A Substack by Q. Gibson

Held & Human is a space for those learning how to be loved without fear.

I’m Q. Gibson! A licensed therapist, relational trauma expert, writer, and founder. My life’s work is devoted to helping Black women and couples learn how to love and experience healthy, secure, and life-giving relationships.

I believe our relationships are not just personal they are formative. They shape how we see ourselves, how safe we feel in the world, how we lead, how we rest, and how we imagine our futures. When love has been marked by survival, abandonment, betrayal, or emotional labor without reciprocity, it quietly teaches us to perform instead of receive. When love is repaired, relearned, and reimagined, it becomes a place of restoration rather than depletion.

This Substack is for women who are no longer interested in auditioning for love, over-functioning for connection, or shrinking their needs to be chosen. It is for the woman who has learned how to be seen but not held. The woman who is ready to change that.

Here, I write about love. How relational trauma shapes our romantic patterns, how cultural expectations complicate intimacy, and how we can build relationships that are emotionally safe, reciprocal, and nourishing. My work is informed by my clinical training, lived experience, and years of working with individuals, couples, and women navigating the true cost of unrepaired bonds…especially in romantic partnerships.

I am a firm believer that our romantic stories don’t stay confined to dating or marriage. They show up in our confidence, our friendships, our careers, our boundaries, our nervous systems, and our ability to trust ourselves. Love teaches us who we are allowed to be.

Given this, you’ll find reflections, teachings, and letters at the intersection of psychology, Black womanhood, romantic love, relational healing, and humanity. These pieces are written with care for Black women who are brave enough to ask: What would it mean for love to feel safe, mutual, and steady?

This space is also home to early teachings from The HELD Method™—a relational framework I’ve developed to help Black women move from maladaptive relational survival patterns into secure, embodied, and emotionally available ways of loving and being loved.

Here, you’ll receive:

• Therapy-informed reflections on Black women, love, relational healing, and humanness

• Essays and creative prompts that invite deeper self-knowing and relational clarity

• Teachings on emotional safety, attachment, boundaries, and romantic partnership

• Insight on relational leadership and intimacy in a tech-driven, disconnected world

• Thought leadership on how Black women can reimagine love beyond survival and sacrifice

This is not just a newsletter. It’s a thought space, a place for reflection, conversation, and re-education about what it means for Black women and women in general to love and be loved well. About what it means to choose relationships that can actually hold us.

If you are rebuilding your capacity for love, reimagining romantic partnership, or unlearning what you were taught about relationships, you’re in the right place.

Thank you for being here.
With love,
Q.

For Paid Subscribers

Paid subscribers are not just readers; you are collaborators in shaping a future where women’s healing and romantic lives are rooted in relational depth rather than endurance.

Your support sustains this work and expands it beyond the page into workshops, immersive learning, and offerings through my project the HELD Institute. Paid subscribers receive exclusive essays, deeper teachings on love and partnership, and early access to workshops, events, and live discussions centered on healthy romantic relationships.