Relational Life Therapy
Transform Your Relationship Through Integrated Healing
Whether you're in your 20s, 30s, or 40s, navigating the complexities of modern relationships while managing life's demands can feel overwhelming. From Singapore to Dubai to San Francisco, I work with individuals and couples who are ready for transformative change, those who refuse to settle for surface-level solutions when it comes to their most important relationships. Through Relational Life Therapy (RLT) combined with my integrative approach, I help you achieve intimacy and create meaningful connections that truly last.
What Makes Relational Life Therapy Different
Relational Life Therapy (RLT), developed by renowned therapist Terry Real through the Relational Life Institute, represents a revolutionary departure from traditional therapy approaches. Unlike conventional couples therapy that maintains strict neutrality, RLT takes a bold stance,I will take sides when necessary to interrupt destructive patterns that keep you stuck. This direct approach creates rapid transformation rather than endless circular conversations.
What makes this relational life therapy work so powerful is how it addresses the parts of each partner that resist or avoid using relational skills. Through my integration of Internal Family Systems with RLT, we identify and work directly with these protective parts, the ones that shut down during conflict, attack when feeling vulnerable, or flee from intimacy. This awareness, combined with trauma-informed exploration and practical skill-building in real time, creates lasting change.
In my practice, I weave family-of-origin and developmental trauma work directly into your couple's dialogue. This isn't about spending years analyzing your childhood in isolation, it's about understanding how past trauma shapes your current relationship patterns while simultaneously learning the tools to transform them. You'll develop personal accountability while discovering how your history influences your capacity to foster intimacy, all within the context of your present relationship.
This blend of direct confrontation, parts awareness, trauma integration, and immediate skill application makes Relational Life Therapy both deeply transformative and highly pragmatic. It's a practical and positive approach that helps partners resolve conflicts not by avoiding difficult truths, but by facing them with support and acquiring the needed relational skills to navigate them differently.
Who Benefits from My Relational Life Therapy Approach
My relational life therapy practice serves individuals and couples ready for genuine transformation. Whether you're preparing for marriage, working through relationship concerns, or seeking to break generational patterns, this approach offers the depth and directness needed for real change. I work with adults and couples who recognize that meaningful connections require more than good intentions, they require understanding, skills, and the courage to change.
Having personally navigated intense work environments, motherhood, marriage, and witnessed the startup grind as a spouse, I understand the unique pressures modern relationships face. I speak your language, whether you're juggling multiple responsibilities, managing life transitions, or trying to maintain connection amid life's demands. This shared understanding allows us to move quickly past surface-level discussions into the real work of transformation.
How Relational Life Therapy Works in My Practice
Your journey begins with a streamlined onboarding process managed by my Client Care Coordinator, Mei, followed by a complimentary 15-minute consultation. During our first session, we engage in comprehensive goal setting and parts mapping, exploring how your history, including any relational trauma, influences your current relationship dynamics.
The relational life therapy work unfolds through several integrated components:
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Direct Intervention with Parts Work
Unlike traditional therapy that stays neutral, I actively intervene when I see destructive patterns emerging. Once we identify these patterns, we then explore which parts of you are activated, the critic, the withdrawer, the people-pleaser, and work directly with these parts to understand their protective functions while developing new responses.
Trauma-Integrated Couple's Work
We explore how past trauma and family-of-origin patterns show up in your present relationship. This isn't separate from your couples therapy, it's woven directly into the dialogue, helping both partners understand the roots of disconnection while building empathy and new patterns simultaneously.
Real-Time Coaching
You'll be coached and taught powerful relational skills during our sessions, not just talk about them. When defensive behaviors arise, we pause, understand what's happening in your nervous system, and practice a different response immediately. This experiential learning creates lasting change.
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Biopsychosocial Integration
I help you understand how your entire system, biology, psychology, and social environment, impacts your relationships. We examine how you sleep, move, eat, connect, set boundaries, and manage stress, recognizing that sustainable change requires attention to all aspects of your life.
Mindfulness and Somatic Practices
Between sessions, you'll receive targeted meditation and mindfulness practices designed specifically for your relationship challenges. These help you rewire patterns at the nervous system level, creating change that goes deeper than intellectual understanding.
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Ongoing Support
WhatsApp is available for scheduling and scheduling-related questions, ensuring smooth communication about your sessions. You'll receive session reminders and mindfulness practices between sessions to help maintain momentum and integrate the work into your daily life.
The Unique Integration of My Approach
My integration of Relational Life Therapy with Internal Family Systems, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, and somatic approaches creates a comprehensive healing experience. This isn't just talk therapy, it's about rewiring, re-patterning, and reimagining how you move through the world in a way that feels more connected, grounded, and true to your true inner desires.
I recognize that modern relationships don't exist in isolation. They're influenced by cultural expectations, societal assumptions, and social myths about how relationships "should" work. We explore how these external pressures interact with your internal patterns, helping you distinguish between what you've been taught to want and what actually serves your relationship.
The life therapy help I provide addresses the whole person and the whole relationship. We work with how your body holds memory, how your nervous system responds to relational triggers, and how your daily habits either support or hinder connection. This holistic approach ensures that the changes you make are sustainable and integrated into all aspects of your life.
For those who benefit from concentrated work, I offer intensive formats that allow deep exploration over extended sessions. These intensives can be particularly powerful for couples facing specific challenges or those who want to create significant momentum in their healing journey.
The Transformation You Can Expect
Through Relational Life Therapy, clients experience profound shifts that extend beyond improved communication. The direct approach of working with resistant parts, combined with trauma integration and practical skill-building, creates transformative change that many describe as life-altering.
Specific transformations include:
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Moving from protective patterns to authentic vulnerability
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Learning to stay present during conflict rather than fleeing or attacking
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Developing the capacity to hold multiple truths simultaneously
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Healing generational trauma patterns to create healthier relationships
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Building genuine empathy even during disagreement
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Creating more harmonious relationships while maintaining individual identity
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Establishing productive environments that support both autonomy and connection
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Learning to properly repair ruptures when they occur
You'll discover that relationships experience cycles of connection and disconnection, and that's normal. The difference is that you'll have the tools, understanding, and personal accountability to navigate these cycles without losing yourself or your partner in the process.
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