“The Brilliance of the Inner Child” According to Relational Life Therapy

Article by Mary Fung-A-Fat, MED

**Photo by** **Andrew Miller** **, Sculpture by** **Alexander Milov**

What is Relational Life therapy?

Relational Life therapy (RLT) was created by American psychologist Terry Real. His radical approach to couples therapy aims at helping each individual reconnect with themselves first before deepening the relationship with their partner.

A foundational part of RLT surrounds the workings of the inner child. This helps the individual reconnect with a younger version of themselves, usually around the age at which a traumatic situation occurred. Real refers to this part of ourselves as the ‘Wounded child’. His approach draws light to the fact that many of us walk around with the weight of our wounded child's traumatic experiences on our shoulders, often with little awareness of the impact on our adult selves, the way we interact with the world, and thus, our relationships.

Terry Real believes that humans are relational beings who depend on healthy connections to thrive. Early trauma can affect such development and stunt the growth of healthy relationships. As Real stated in one of his recent couples workshops, “A deep connective relationship nourishes us; trauma dissociates us.” In other words, we need healthy connections as children to develop healthy relationships as adults.

Here's how it works:

Children are like sponges, and our first teachers are our parents or guardians and the environments we grew up in. The ways in which children observe conflict, experience love, and understand safety are usually how they carry those lessons throughout our lives. Those formative experiences create internal blueprints for how to interact with the world.

As we grow up and experience different stimuli, we do what humans do - adapt for survival. In the event of physically or emotionally dangerous situations, for example, the most natural thing to do is to protect ourselves. Real calls this the "adaptive child". The most primitive and typical nervous system responses are fight, flight, or freeze. This might look like physical or verbal attacks (fight), physical or emotional avoidance or abandoning of situations (flight), or emotional shutting down and disengagement (freeze).

Real praises the life preserving importance of these responses. This is, as he says, "the brilliance of the adaptive child." Had our adaptive children not followed their instinct to fight, flee or freeze, we may not have made it to adulthood.

And for that, we should not shame them, but rather, thank them for protecting us.

So, what next?

If our adaptive children don't relearn how to trust and protect themselves in ways that are healthier, they can go their whole lives responding to perceived emotional threats in the ways that were learned in childhood. Often, it can be damaging to our adult relationships. Real says, "the adaptive child’s behaviors become maladaptive adult patterns." For example, a child who saw mom and dad scream at each other to express feelings, may have adapted to those situations by internalizing their feelings and shutting down, and may likely shut down in their adult relationships when conflict arises and triggers the wounded child.

If we are not aware of our inner children’s reactions - if we don't understand and heal these maladaptive adult patterns - that adaptive child will likely keep showing up in our relationships ready to fight, flee, or freeze again. While we are happy our adaptive child got us this far, Terry Real believes that mere survival isn't enough - we deserve to thrive. This part of RLT encourages us to look within our younger selves, bring awareness to our wounds, and essentially learn how to soothe them with the support of our partners throughout the healing process.

Thankfully, we are not condemned to our old adaptive blueprints for the rest of our lives, nor are we defined by those experiences. We have no control over the way we were raised, and oftentimes, our caretakers were doing the best they could with the resources they had. What we do have control over, as adults of these inner children, is how to reparent them with the love and support they deserve.

BY: MARY FUNG-A-FAT, M.ED.

Mary Fung-A-Fat is a therapist in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Mary offers services online through our HIPAA compliant platform. She supports individuals and couples as they learn to navigate the end of relationships. To schedule an appointment click here.

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