RLT

Created by Terry Real, Relational Life Therapy (RLT) is a more direct skills-based approach to couples therapy. It focuses on building authentic connections by addressing power imbalances, teaching new communication skills, and healing past relational trauma.

RLT concentrates on empowering partners to take responsibility for their own relational patterns (their "half of the dance"), using vulnerability, and learning to self-correct during conflict. Sessions involve naming dysfunctional patterns directly, holding partners accountable for harmful behaviors, and coaching new responses in session.

Developmental trauma and unresolved wounds show up in couple dynamics. This past trauma is often within the context of family-of-origin patterns. These experiences have shaped your relational template. You might struggle with trust, vulnerability, emotional regulation, or belief that you are worthy of love. Sessions often involve more intense individual work.

RLT does ask of the clients’ willingness for the therapist to name dysfunction and hold partners accountable more directly. This directness is balanced with compassion, validating the wounded person beneath, and recognizing that defensive patterns have developed as adaptations to pain. The combination of accountability and empathy creates safety and promotes deep change.

RLT values authenticity, accountability, and vulnerability while teaching genuinely practical skills and interventions.