The Courage to Say the Thing – An Interview with Ryan Campinho Valadas
- Jun 30
- 7 min read
From Forum Theatre and social activism to psychosexual therapy and education, Ryan’s work has always centered on what happens when people are truly witnessed without judgment. Their approach brings together creativity, curiosity, and clinical insight to explore how shame, identity, intimacy, and belonging shape the way we relate to ourselves and each other.
In this exclusive interview, Ryan Campinho Valadas discusses the lasting impact of shame, what queer communities can teach us about connection, why conversations about sex still need more openness, and how honest communication can become a path toward deeper relationships.
Ryan Campinho Valadas, Therapist, Educator & Trainer
Your career has taken you from Forum Theatre and social activism to psychosexual therapy and education. What has stayed constant throughout that journey?
Imagine for a moment the awe of a young person seeing their story come alive on stage and being seen, heard, and validated by complete strangers, or seeing someone come alive after making a powerful connection between their past and their present. I could say the thread throughout my journey was helping people in some kind of need, but ultimately, the thread has always been the magic that happens between someone telling their life story, someone witnessing it with an open heart, and the transformative journey that both speaker and listener go through within those moments of connection.
I may not always have a lot of hope for the big systemic and global problems we face, but I always hold great hope for the individuals in my life, whether they are clients or people in my close circles. There’s nothing quite as fulfilling as witnessing someone having a lightbulb moment about their life.
Why do you think shame remains such a powerful force in people's relationships and intimate lives?
I have recently become more familiar with the evolutionary framework of shame, which points to its role as a social emotion whose function is to keep us included in our groups or communities, for the sake of survival and belonging. Meaning, if I experience shame about something that I’ve done which feels outside the norm, then I’ll try not to do that again, so that I’m not excluded from my group and then have opportunities to thrive.
Perhaps this worked more seamlessly when our brains weren’t as evolved and life was more about pure survival, but nowadays, the main challenge of shame is that it creates an internal narrative that there is something wrong about a person as a whole. Not a trait or behaviour, but the whole person. This absolutist narrative or story that people create about themselves is incredibly corrosive, pervasive, and isolationist. It constitutes one of the biggest barriers to vulnerability, connection, communication, and meaningful relationships. I often work with shame in the same way that I work with trauma, because I think their impact is very similar, even within the nervous system.
What have your years of working within queer communities taught you about connection, communication, and belonging?
Queer identities develop in a world that is constantly telling them that they’re wrong, explicitly and implicitly. One of my favourite questions to ask queer individuals in therapy is “whose shame is that?” to encourage awareness and understanding that they are most likely carrying some kind of familial, social, or cultural shame, rather than their own.
I think this is why connection and belonging are so special and powerful within queer communities, because individuals will have had to contend with, navigate, and overcome the many challenges posed to them by different depths of shame. In many ways, that’s also part of our own coded culture and the way we communicate with each other: there is a fire, a resilience, an irreverence, and a freedom that emerge in relationships where individuals have had to challenge and go beyond social and cultural norms.
How has the conversation around sex and relationships changed since you first began your clinical work?
Short answer: so much! I haven’t even specialised that long ago! I had already been a therapist for 7 years when I decided to specialise and this new training took place during the pandemic, when people’s awareness about almost every life topic surged to very high numbers. Sex and relationships have been no different. People now talk about their attachment styles like they talk about their astrological sign, and use terms like narcissism, love languages, boundaries, and consent in their daily conversations.
There is also a much greater awareness of different relationship structures, such as polyamory or open relationships, as well as different sexualities and gender identities. The dating world has changed drastically, and I encounter a lot of people who are completely fatigued by dating apps and their impact on their mental health. I find that people are both more aware of themselves and more disconnected from each other, and finding it more difficult to engage with each other’s humanity beyond theoretical labels or frameworks.
What do you think therapists and educators still get wrong when talking about sexuality and intimacy?
It is unfortunately very common for me as a sex & relationships therapist to meet clients who are transferring from general to specialist therapy, because they felt shamed or judged by their therapist whenever they brought up anything related to sex in their sessions. Sometimes this happens generally, but particularly for queer people whose sexual lives are more diverse, this shaming is unfortunately very common.
There is something important about therapists and educators really doing some work on themselves in terms of their views on sex, sexuality, and intimacy. To first acknowledge how they really feel about these topics and experiences in their own lives, and secondly, to meet different experiences with curiosity rather than judgement. It’s not about what people are doing, but about the pleasure that they are getting from what they are doing.
Another important thing to remember is that sexual and relational health are integral parts of wellbeing, as they can sometimes be forgotten about when we talk about mental health or consider a person’s life holistically.
How can someone start having more honest conversations with a partner when a subject feels uncomfortable or difficult to raise?
It’s important to state that being in a relationship with another human or humans, being honest and vulnerable with our partners, not having answers to something, are all really uncomfortable aspects of life. We can’t avoid them. The biggest challenges I often encounter in relationship work are the avoidance of discomfort and not talking about something important that is happening in the relationship. People will come up with tons of assumptions and stories before they ask a clarifying question or before they share a vulnerable truth.
There are many relationship myths that contribute to this, but my work with couples usually focuses on helping people figure out what they need to say, and then to encourage them to say it. If a relationship is loving, and if the truth is shared in a moment of calmness, then it’s not so much about the how as about just saying the thing. I repeat this often in therapy: say the thing. Conversations are always ongoing in relationships, and you don’t have to say everything perfectly or in one go. Share how you really feel, whilst owning your feelings, without blaming, and take it from there.
What role can creativity and imagination play in helping people better understand themselves and their relationships?
I find that creativity allows us to bypass the sometimes rigid aspect of our rational minds and connect to more expansive ways of emotional expression as well as understanding of life and other people’s experiences. Imagination allows us to step outside of our attachment to certainty and judgement, and connects us to new perspectives with curiosity and openness.
The busyness of daily life will unfortunately stifle both creativity and imagination as time goes by. It’s so easy to stop engaging creatively with our partners or participating in activities that expand our imaginations when we are concerned with bills, promotions, and other daily logistics. I believe slowing down and resting are essential to both, not just to engage with them but also to feel the positive outcomes. When it comes to clinical work, this will look like suggesting new and different practices that the clients can practice in their lives, or exploring something in session through creative materials.
You often speak about approaching people with curiosity rather than certainty; how has that principle shaped your work?
Curiosity is essential in my work. Without it, it’s easy to become rigid, cynical, deluded in my sense of certainty. Curiosity is about slowing down my reflexes enough in order to really listen, to connect to unsaid things and dynamics, to observe body language more clearly, to reflect about my own experience, and ultimately to accept people as they are in each moment. It is also expansive, surprising, filled with aliveness, and deeply linked to an open heart.
Without it, it’s easy to judge someone or something, to jump to assumptions and conclusions, to make mistakes in a relationship or situation. Curiosity shifts the focus away from what I know or think to what the other person might be feeling or thinking and what their experiences have felt like for them. Curiosity is a practice of humility and deep connection.
What is one insight about relationships that you wish more people understood today?
This is something that most people in my field understand, but the majority, if not all, of our emotional wounds come from relational dynamics, and so we require relational dynamics to heal those wounds. It doesn’t have to be with the same person, which is great news for a lot of people. In fact, therapy can often be a place in which many emotional and relational wounds are healed through the therapeutic relationship. It can happen with friends, partners, even co-workers.
Relationships are essential for us to thrive in life, no matter how many podcasts or social media posts tell you that you can do it all alone. You can, but there will be a price for that. We are social beings and many of our most basic needs are attached to companionship, care, and love. It is also important to remember that, because we know someone very well or someone knows us very well, we do not have the capacity to read people’s minds. We don’t. We can try and predict behaviours based on past patterns, but until people say the thing, it is always best not to assume. How do you really know what someone is feeling if they don’t tell you, or if you don’t ask?
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