A Live Workshop with NY Times Bestselling Author Terry Real, LICSW
Why Does Your Client Keep Doing Something They Know Isn’t Working?
Sometimes the behavior you’re trying to change is helping a relationship or family stay exactly as it is. Learn to look beyond the individual to see the function a behavior is serving and where you can intervene to help create lasting change.
📅 Tuesday, September 22, 2026 | 12–3pm ET
100% moneyback guarantee
“When I need advice, I call Terry Real. His decades of clinical experience, research, and wisdom are invaluable to my patients, colleagues, and friends.”
Psychotherapist and bestselling author
Your Clients Don't Exist in Isolation. What Changes When We Consider the System Around Them?
It’s beautiful when our clients have corrective emotional experiences with us in session. But in order for that change to last beyond our work, the goal is for them to have repeated corrective experiences with the people around them – be that a partner, their children, parents, or friends.
Yet a common problem we face as therapists and coaches is clients who find it hard to implement or sustain the insights and growth from their sessions into their real-world relationships.
And when that happens, we can question whether we chose the right direction for the work, whether the client was ready, or whether we explained things clearly enough.
But sometimes there is another part of the picture to consider:
- A partner who escalates when the other stops appeasing
- A partner who escalates when the other stops appeasing
- A partner who escalates when the other stops appeasing
As Terry Real puts it, you can patch someone up, but if you send them back to the same front line, they can get hit again.
Thinking systemically gives us a fuller picture of what we're actually treating. Instead of looking only at what a behavior means for the individual, we also ask:
This may be the partner who escalates when the other stops appeasing. It may be the parent who treats a limit as betrayal.
Understanding The Function of the Dysfunction
A behavior such as people-pleasing, controlling, withdrawing, or escalating may belong to one person, but it can also play a role in keeping a larger relational pattern going.
Learning to see that pattern gives you a fuller picture of what is keeping your client stuck – and where change may need to happen for their progress to hold.
In this three-hour workshop, Terry Real will draw on the family therapy principles that shaped his Relational Life Therapy® model and show you how to effectively bring this systemic lens into your own work.
— Terry Real
What You’ll Learn
Over three hours, Terry Real will take you through the major traditions of family systems therapy – and how RLT brings these ideas together in practice, whether you have the wider system in front of you or just one person.
You’ll discover:
How to look beyond the individual to understand the system around a problem
including what function a behavior may be serving in the system and what could be disrupted if your client changes it.
How to track the loop between people
noticing what one person does, how the other responds, and how that response keeps the pattern going.
How to move between what’s happening inside your client and what’s happening between people
so you can build a fuller picture of the pattern you’re working with.
A questioning technique that can reveal dynamics you may otherwise miss
by asking people about one another, rather than relying only on someone’s account of themselves.
How to recognize when clients are doing “more of the same wrong solution”
and use reframing to help them step out of a familiar response that isn’t working.
Why change can sometimes feel like betrayal
how family loyalty can keep clients attached to old roles and behaviors, even when they consciously want something different.
“Very eye-opening, with implications far beyond only couples' relationships.
RLT provides some ways of perceiving stuck dysfunctional patterns and to communicate them to clients in a useful, precise and accessible way.
— Bruce Nayowith
Here’s Everything You’ll Receive
A Live 3-Hour Workshop with Terry Real
Join Terry live on Tuesday, September 22, 2026, from 12–3pm ET. He’ll show you how to think systemically in your work – even when you only have one person in front of you
Live Q&A with Terry
Ask questions on how to bring a systemic lens to your specific cases
Lifetime Access to the Recording
If you can’t attend live or want to revisit the material, you’ll have lifetime access to the recording through the learning platform.
All for just $47
You’re Protected By a 100% Money-Back Guarantee
We’re confident you’ll find this workshop helpful, but we offer a 100% money-back guarantee for your peace of mind. If, for whatever reason you’re not completely satisfied, please contact us at support@terryreal.com within 48 hours of the live workshop and we’ll issue you a full refund, no questions asked. The refund deadline is Thursday, September 24, 2026.
Who Is This Workshop For?
Whether you work with couples or individuals, this workshop is for practitioners who want to better understand what keeps clients stuck in patterns they consciously want to change.
Perhaps…
You’ve had a client make real progress in session, only to fall back into the same behavior when they return to their relationships.
You’re working from one person’s account of a relationship and sometimes wonder what you might be missing about the wider dynamic.
You’ve worked with a couple who keep having versions of the same fight – and want to get better at seeing what each partner is doing that keeps the cycle going.
You have a client you’ve privately started to think of as “resistant,” because they understand what needs to change but nothing seems to move.
You can understand why a client behaves the way they do, but want to get better at seeing the role that behavior may be playing in their relationships.
You want to get better at tracking what happens between people – how one person’s response triggers the next, and how the pattern reinforces itself.
Most people know Terry Real as the founder of Relational Life Therapy® and a New York Times bestselling author.
Fewer know that he is first a family therapist – following intensive training at the Family Institute of Cambridge, he went on to become a senior faculty member for almost 20 years.
“My primary identity is actually as a family therapist, if you ask me.”
His first book, I Don’t Want to Talk About It, broke the silence around male depression. His most recent – the New York Times bestseller – Us, brought relational thinking to a mass audience.
His work invites all of us to move from an individualistic to a relational way of working and way of being. Whether you work with individuals, couples, or families, understanding that our clients do not sit above their relationships but in them is central to his RLT model.
What People Say About Terry Real and Relational Life Therapy®
Now I have a roadmap. I know how to begin to make sense of what’s going on in a relationship.”
I zeroed in on listening, observing and exploring each partner’s ‘stance’… I immediately got a sense of the pattern and ‘the more, the more’ of the couple’s dance… I reinforced their desire to change the pattern of rejection, placating, blame and withdrawing.”
Now I have a roadmap. I know how to begin to make sense of what’s going on in a relationship.”
His teaching didn’t feel theoretical. It felt embodied. I had the sense that he was living what he was teaching.”
I always appreciate the languaging Terry uses to explain concepts, so digestible for clients. I feel as though my description and change attempts with clients always improves.”
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is this workshop for?
This workshop is for therapists and coaches who want to strengthen their ability to think systemically – whether you work with individuals, couples, or families. No prior training in Relational Life Therapy is required.
How does thinking systemically apply if I work primarily with individuals?
Your client may be the only person in the session, but they don’t exist in isolation. Thinking systemically helps you consider the relationships around them: how other people respond to your client’s behavior, what happens next, and what role the behavior may be playing in keeping a larger pattern in place.
How does this apply to couples work?
Rather than looking at each partner separately, thinking systemically helps you track the pattern they create together: what one person does, how the other responds, and how that response feeds back into the first person’s behavior. Terry will show you how to follow these sequences while also paying attention to what is happening internally for each partner.
Will this help when a client understands what they need to change, but still can’t seem to do it?
Yes. One of the central questions Terry will explore is what a behavior may be doing for the client or the wider system – and what the consequences of giving it up might be. This can offer a different way of understanding behavior that might otherwise look like resistance.
Is the workshop live?
Yes – the workshop takes place live on Tuesday, September 22, 2026, from 12–3pm ET, with time for Q&A with Terry Real.
What if I can’t attend live?
Registration includes lifetime access to the recording, stored in the learning platform. If you haven’t trained with us, you’ll receive log in details via email when you register.
What is the refund policy?
There is a 100% money-back guarantee up to 48 hours after the live workshop. If, for whatever reason, you find the workshop doesn’t meet your needs, you can email us at support@terryreal.com up to Thursday, September 24, 2026 for a full refund.
I still have questions. Who do I speak to?
Please reach out to us at support@terryreal.com and a member of the team will get back to you.
Here’s Everything You’ll Receive
Your registration includes:
A Live 3-Hour Workshop with Terry Real
Join Terry live on Tuesday, September 22, 2026, from 12–3pm ET. He’ll show you how to think systemically in your work – even when you only have one person in front of you.
Live Q&A with Terry
Ask questions on how to bring a systemic lens to your specific cases.
Lifetime Access to the Recording
If you can’t attend live or want to revisit the material, you’ll have lifetime access to the recording through the learning platform.
All for just $47
You’re Protected by a 100% Money-Back Guarantee
We’re confident you’ll find this workshop helpful, but we offer a 100% money-back guarantee for your peace of mind. If, for whatever reason you’re not completely satisfied, please contact us at support@terryreal.com within 48 hours of the live workshop and we’ll issue you a full refund, no questions asked. The refund deadline is Thursday, September 24, 2026.
