Relational Therapy
Relational therapy with Calm in Chaos Therapy caters to every relationship, whether monogamous or ethically/consensually nonmonogamous. Often it is assumed that if a relationship needs extra support it is destined to fail. The opposite is true - relational therapy can take a relationship to new heights through increased empathy and understanding. Relationships evolve and seeking extra support through relational therapy is both admirable and courageous. Relational therapy makes it possible for partners to reconnect.
Relevant training: Emotionally Focused Therapy Externship completed, Relational Life Therapy Level 1 in progress, and Internal Family Systems Intimacy from the Inside Out in progress
Relational Therapy can help partners:
Communicate with Confidence and Clarity: Master the art of expressing your most vulnerable thoughts and feelings openly while cultivating meaningful dialogue.
Deepen Empathy and Emotional Connection: Strengthen your bond by recognizing, validating, and responding to the emotions and experiences of your partner(s).
Increase Comfort in Navigating Challenging Conversations: Approach sensitive topics, like sex-related issues, with ease, respect, and strategies that promote mutual growth.
Resolve Conflict in Healthy Ways: Transform disagreements into opportunities for connection and collaborative problem-solving.
Cultivate Secure Attachment: Create a foundation of trust, emotional safety, and stability within your relationships.
Align Personal and Shared Values: Explore the values that matter most to you and your partner(s) to create a united vision for the future.
Develop Co-Regulation Skills: Support one another in managing emotional reactivity, maintaining balance, and fostering resilience.
Deepen Physical and Emotional, and Sexual Intimacy: Strengthen your bond, while exploring ways to enhance sexual closeness and satisfaction.
Identify and Understand Triggers in Conflict: Gain insight into the parts of yourself and your partner(s) that become activated during conflict and learn strategies to respond with compassion and intention.
Heal from Relational Wounds: Work through betrayal trauma, including infidelity and other relational ruptures, to rebuild trust and connection.
Address the Impact of Past Trauma: Explore how previous experiences influence your current relationship dynamics and discover pathways to healing together.
Navigate Attachment Style Differences: Understand how varying attachment styles shape your interactions and develop tools to foster security and harmony.
Explore and Identify Relationship Agreements: Intentionally engage in important conversations to establish agreements and boundaries in your relationship (particularly important in ENM/CNM relationships),
Support During the Transition to Parenthood: Address the challenges and emotional experiences associated with the transition to parenthood and the postpartum period, fostering connection and resilience.
Relational Therapy Approaches
Relational Life Therapy (RLT)
Developed by renowned couples therapist, Terry Real, LICSW, RLT is an approach that focuses on inner child healing in relationships, considers the role of shame and grandiosity in relational distress, explores the impact of trauma in relationships, and identifies partners’ adaptive and maladaptive strategies in relationships. As a collaborative approach, clients can expect their therapist to take an active stance in therapy and to gently challenge each partner to examine their perspective and empathize with their partners’ perspectives.
Relevant training: RLT Level 1 training in progress
Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT)
EFT, developed by Dr. Sue Johnson, is an attachment-based approach to relational therapy that maintains that relational distress is caused by a negative cycle of interaction that prevents partners from empathizing with one another. EFT reiterates the importance of partners’ emotions and the impact of attachment styles in relationships. The goal of EFT is to increase secure attachment through increasing partners’ ability to access, respond to, and engage with their partners’ vulnerable emotions fueled by unmet attachment needs.
Relevant training: EFT Externship
Acceptance & Commitment Therapy (ACT) for Couples
ACT is a cognitive-behavioral approach to therapy that focuses on mindfulness, values exploration, and implementing values-directed behaviors. When adapted to work with couples, it focuses on partners’ schemas or core beliefs (e.g., fears of abandonment) about how they navigate relationships. When relational schemas are triggered, partners behave in distinct ways which will be identified and explored in therapy. Gaining clarity on personal and relational values provides partners with insight and shared meaning and purpose in the relationship. In
Intimacy from the Inside Out (IFIO)
IFIO draws from Internal Family Systems (IFS), psychodynamic theory, systems thinking, and neuroscience. Developed by renowned IFS therapist and trainer, Toni Herbine-Blank, IFIO aims to assist each partner in turning inward, instead of blaming their partner(s). By exploring and understanding parts of them that become triggered in relational dynamics and resourcing self-compassion and self-love, partners are then able to relate similarly to their partner with love, understanding, and compassion.
Relevant training: IFS Institute IFIO Program in progress
