CC24 Keynote 01 - Learning to Live Relationally: Teaching Our Clients; Saving the World - Terry Real, LICSW

As practicing relationship experts we find ourselves steeped in war these days. In styles hot and cold, waring couples seek our advice. Conflict between nations haunts our consciences. Even Nature itself seems to be turning against us as a result of our own virtually suicidal behaviors. Across the globe, Democracy is on the ropes with an alarming resurgence of autocracy, the rise of the most virulent, savage aspects of Patriarchy. As a species, we are at a crossroads. We will trade in the millennial old paradigm of “power over” for a new life based on ecological wisdom, interdependence, or we may bequeath to our children and grandchildren a hot, mean, largely toleration world. 
How can we relationship experts stand by in “neutral” silence – when we have something so critical to say, to teach?
The couples I work with may not have it in them to bring peace to the Mideast, but we can help them bring peace to their living rooms and bedrooms – by changing the same deluded paradigm harming us all at the macro level – the delusion of dominance. Our relationships are our biospheres. We don’t live above them, but inside them. The old individualistic world of win/lose; right/wrong, you versus me; us versus them must yield to the wisdom of enlightened self-interest. It is in my interest to keep my biosphere clean – by containing my temper perhaps, or perhaps on the other hand by learning to stand up for myself with love. This keynote introduces a new map – living relationally on this Earth – along with introducing a few core skills to accomplish it. Finally, it is past time for we therapists to accept the mantle of social activism, lift our voices, and share a perspective that might help our critically troubled, dangerous world.

Learning Objectives:

1. Comprehend how relationships have changed from previous generations
2. Equip our clients to work directly on their relationship to themselves in much the same way they’d work on an external relationship
3. Move from toxic individualism and patriarchy to ‘US’