not just the highlight reel ✨ Friendships with no expiration date tied to someone else finding "the one" 💎 Commitment defined on your own terms, not borrowed ones. Aro/ace folks have had to build this intentionally. The rest of us could stand to be just as thoughtful ☕ The world runs on amatonormativity, the assumption that a romantic partner is the endgame everyone's working toward 🏃🏾‍♀️ Aro/ace people have been quietly proving that story wrong for as long as friendship has existed. So today, we're celebrating the friends who ARE the relationship, not the runner-up 🙌🏽 Tag the friend who's your person. No asterisks or explanation needed. Follow ATC for more affirming content that makes room for every kind of love. ... #AroAce #InternationalFriendshipDay #PlatonicLove #ChosenFamily #AsexualVisibility
    Turns out, watching two men communicate through co Turns out, watching two men communicate through consent isn't a threat to your relationship. It's a blueprint 📃 Heated Rivalry has viewers of every gender and sexuality swooning over its lead couple, two male hockey players falling into a sexual relationship built on real consent and emotional safety on screen. Sophie Talmadge Silleck, LMSW, broke down why in Men's Health: why women are drawn to shows like this, and what straight men can actually learn from it. Her take: "I love working with men and creating a space where they can be vulnerable and explore their feelings, things society says men 'shouldn't' do." 💜 For more on Navigating Consent in Sexual Intimacy, continue reading here: https://affirmativetherapycollective.com/heated-rivalry-and-sexual-intimacy/ Sessions with Sophie feel conversational, not clinical. Less power imbalance, more room to actually say the hard thing out loud. ✨️ New clients and couples welcome ✨️ DM MORE and we'll send you the screening form. · · · #MensHealth #AffirmativeTherapist #NYCTherapist #heatedrivalry
    Follow on Instagram
    Manhattan Alternative logo
    Poly Friendly Professionals listing logo image - white text on a dark background with overlapping purple circles on the left side.
    Covid Conscious Therapist Directory link
    Poly Friendly Professionals listing logo image - white text on a dark background with overlapping purple circles on the left side.

    Join Our Newsletter

      Built with Kit
      Affirmative Therapy Collective LCSW LLC

      Body, Sex, Trauma, Neurodivergent, and LGBTQ+ Affirmative Psychotherapy

      Eating disorder and trauma treatment done differently

       

      80 University Pl, Suite 2G, New York, NY 10003

      admin@affirmativetherapycollective.com

      (646) 504-1615

      Menu

      • Home
      • What We Offer
      • Who We Are
      • Contact
      • FAQ
      • Blog
      • Notice of Privacy Practices
      • Privacy Policy and Terms of Use

      Our Services

      • Individual Psychotherapy
      • Couples, Relationship, & Family Therapy
      • Group Psychotherapy
      • Supervision & Consultation
      • In-Person Clinicians
      • Therapeutic Approaches

      Join Our Newsletter

        Built with Kit
        Affirmative Therapy Collective LCSW LLC

        Body, Sex, Trauma, Neurodivergent, and LGBTQ+ Affirmative Psychotherapy

        Eating disorder and trauma treatment done differently

         

        80 University Pl, Suite 2G, New York, NY 10003

        admin@affirmativetherapycollective.com

        (646) 504-1615