The Blog
Free, public writing on intimacy, sexual health, faith transitions and trust repair — from Daniel A. Burgess, LMFT. The fuller, more clinical version of this conversation lives in the Inner Circle, from $19 a month.
Browse by topic
Purity culture, shame & religious trauma · Intimacy, desire & sexual health · Pornography, behavior & trust · LDS & mixed-faith relationships · Marriage & relationship skills · Sex ed · Parenting · Mental health · LDS · Marriage
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The Best Improving Intimacy Episodes & Articles — from an LDS-Background Sex Therapist
A curated guide to the most-loved Improving Intimacy episodes and articles, organized by what you’re facing — desire, betrayal, shame, faith transition, and more.
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Protecting Intimacy When One of You Stops Believing
Faith transition changes a couple’s sexual relationship in ways almost nobody talks about. A licensed sex-and-marriage therapist on keeping — and often deepening — intimacy across a belief divide.
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How to Tell Your Kids (and the Ward) About a Faith Transition
Scripts, timing, and boundaries for one of the hardest parts of leaving or questioning the Church — telling your children, your parents, and your ward.
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My Spouse Left the LDS Church — Now What?
For the believing partner in the first raw months after a spouse steps away from the Church — what helps, what backfires, and how marriages come through this stronger.
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Why Most LDS Pornography Problems Are Really About Shame
When LDS individuals and couples come to therapy around pornography, they often expect to work on “the addiction.” What they find is something more complex — and more hopeful: the…
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Sacred Sexuality: An LDS Perspective on Intimacy, Desire, and the Body
In LDS theology, the body is sacred. The creation is good. Marriage is an eternal covenant. Sexuality, within that covenant, is meant to be a sacred expression of love, intimacy,…
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Purity Culture Trauma: How Religious Sexual Shame Affects LDS Adults
Many LDS adults carry wounds they can’t quite name — a persistent shame about their bodies, deep anxiety around sexual intimacy in marriage, an inability to experience pleasure…
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Is Pornography Addiction Real? What the Research Actually Says
If you’ve grown up in an LDS or religious household, you’ve likely heard pornography described as an addiction — something that hijacks the brain like heroin, something shameful…
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Monogamy vs Polyamory: What Research Actually Shows (2025)
The Monogamy vs. Polyamory Debate: What the Evidence Actually Shows Introduction: Examining the Claims About Polyamory A recent opinion piece in the Deseret News by Maria Baer and…
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“The Cartography of Souls”
Part 1: The Crucible of Release In the quiet sanctuary of a mountain retreat, far from the relentless demands of their empires, two souls teetering on the edge of exhaustion seek…