Overcoming The Fear of Confronting Narcissistic Clients

Learn how to confidently take on grandiose clients with skill in Working With Grandiosity, the new LIVE 5-part course from Terry Real. Learn more and join below. 

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New Course with Terry Real

Learn To Confidently Take On, Motivate, and Guide Grandiose Clients Into Loving Connection

How to confront narcissistic clients, build an alliance, and help them reconnect to themselves and those around them in Working With Grandiosity.

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Grandiose people are not in pain, they’re in trouble. The people around them are in pain.
- Terry Real

Here’s An Overview of Everything You Get In Working With Grandiosity

5 Pre-Recorded 90-minute Classes with Terry Real

3 Pre-Recorded Q&A Calls with Bonny Slim from the RLI Faculty

What You’ll Learn

In this course you’ll learn practical skills, interventions, and therapeutic stances to effectively work with grandiose clients and lead them into healthy connection.

Key topics you’ll explore:

  • The origins of grandiosity and why it isn't always a defense against shame.
  • How to find leverage to motivate grandiose clients to engage in the therapeutic process.
  • Why taking sides is critical when working with grandiosity—and how to do it.
  • What’s deficient in grandiose clients, and how you supply it as the therapist.
  • Strategies to confidently handle resistance, evasion, and verbal abuse.
  • How to reconnect grandiose clients to themselves and those around them. 
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When It Feels Good To Be Grandiose….. How Do You Motivate Narcissistic Clients To Change?

We’re often taught to handle grandiose clients with kid gloves—to be nice, to nurture them.

But, unfortunately, nurture alone isn’t enough to motivate these clients to change.

As therapists, our job is to supply what’s deficient. So nurture is critical for shame-based clients… but when it comes to grandiosity, what’s deficient is empathy, accurate judgment, and accountability.

Grandiose clients need waking up to the impact of their behavior and confronted with the consequences of not doing the work.

Leaning in and confronting a grandiosity can be terrifying, which is why so many shy away from it—even seasoned therapists.

But you can learn to do it artfully and confidently in this brand new course from Terry Real. Over 5 classes, you’ll learn the necessary strategies and interventions to effectively manage even the most grandiose clients, guiding them towards relationality and the joy of authentic connection.

For me, 'Joining through the truth' is a piece of the jigsaw that has been missing in therapeutic training. Although in my own practice, I have 'joined in truth'  at times with clients that have been high on the grandiose scale, there has never been a framework that allows me to identify both the path in and the path out.
— Judith Balcazar
— Judith Balcazar
I have seen clients that have been stuck for years/decades begin to show growth and move towards their authentic self with pride, dignity and confidence that they’ve never experienced before. Life Changing….
— Stephanie Lott
— Stephanie Lott
Some of the things I love about Terry Real and his work are the practical steps, down-to-earth guidance and his model of having the courage and respect to be honest with couples when one partner is behaving in a way that needs to be addressed first.
— Rachel M.
— Rachel M.

Join Working With Grandiosity Today

Choose the payment option that best suits you.

3 x Monthly Payments

$175

Single Payment

$495 

Our Promise and Guarantee

We’re confident you’ll love Working With Grandiosity, 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 14 days of purchase and we’ll issue you a full refund, no questions asked.

Meet Your Teachers

Terry Real,

Creator of Relational Life Therapy

Terry Real, LICSW, is an internationally recognized family therapist, sought-after speaker, and bestselling author, who has transformed how we approach relationships.

He is the creator of Relational Life Therapy (RLT), a groundbreaking therapeutic approach that equips people with the essential relational skills to build and sustain authentic connections—to themselves, each other, and the planet as a whole.

The author of four books, Terry’s most recent is the New York Times bestseller, Us: Getting Past You and Me to Build a More Loving Relationship, which guides readers toward deeper intimacy and fulfillment. Known as “the turnaround guy,” Terry is famous for his extraordinary ability to save couples on the brink of divorce. Through his esteemed training school, the Relational Life Institute, he has trained thousands of mental health practitioners in his RLT method to date.

Terry is committed to relational empowerment, helping everyone develop the skills needed for meaningful, lasting relationships.

Bonny E. Slim,

LMFT in Private Practice

Based in West Hartford, Connecticut, Bonny began training in Relational Life Therapy in 2012, and has participated in most of the courses that Terry has offered since then.

She is a senior member of the RLI faculty, training other mental health professionals in the RLT model.

Through co-facilitating several Relational Bootcamps, Bonny discovered how transformative the group experience can be. Her favorite aspect of RLT is the awareness that practicing relational skills in our own lives is essential to be able to authentically share/teach these skills to others.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is this course live?

No—the live classes have concluded. You will gain access to all 5 pre-recorded classes with Terry Real and 3 supporting 60-minute Q&A pre-recorded calls with Bonny Slim to explore the course material in greater depth.

Forever! You’ll have lifetime access to the class recordings inside the private learning platform, to watch back as many times as you like.

No—7.5 CEs were available for professionals who attended all 5 live calls with Terry Real for an additional $40 fee.

A limited number of partial scholarships are available for those with financial need. Please email us at support@terryreal.com with a brief outline of the following: your financial ability, your unique situation or challenge you are facing, and how you plan to use your learnings from this course (2-3 sentences max).

We’re confident you’ll love Working With Grandiosity, 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 14 days of purchase and we’ll issue you a full refund, no questions asked.

Copyright © 2024 Relational Life Institute

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CE REQUIREMENTS:

The Relational Life Institute is pleased to offer:

Working With Men

Relational Life Institute (RLI) has been approved by NBCC as an Approved Continuing Education Provider, ACEP No. 7495. Programs that do not qualify for NBCC credit are clearly identified. Relational Life Institute (RLI) is solely responsible for all aspects of the programs.

ACEP No. 7495

FORMAT: A LIVE Online Course facilitated by Terry Real, LICSW; and Julie Rudiger, LCSW

Continuing Education credits offered: 12  credit hours

Course Description:

Over eight live online classes, learn the skills to engage, motivate, and create breakthrough change with resistant male clients in this live, practice-focused training led by renowned couples therapist and male-psychology expert Terry Real, alongside RLT Faculty Member Julie Rudiger, LCSW. Grounded in Relational Life Therapy (RLT), the course unpacks how patriarchal conditioning and performance-based self-worth fuel disconnection, defensiveness, and shutdown, then shows you how to build trust with even the most challenging men through clear, compassionate confrontation that preserves the therapeutic alliance. You’ll learn to create effective leverage for transformation without triggering collapse, withdrawal, or escalated resistance; tailor interventions for the three common presentations—“boys, bullies, and avoiders”; and reframe masculinity so emotional expression is aligned with strength, honor, and integrity rather than weakness. Through demonstrations and actionable tools from both instructors, you’ll guide men in trauma healing and relational skill development that supports healthier partnerships and parenting. Leave with a concrete RLT roadmap you can use immediately to help clients move from resistance to responsibility and from disconnection to genuine intimacy.

Learning Objectives: At the completion of this course, participants can expect to be able to:

  • Summarize the cultural shaping of masculinity and its consequences.
  • Recognize shame and grandiosity as dual defenses tied to male self-worth.
  • Develop skills to help men shift from defensiveness to compassion.
  • Identify how shame and performance-based esteem show up in male clients.
  • Discuss culturally sensitive ways to challenge entitlement and grandiosity.
  • Identify and work with three major types of difficult men: boys, bullies, and avoiders.
  • Describe how to use leverage as a tool to create change.
  • Identify patterns of resistance in men and learn how to engage them effectively.
  • Utilize leverage to create internal or external motivation for change.
  • Illustrate empowerment to the partner or family system to create pressure that opens the door to transformation.
  • Compare and differentiate between their wounded child, adaptive child, and functional adult selves.
  • Develop an internal caregiving relationship with their inner children rather than expecting partners to repair old wounds.
  • Demonstrate full relational responsibility as an adult, especially in high-conflict, high-defensiveness relationships.

Target Audience: Social Workers, MFTs, Counselors, Substance Abuse Counselors, Nurses, and LMHCs, LMFT’s, Educators, Coaches, Chemical Dependency Counselors 

Course Content Level: The course content is appropriate for Beginner level clinicians.

Cost:   $497 or three payments of $197 each.

Course Date & Hours:   

1pm-2:30pm Eastern Time on:

September 10, 17, 24; October 1, 8, 2025 

TO REGISTER: https://relationallife.com/working-with-men

Cancellation Policy: You may cancel your registration up until September 16, 2025

Please contact support@terryreal.com if you wish to cancel.

If you need special accommodations or have questions, please contact us at support@terryreal.com 

Please contact our Support team if you have any questions support@terryreal.com 

Instructor’s Bio:

Terry Real, LICSW: Terry Real is the bestselling author of I Don’t Want to Talk About It: Overcoming the Secret Legacy of Male Depression, the straight-talking How Can I Get Through to You? Reconnecting Men and Women, The New Rules of Marriage: What You Need to Make Love Work and most recently Us: Getting Past You & Me to Build a More Loving Relationship just debuted in June 2022.  Terry founded the Relational Life Institute, offering workshops for couples, individuals, and parents as well as a professional training program for clinicians.   Terry’s work, with its rigorous commonsense approach, speaks to both men and women. A proponent of “full-throttle marriage,” Terry has been called “the most innovative voice in thinking about and treating men and their relationships in the world today.”

Julie Rudiger, LCSW has been a Licensed Clinical Social Worker for the last 30 years. In 2002, Julie opened her private practice, where she has helped hundreds of individuals and couples over the last two decades. Her professional journey took a transformative turn in 2008 when she began training with Terry Real, the founder of Relational Life Therapy (RLT). Julie has since used RLT to guide clients in discovering self-esteem, healing early wounds, and fostering deeper, more authentic relationships. A faculty member at the Relational Life Institute since 2022, Julie now trains other therapists and leads community workshops, including Men’s Groups and Relationship Skills Bootcamps. Additionally, she is trained in EMDR, ACT, DBT, Gestalt, and the Enneagram.

CONFLICT of Interest: There is no known conflict of interest or commercial support for this event.

Grievance Procedure:

If a student believes they have been discriminated against, they can submit a written complaint that includes their name, address, phone number, location, date, and a detailed description of the issue. If a student with a disability disagrees with the accommodation provided or has any other grievances, they can schedule a meeting to discuss and attempt to find a solution together. If the student is still not satisfied with the accommodation after further discussion, they can contact the Operations Director for

the Relational Life Institute (RLI), Lisa Sullivan, via phone, email, or mail. If the grievance cannot be resolved, the complainant will be advised to contact the appropriate Ethics Committee or Licensing Board. The Operations Director will keep all grievances and their resolutions confidential in locked files.

A copy of this Grievance Procedure is available upon request.

Contact information: ACEP Administrator & Operations Director for Relational Life Institute (RLI), Lisa Sullivan follows: 291 Nahanton Street, Newton, MA 02459; 617-861-3030 lisa@relationallife.com