Become a Masterful Couples Therapist and Build a Thriving Practice With the RLT Certification
Discover how the deepest training from leading couples therapist Terry Real will help you work confidently with even the most challenging cases.
Get the free RLT Certification Guide to discover:
- How RLT works to deliver rapid & lasting relationship transformations.
- The full curriculum breakdown and the best study path for you.
- Details of pricing, payment plans, and discounts.
- Graduate success stories on how the Certification expanded their practices.
Providing you with the tools you need to excel as a couples therapist
Powerful Strategies & Interventions:
The RLT Certification equips clinical practitioners with the effective tools to elegantly and confidently guide even the most challenging clients into intimacy. We understand that couples therapy and marriage counseling is tough. It’s deeply complex and emotionally charged. At times it can be overwhelming. RLT will help you sustain your passion for couple work and feel excited by it.
A Master Teacher:
Developed by leading couples therapist and New York Times bestselling author Terry Real, RLT incorporates perspectives and skills from systems therapy, feminist therapy, and coaching, together with current evidence-based modalities, to provide practitioners with an innovative way to approach couples work that breaks many of the rules of traditional therapy.
Business Support:
Most therapy trainings don’t equip you with the skills to build a business—we do. As part of the RLT Certification you access expert business training to help you establish and grow a thriving therapy practice.
We have different Certification pathways available depending on your interest and experience. Click “Request Information” below to receive the RLT Certification Guide with full details of the training.
How Does the Certification Work?
The RLT Certification is delivered entirely online via a blend of self-paced study, observation, and guided practice.
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For a complete breakdown of the curriculum, get your free copy of the RLT Certification Guide.
The RLT Certification is suitable for:
- Therapists, counselors, and psychologists
- Social workers
- Students and instructors in health, counseling, or coaching-related field
- Relationship, life, and business coaches
Other health professionals may also benefit. To see if it’s the right fit for you, click “Request Information,” and receive full details of the training.
Ready To Learn More?
Complete the below form to get a free copy of the RLT Certification Guide with details on price, curriculum, and study paths.
8 Ways RLT Differs From Traditional Therapy
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1
ADDRESSING GRANDIOSITY AND SHAME
Traditional psychotherapy focuses primarily on healing shame: helping people come up from feeling “one-down,” or inferior. RLT is just as concerned with shame’s cousin, grandiosity. We help people come to the level ground, neither “one-up” and superior nor “one-down” and inferior.
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2
WE TAKE SIDES
In RLT, therapists are not neutral—we take sides. Not all problems in a relationship are 50/50. When there’s power imbalance, we explicitly side with the one-down person to restore balance. RLT therapists don’t try to earn the trust of grandiose people; instead, we gather data and use leverage to engage them in the process.
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3
WE’RE DIRECT
We lovingly confront our clients: RLT is all about telling people what to do in certain situations, educating, and equipping them to have a corrective emotional experience with their partner. RLT therapists take sides and tell people what to do—and what the consequences will be if they don’t do it.
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4
LASTING TRANSFORMATION
In traditional therapy, character is considered deeply embedded and hard to change. In RLT, we see character as changeable. We set the bar high: we expect dramatic change in our clients. It’s not unusual for people to simply stop doing negative things they’ve done their whole lives. And, with support, these changes can be permanent. RLT moves fast and makes things happen.
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5
INNER CHILD WORK IN THE PRESENCE OF THE PARTNER
Deep trauma work is done right in the room, in the presence of the partner. This is different from traditional therapy, with its emphasis on individual work. It’s not about transference; it’s about the client changing their relationship with themselves and their partner. Typically, people will go deeper in the presence of their partner, and this work helps build empathy and connection.
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6
THERAPISTS AND CLIENTS ARE EQUAL
In traditional therapy, the therapist is an expert or a facilitator. In RLT, the therapist is neither above nor below the client: we are in the mud with them, and our main authority comes from our personal relational recovery. RLT therapists make use of judicious self-disclosure—telling stories of how we use these skills in our own relationships and know what works.
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IT’S ABOUT SUBJECTIVE REALITY
There is no room for objective reality in personal relationships. Who’s right or wrong doesn’t matter. It’s about two subjective realities that have to negotiate with each other, make things work for themselves as a team. In RLT, we focus on helping clients work as a team with an “us vs. the problem” mindset.
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8
TEACHING RELATIONAL SKILLS
Traditional therapy heals through nurturing; RLT believes that nurturing and empathy are necessary but not sufficient. We also teach our clients how to live relationally—in a way that is connected to oneself, one’s thoughts, feelings, sensations, and to others. RLT is educational and it empowers clients with the skills to repair and cherish their relationships for life.
Who Is Terry Real?
Terry Real, creator of Relational Life Therapy
Terry Real, LICSW, is an internationally recognized family therapist, New York Times bestselling author, and sought-after speaker.
A former senior faculty member of the Family Institute of Cambridge in Massachusetts and a retired Clinical Fellow of the Meadows Institute in Arizona, Terry is renowned for his ability to save couples on the brink of divorce using the progressive approach he created, Relational Life Therapy. RLT equips people with the powerful relational skills they need to cultivate meaningful connections—to themselves, each other, and the planet as a whole.
Via his esteemed training school, the Relational Life Institute, Terry has trained thousands of relationship professionals in his RLT method to date. His original insights on couples therapy, relationships, and men’s issues have been featured in outlets from Psychotherapy Networker and Forbes to The Today Show and The New York Times.