Book - Us by Terrence Real
While this book can be read as a lifeline for couples feeling lost at sea, it’s also a guidebook for recognizing and getting out from under the long shadows cast by the problematic parts of our formative attachment relationships. In introducing a new model of treatment, Relational Life Therapy, Terry Real provides rich clinical examples from his career working with hurting couples and offers us a book that’s a joy to read.
I was skeptical about reading this book for many reasons: it has a foreword by Bruce Springsteen, it is published by Gwyneth Paltrow’s brand, Goop, and Terry Real’s name has been all over podcast land and the NY Times for the last 12 months. It had all the signs of a superficial pop psych self-help book. Maybe I feared getting swept up in the hype (which I kind of knew I would), or I suspected it was going to be just another book provocatively repackaging the fundamentals of couple’s therapy. For all of these reasons and more it sat on my pile unread for months. But a client had highly recommended it, and what’s more, this book had guided her toward some very healthy changes in her relationship. Plus, I found Terry Real’s book on male depression very moving, so I knew I needed to give this book a go. And I’m glad I did - I’ve found myself referencing it in both my clinical work and personal life. I can confidently say it has already had a welcome impact on my marriage and my parenting.
Here’s why I liked it.
First, he does do some of the repackaging-of-old-ideas thing, but he acknowledges where he’s doing this and he does it in a way that sets up what’s new about his model. He brings together two very important processes: childhood psychological development and attachment ruptures. His model demonstrates how these forces influence how we show up in our intimate relationships later in life, and subsequently how we show up for our children. But more than talking about the impact of attachment ruptures on psychological development, he layers on sociological critique, examining western individualism over the last 250 years and considering its impact on how we relate to each other. He argues that our culture of individualism, which connects back to concepts that emerged in the enlightenment and the romantic eras, amplifies the maladaptive tendencies shaped by our formative relationships and worsens many of the problems couples then face. I know that’s a lot to get your mind around, but he does a powerful job of both explaining this and portraying it through clinical vignettes.
Second, he presents a moving explanation for why we need to start fixing our relationships by thinking less of ourselves as individuals and more of ourselves as profoundly interdependent. He emphasizes the significance of relational trauma on our interdependence and why the legacy of this trauma emerges again in our closest relationships. His model of relationship healing requires couples to move from thinking of themselves as individuals and into thinking of themselves as part of an interdependent team.
Third, I appreciated how he introduces a model for understanding how problematic parenting practices, specifically related to poor boundary management and child self-esteem, leads to 4 different patterns of relationship problems later in life. While much has been written about parents who violate boundaries and destroy a child’s self-esteem, he adds to the conversation a take on how grandiosity or artificially elevated self-esteem negatively impacts a person’s functioning in relationships later in life, a problem more common among men. The unique language he uses is of the adaptive child formed in response to these early ruptures that later wreaks havoc in a person’s adult relationship when they encounter relationship stress. The task of his model is to recognize the patterns of our adaptive child and respond instead with our adult wise mind.
Finally, I liked this book because he offers a very practical guide for improving communication. He talks with authority, as one who’s been in many uncomfortable clinical encounters and learned what actually works. For example, he points out that when your partner is bringing a complaint to you, don’t respond with a complaint of your own. His example is encouraging a part of a couple to imagine you are staffing a help desk when your partner brings a complaint to you. Say someone brings a broken microwave to your help desk - don’t then complain back about your broken toaster, help them get their microwave fixed. He describes Janet Hurley’s Feedback Wheel to guide couples towards repair. It’s a simple 4-step process:
This is what I recollect happened
This is what I made up about it (or what I said to myself to explain the problem)
This is what I felt
This would help me feel better
By following this model he encourages people to work as a team instead of two wounded individuals. He reminds you to, “help your partner win” and to think relationally.
The book is packed with wisdom and laced with tips on useful clinical strategy, so much more than I can pack into a quick resource profile like this. I’m confident I’ll be recommending it to couples, clinician colleagues, and friends for years to come.
“The people we know and love are literally inside us. They watch for bears while I tend the fire, they set the table while I round up the kids. The people we know and love trigger the deepest wounds and insecurities in us, and at the same time they provide the greatest comfort and solace. Thinking of ourselves as individuals who are apart from or above all this is a delusion. And believing in that delusion can breed disastrous consequences. For good and ill, in how we are treated and how we treat others, in the very structure of our brains, we do not stand alone.” Page 52
“While we may long to be married to perfection, it turns out it is precisely the collision of your particular imperfections with mine - and how we as a couple handle that collision - that is the guts, the actual stuff of intimacy.” Page 168
“The everyday practice of love - intimacy is not something you have, it is something you do. And you can learn to do it better.” Page 282
