2. Downloadable Videos and Transcripts: Build your growing library of resources and access the teachings any time you want

4. A Private Membership Site: Quickly and easily access all course materials so you can get right to work

What is it that is so difficult about sex? It can be a great resource for a couple and it can be a source of some of the worst pain that a human being can experience. Sex is big. Sex is powerful. Sex has the capacity to disrupt and also to heal, like few things on the planet. It is unruly, politically incorrect, and quite possibly fundamentally transforming as I write.

As couples therapists, many of us have been taught that as the couple’s emotional intimacy progresses sexual issues will take care of themselves. This is wishful thinking. This module invites participants into a new conversation: How do we keep emotional intimacy and sexual passion alive at the same time? 

We will review the current split in the field of couples therapy. While some thought leaders stress adventure and individuation, others stress security and attachment. What does it take to keep both alive, and, in particular, what does it take to keep passion alive in these changing times?

Participants will learn:

• How and when to bring up the subject of sex
• How to help couples feel comfortable talking about intimate sexual details
• How to identify and articulate the sexual choreography- Stance/Stance/Dance in the sexual domain
• How to relate the sexual choreography to the couples characteristic relational choreography
• How to conceptualize the many current changes in gender and sex as they relate to the process of psychotherapy

Infidelity is ‘universally forbidden, yet universally practiced,’ as my colleague Esther Perel says. And over time, infidelity has changed along with the social, cultural, and historical milieu. The one thing that’s remained constant is the question, “how can a couple come back from this level of rupture and betrayal?” In RLT, we aren’t interested in helping a couple simply survive infidelity. We want to use this crisis as a springboard for true transformation, in each partner and the relationship itself.

Are women having more affairs? Can people in open marriages cheat? Do happy people cheat, and if so, why? Are there different kinds of affairs? Does sexting count as infidelity? These are among a few of the many questions that arise when thinking about the changing nature of infidelity and how a couple can come back from this betrayal.

In this module, we will look at the differences between the hurt and involved partner, including the built-in asymmetry, the challenges each face, and what each partner needs to heal. 

Participants will learn:  

• The changing nature of gender roles and how that’s affecting the changing nature of affairs
• How to work with the involved partner’s grandiosity; helping your client move into healthy remorse
• How to work with the involved partner’s shame and pain; differentiating between unhealthy shame and healthy remorse
• What to do when the hurt partner is grandiose (a clinical challenge)
• How to differentiate between describing a feeling and emoting it
• Why revenge is not allowed (shelving resentment to get the work done)
• How to work with “reassuring behaviors;” how transparent should transparent be and why
• How to reshape the narrative that each partner has about the infidelity and why

Open marriage, polyamory, kink, gender fluidity, straight men having sex with other men – where are we headed? Is monogamy obsolete? Is the thought of one partner for life too daunting in our narcissistic “you can have everything” age? Can we really control jealousy? Can you have a polyamorous relationship and still cheat? Or what to say to a lesbian patient who admits painfully that she is less attracted to her partner since his transition? 

We as therapists are facing situations and dilemmas undreamed of a generation ago. Should we be fellow explorers with no opinions of our own? Should we be guides? But then where is our own map? Are there general principles for good sex across multiple contexts and variations? 

Participants will learn:  

• How to face our own insecurities in this new fluid world 
• How to look at our own biases and values 
• What to do when you are faced with a client involved in situations outside your own value system 
• How to deal with a client who is sexually irresponsible or offensive
• How to identify and deal with sexual predators 
• How to listen to and celebrate new forms of sexuality and intimacy – allowing each person to tell their own story in full and in safety.

EXPERT TRAINING TALK #1

HELPING COUPLES CREATE & MAINTAIN THRIVING RELATIONSHIPS

Dr. Sara Nasserzadeh, PhD, is a social psychologist and global thought leader in the fields of couples counseling (with sub-specialization in psychosexual therapy), cross-cultural fluency, diversity and inclusion. Throughout her work, there are several common threads, the most fundamental of which is her belief in “loving many through one” and therefore the possibility of creating world peace one relationship at a time. 

Dr. Nasserzadeh has been featured by the BBC, ABC News, Al Jazeera, Hürriyet, Salamat,CNN, NPR, and Shaw TV. She was named as one of the Best Love Doctors by Harper’s Bazaar, and one of the 10 Best Sex and Dating Experts by DatingAdvice.com in 2015.

Her most recent contribution to the field has been the design and validation of an assessment called the Relationship Panoramic, which is intended to help individuals and couples create and maintain thriving relationships.

EXPERT TRAINING TALK #2

EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW TO DO A THOROUGH SEXUAL ASSESSMENT

Ian Keener, PhD, LMFT, is a licensed psychotherapist and nationally recognized sexuality counselor who specializes in sex therapy, couples therapy and working with individuals on a range of relational issues.

He approaches psychotherapy from an integrative perspective, which seeks to explain human behavior by bringing together physiological, affective, cognitive-behavioral, neurobiological and systemic approaches as they apply to the natural stages of human development and the wide range of human functioning.

Dr. Keener has been called “one of the most recognizable voices in clinical sex therapy” by fellow relational expert Esther Perel. Ian also is the New York Times best-selling author of numerous books, including She Comes First (Harper Collins), which is the best-selling sex advice book of the last decade and has been translated into more than a dozen languages.

EXPERT TRAINING TALK #3

SWIPE RIGHT FOR LOVE: HELPING CLIENTS WHO ARE SINGLE, DATING, AND SEARCHING FOR CONNECTION

Alexandra Solomon, PhD, LCP, is a clinical assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at Northwestern University and a licensed clinical psychologist at The Family Institute at Northwestern University.

She also maintains a psychotherapy practice for individual adults and couples, teaches and trains marriage and family therapy graduate students, and teaches the internationally renowned undergraduate course, “Building Loving and Lasting Relationships: Marriage 101.”

Dr. Solomon is the author of the book Loving Bravely: Twenty Lessons of Self-Discovery to Help You Get the Love You Want (New Harbinger, 2017). Her second book, about sexual self-awareness, Taking Sexy Back: How to Own Your Sexuality and Create the Relationship You Want, will be published in February 2020.

EXPERT TRAINING TALK #4

THE INSIDE STORY-LIFE OF RELATIONSHIPS AND SEXUALITY WITH GAY MEN

Rick Miller, LICSW, is a clinical social worker in private practice. He is well-known for his ego-strengthening hypnosis techniques, which he has custom designed for use with gay men, and his focus on the unique issues of growing up and living in the world as a gay person.

Drawing on his own experience as a gay man and his years of experience working therapeutically with gay men, Rick has developed a practical, holistic approach for therapists to help their gay clients experience fulfillment and happiness.

Rick has also written two books, “Unwrapped: Integrative Therapy with Gay Men… The Gift of Presence” and “Mindfulness Tools for Gay Men in Therapy: A Clinician’s Guide to Mind-Body Wellness,” that successfully integrate mindfulness, meditation and self-exploration to accelerate the power of therapy.

EXPERT TRAINING TALK #5

SEX ADDICTION: MYTH AND REALITY

Belinda Berman-Real, MA, MFT, CSAT, wife of Terry Real, is an extensively trained addictions counselor, trauma recovery specialist, Internal Family Systems therapist, and couples therapist. With over 20 years of experience working with sexual addictions, Belinda is a master of working with the underlying causes of the addiction, the traumas that set it up, and the progressive lack of connection that is always an aspect of addictive process. 

As an extensively trained addictions counselor, trauma recovery specialist, Internal Family Systems therapist, and couples therapist, Belinda is equipped to offer guidance and support at all levels of the recovery process simultaneously. She uses a blend of all these models and techniques with her own theories of human development and change to produce a unique deep, and powerful transformational process for rapid, dramatic, profound, and lasting change

“Listening to Terry teach is enlightening and I always gain clarity about concerns that I have about a case that I am working with. I also really like Terry’s uncanny ability to get to the deeper layers of the ‘person of the therapist’ to crystallize my therapeutic approach with clients.”

–  Clare Mezes, MSC, RP, RMFT

TERRY REAL PRESENTS

SEX, LOVE & POWER

1) 5 LIVE Teaching Modules with Relationship Expert Terry Real: Learn RLT’s approach to all aspects of sexuality and betrayal
2) Downloadable Videos and Transcripts: Build your growing library of resources and access the teachings any time you want
3) A Private Facebook Community: Connect with like-minded individuals and share how you’re implementing this important work
4) A Private Membership Site: Quickly and easily access all course materials so you can get right to work

Plus these Expert Bonus Trainings with:

BONUS #1 – Dr. Sara Nasserzadeh, PhD
BONUS #2 – Ian Keener, PhD, LMFT
BONUS #3 – Alexandra Solomon, PhD, LCP
BONUS #4 – Rick Miller, LICSW
BONUS #5 – Belinda Berman-Real, MA, MFT, CSAT

Total Monthly Value: $

“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.

About Terry Real

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, and most recently The New Rules of Marriage: What You Need to Make Love Work.

Terry knows how to lead couples on a step-by-step journey to greater intimacy—and greater personal fulfillment. He 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.”

“The truth of the matter is, the words don’t exist that fully describe how it was working with Terry. He is one of the “Greats” who has revolutionized couples therapy. He speaks to and connects with the older, middle-aged therapist just as well as the younger generations of therapists. The experience I had working with Terry was one of the most educational, insightful, grounding and motivating experiences of my entire career.”

–  Karen Cunningham