Dating, Relationships, and Disability

The Playbook Is Here The Five Stages of Dating Success Playbook launched today. Today's episode covers the two stages we hadn't unpacked yet: active dating and mastery — the payoff for everything built so far. Stage...

Internal self-worth work and external dating skill are different muscles. Believing you deserve a good relationship doesn't automatically teach you how to handle logistics or anxiety-inducing moments in real time — that...

Dating Confidence Is a Skill, Not a Trait Dating and relationship success is skill-based — not a personality trait, not luck. It's a set of capacities (self-awareness, resilience, strategy, consistent action) that can...

Dating requires skills — and disability adds complexity. But disability services are built around health, safety, and independence, not romantic fulfillment. Sexuality remains taboo, no structured framework exists for...

We're talking with researcher Dr. Kathryn Pedgrift , focused on relationship and sexuality education for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD). The conversation covers Pedgrift's academic...

Allison, founder of Innervue ( yourinnervue.com ), started as a psychotherapist before moving into industrial-organizational psychology, where she's consulted for nearly three decades. She later trained as a coach and...

Mike Elliott is a relationship expert, men's coach, and founder of The Initiated Man. Though Mike doesn't have a disability, Kathy invited him to apply his expertise on intimacy, self-love, and emotional safety through...

Dating With a Disability: Why Generic Advice Doesn't Work We break down the Five Stages of Dating Success framework, built specifically for people dating with a disability. Standard dating advice assumes everyone shares...

Continuing our Friendship Series, I chat with Karen Hoffman and Julie Baum, a married couple with decades of experience in human services. The episode focuses on friendship rather than dating, exploring our 30+...

It's Disability Pride Month, and while this topic has been covered previously, this episode dives into how pride shows up specifically in dating. Reframing Common Comments Ways to respond to backhanded compliments with...

Vanessa Cushing, an AASECT-certified sex therapist, talks about sexuality, disability, and dating. Healthy Sexuality Basics Vanessa defines healthy sexuality as centered on connection over performance, requiring safety...

Episode 250: Celebrating 250 Episodes of Dating, Relationships, and Disability Marking episode 250 with a look back at why this show exists and what it's covered since October 2021. Kathy founded the show to be a...

The Friendship series has kicked off to examine what is similar and different when a disability is present - and how friendship development is a lot like dating - they both involve vulnerability, taking risks, and...

Stage 4 (Active Dating) of her "5 Stages to Dating Success" framework. It's a tactical, mini-workshop style episode pulling content from her curriculum aimed at professionals in the disability field. 6 Key Skills for...

Kathy O'Connell shares that she's working on a new book about dating and relationships with a disability — a follow-up to her earlier book Firewalk: Embracing Different Abilities . The book focuses on two key themes...