RELATIONSHIP TIP: Get Educated

[Amy Warren, LMHC / WQ Mag Columnist]

Almost eight years ago, it was a serendipitous day both in my relationship and my professional life when the Psychotherapy Networker magazine titled “Bad Couples Therapy: How to Avoid It” arrived at my office. The magazine featured several articles on the subject by renowned therapists, but the one that struck a chord with me so loudly that I couldn’t help but hear it was by best-selling author and ground-breaking therapist Terry Real. I had never heard of him before, but I immediately knew Real had information I wanted to learn.

Inspired by a bad couples therapist and the love of a man, I stepped totally out of character and spontaneously called Real’s Boston office. That phone call led me to an education that changed the course of both my professional and personal life. Through that education, I was handed the keys to open the door to a healthy relationship or to close and lock the door on an unhealthy one. I was given the skills to help my clients do the same, with the full conviction that anyone can have a healthy relationship if both people will do the work.

The fateful magazine article in the Psychotherapy Networker was the impetus that led me to learn and master relationships skills. Exasperated with traditional couples therapy, the phone call to Terry’s office led me to train with Real in his unique model of couples therapy at the newly formed Relational Recovery Institute (now called Relational Life Institute). A vital part of the extensive training was to attend the Institute’s Relationship Skills workshop. I immediately knew that if this curriculum was required in school, our world could be a different place – a non-violent and respectful one.

A fundament piece of education is missing in our schools. It is perhaps the most important education we can ever receive -- the skills to create and sustain healthy, respectful and cherishing relationships. Why weren’t we taught Relationships 101? The only model most of us are given for how to have a relationship is by what we see growing up. It is not the model most of us want for own relationships. So we tend to enter relationships bumbling along aimlessly – either following the model of our parents’ relationship or doing the complete opposite -- neither of which is usually a good option. Even when parents have a happy marriage, most children don’t get to witness the behind the scenes strategies used to manage problems and sustain happiness. Hence, we enter relationships without a clue about how to extend relationships beyond the initial infatuation phase.

If I had to identify the single most important decision of my life, it was the decision to be educated through Real’s institute about relationships. The money that I was hesitant to spend has come back to me over and over again in ways that are truly invaluable. My skills in approaching every relationship in my life have transformed. My skills as a therapist have increased hundredfold. I am convinced that if I had learned what I now know in school that my relationships and my relationship choices would have been totally different. I am convinced that learning how to have a good relationship is imperative to manifesting a good relationship.

Relationships are the heart of our lives – the pulse from which we thrive. What could be more important to learn? This week’s tip is to get the education you need to master the subject. Realizing that education isn’t readily available, I’m offering a Relationships 101 workshop – a one-stop opportunity to truly learn the self skills and relationship skills that work in creating loving, respectful and healthy relationships. It is the course we should have been offered in school.

Eight years ago when I made that call to Real’s office, I never dreamed that my relationship would turn out the way it did. I never dreamed I would become a Master Relational Life Therapist or join the handful of coaches training aspiring Relational Life Therapists across the country. I never dreamed I would stand beside Real co-facilitating the Relationship Skills workshop or spread the message of healthy relationships through the written word. The course of my life was changed by one phone call….Yours can be too.

However you decide to get the education, make it your mission to become educated about relationships. We merge in relationship without the knowledge of how to repair the inevitable disillusionment that occurs. We aren’t taught how to address problems or to repair relationships. Indeed, we come to relationship in fantasy. And we end up doing the same things over and over again in an attempt to get what we want, usually to no avail. It doesn’t have to be that way. We don’t have to learn through the school of hard knocks. As I learned, the information is there to receive…but only if you seek it.

Amy Warren is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor and Master Certified Relational Life Therapist. She counsels individual and couples in her private practice in Sarasota and nationwide by phone. To register for Relationships 101, call [phone] by September 14.