Relational Life Therapy in Roseville, CA: Transform Your Relationship with Expert RLT

Breaking Free from Relationship Patterns That Keep You Stuck

Have you ever noticed how you and your partner seem caught in the same arguments, over and over again? That feeling of being trapped in cycles of conflict, misunderstanding, or emotional distance isn't uncommon—but it doesn't have to be permanent. I am Audrey Schoen, a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist specializing in Relational Life Therapy (RLT) in Roseville, California, I help couples break through these stuck patterns and create the authentic connection they're seeking.

Relational Life Therapy offers a practical and positive approach that addresses both the surface-level communication issues and the deeper emotional patterns that keep couples disconnected. Unlike traditional therapy that can take months or years to create meaningful change, the RLT approach focuses on creating rapid and substantive changes by getting to the heart of what's really happening in your relationship.

As an RLT therapist trained in this innovative approach, I've witnessed couples transform even the most challenging relationships through Terry Real's model. The combination of essential relational skills and deeper healing work creates lasting and exciting intimacy that extends far beyond our therapy sessions.

What Is Relational Life Therapy?

Relational Life Therapy is a groundbreaking approach developed by internationally recognized family therapist Terry Real that recognizes something crucial: most relationship problems stem from power imbalances and unconscious relational processes that traditional therapy often misses. Rather than simply teaching better communication skills, the RLT model addresses the underlying dynamics that make those skills difficult to implement.

The Relational Life Institute, founded by Terry Real LICSW, has developed this rigorous commonsense approach to help couples move beyond negative patterns and create meaningful connections. At the core of RLT theory is understanding what Terry Real calls "one-up/one-down" positioning. In struggling relationships, one partner typically operates from a position of grandiosity—showing up as controlling, entitled, or superior. Meanwhile, the other partner functions from a shame-based position—accommodating, people-pleasing, or filled with self-doubt.

The goal is to help both partners achieve what RLT calls a "same-as stance"—that place of equality, vulnerability, and mutual respect where true intimacy can flourish. This represents the essence of relational living, where both partners can show up authentically without the defensive patterns that create distance.

Core Principles of RLT

Loving Confrontation: As an RLT therapist, I directly address problematic behaviors, but always with compassion. This isn't about blame—it's about clarity and accountability that leads to real change. This differs from traditional therapy approaches that may avoid direct intervention.

Strategic Intervention: When one partner holds significantly more power in the relationship, I temporarily support the less empowered partner to create balance. This strategic approach helps level the playing field so both people can engage authentically, shifting each partner's relational stance toward greater equality.

Focus on Character Change: Rather than spending months processing the same issues, RLT targets the underlying character patterns that create relationship dysfunction. Terry Real's model emphasizes personal transformation that creates faster, more sustainable results than surface-level interventions.

Inner Work in Partner's Presence: Healing childhood wounds and addressing past trauma happens right in the therapy room, with your partner as witness and support. This creates profound empathy and understanding between partners while weaving past trauma into present healing.

How RLT Differs from Traditional Couples Therapy

If you've tried couples therapy before, you might have experienced a therapist who maintained strict neutrality while you and your partner talked in circles without making meaningful progress. How RLT differs from traditional therapy is in its active, directive approach where I function as a "truth-teller," actively addressing unhealthy dynamics and helping balance power in your relationship.

The RLT Advantage

Rapid Results: The RLT approach aims for swift, dramatic breakthroughs rather than gradual progress over many months. Many couples experience significant shifts within the first few sessions—what clients often describe as a modest miracle of connection and understanding.

Concrete Direction: Instead of facilitating endless discussion, I provide clear guidance and practical tools you can implement immediately. Teaching clients healthy relating is central to this approach, and couples often tell me how refreshing this clarity feels after feeling stuck for years.

Addresses Root Causes: While communication skills are important, RLT recognizes that surface-level techniques often fail because deeper patterns remain unchanged. We work with both the shame-based withdrawal and grandiose entitlement that feed dysfunctional cycles, including addressing relational trauma that may underlie current conflicts.

Essential Relational Skills: Beyond insight, you'll develop new skills that serve you long after therapy ends. These practical tools help you navigate future challenges with greater confidence and connection.

Practical Homework: Between sessions, you'll practice specific relational exercises that reinforce what you've learned, ensuring insights translate into real behavioral change that supports ongoing relational living.

The Three Phases of RLT: Your Journey to Connection

My approach follows Terry Real's model through a clear, progressive framework that helps you understand where you are in the healing journey and what to expect next. This structure provides hope and direction, even for relationships that have felt stuck for years.

Phase 1: Waking Up to Truth

The first phase is about bringing awareness to problematic patterns with compassion rather than judgment. Using what Terry Real calls the "relational grid," we map your behaviors against healthy relationship standards, often creating powerful breakthrough moments.

Many couples come to therapy blaming each other without seeing their own contributions to the problem. Through loving confrontation, I help you see the truth about your relationship dynamics. We identify your "stance/dance" patterns—those repetitive cycles that keep you stuck. This awakening creates the foundation for the deeper healing work to come.

You'll learn to recognize when you're operating from your "Adaptive Child" (those wounded parts that developed survival strategies in childhood) versus your "Functional Adult" (the mature, capable part that can make healthy choices).

Phase 2: Healing and Change

Once awareness is established, we move into what is often the most transformative part of RLT—the healing phase. Here, we address childhood wounds that drive adult behaviors through inner child work, with your partner present as a witness.

This phase includes:

• Developing relational compassion for both yourself and your partner
• Reconnection practices designed to rebuild lost intimacy and create exciting intimacy
• Important boundary work to establish healthy limits and expectations
• Addressing multi generational trauma patterns that may be affecting your relationship
• Working with relational trauma from past relationships or family experiences

There's something profoundly healing about having your partner witness your vulnerability and understand the roots of your behavior. This shared healing journey creates meaningful connections and a unique bond between partners that traditional therapy approaches often miss.

Phase 3: Building Lifelong Relational Skills

The final phase focuses on sustainable skills you can use long after our work together ends. After all, my goal is for you to develop the tools needed for lasting relationship health and continued personal transformation.

You'll learn:

• Relational mindfulness: Pausing and choosing responses rather than reacting automatically
• Same-as stance: Maintaining equality in your relationship and moving away from harmful power dynamics
• The Feedback Wheel: A structured communication tool that helps you navigate difficult conversations with respect and clarity
• Accountability systems: Ways to offer ongoing support for each other's continued growth

Understanding why you do something is helpful, but knowing how to do it differently is transformative. The concrete relational skills taught in RLT give you practical tools you can apply in real-world situations for years to come.

My Approach: Integrating RLT with Advanced Techniques

As a Certified Master ART Practitioner and certified Brainspotting therapist, I integrate Relational Life Therapy with other powerful modalities to address both relationship patterns and individual trauma. This comprehensive approach recognizes that relationship issues often have roots in unprocessed emotional wounds and past trauma.

For many couples, we incorporate sessions of Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART) and Brainspotting early in treatment. This usually creates a boost of quick progress and is often highly motivating as you see positive benefits right away. The combination of RLT's relational framework with trauma-focused work creates a powerful synergy for healing challenging couples.

Learning Terry Real's Model in Practice

While I'm trained in Terry Real's model through the Relational Life Institute, my focus is on applying these principles to help you create the relationship you want. The structured nature of the RLT approach provides a clear roadmap that helps even the most stuck couples find their way to connection.

Intensives and Retreats

For couples seeking concentrated healing experiences, I offer couples intensives and retreats. These focused sessions can accomplish in a day or two what might otherwise take months of weekly appointments. Intensives are particularly valuable for challenging couples in crisis or those with busy schedules who struggle to commit to weekly sessions.

These intensive experiences allow for deep dive work without the interruptions of daily life, creating space for breakthrough moments and sustained focus on your relationship.

Who Benefits from RLT?

Relational Life Therapy is particularly effective for couples experiencing:

Communication Breakdowns: When you feel like you're speaking different languages and every conversation turns into conflict.

Power Imbalances: When one partner consistently dominates decisions or the other feels unheard and unvalued.

Emotional Reactivity: When small issues trigger big reactions and you find yourselves in explosive arguments about seemingly minor things.

Distance and Disconnection: When you're living like roommates rather than intimate partners, or when physical and emotional intimacy has disappeared.

Chronic Building Issues: Not necessarily huge violations, but ongoing patterns that are slowly driving you apart over time.

Previous Therapy Attempts: If you've tried couples therapy before without seeing lasting change, RLT's direct approach might be exactly what you need.

Ideal Clients for My Practice

I work particularly well with anxious, overachieving individuals who tend to be people-pleasers. You might have tried self-help approaches or even therapy before. You probably like to learn and prefer to understand the "why" behind what's happening, but you also want practical tools for change.

You don't necessarily enjoy dealing with emotions and might feel disconnected from your own emotional experience, even though you might feel overwhelmed by emotional reactivity. You're tired of the constant internal chaos and want to feel calm. You seek connection but struggle to allow yourself to have it, often keeping busy to avoid dealing with deeper issues.

The couples I work with often think that if they could just communicate better, everything would improve. But what's really happening is that internal narratives and automatic unconscious relational processes are getting in the way. You want skills, but you're also open to exploring the deeper reasons you're struggling.

Specialized Areas: Financial Therapy and Treating Men

Financial Therapy Integration

Many relationship conflicts have underlying financial stress or disagreements about money. As someone trained in financial therapy, I can help couples address money anxiety, avoidance patterns, and conflicting financial values that may be creating tension in your relationship.

Financial issues often reflect deeper power dynamics and attachment styles, making them perfect for RLT intervention. We can address both the practical aspects of financial decision-making and the emotional underpinnings that drive money-related conflicts.

Working with Male Depression and Men's Issues

Terry Real's model includes important work in treating men and addressing male depression. Many men struggle with emotional expression and connection, often leading to withdrawal or anger that damages relationships. The RLT approach helps men develop emotional literacy while maintaining their authentic strength.

Working with Entrepreneurs and High Achievers

I have particular expertise working with entrepreneurs and high-achieving individuals who face unique relationship challenges. The stress of building a business, irregular schedules, and the intense focus required for success can strain even strong relationships.

Using RLT principles, we can address how work pressures affect your relationship dynamics, help you maintain connection during stressful periods, and ensure that your relationship remains a source of support rather than additional stress.

Beyond Couples: Individual Work Using RLT Principles

While RLT was developed for couples therapy, its principles are incredibly valuable for individual therapy as well. I use RLT concepts when working with individuals struggling with:

• Perfectionism: Learning to move from grandiose expectations to realistic self-compassion
• People-pleasing: Developing the ability to set boundaries and advocate for your needs
• Self-criticism: Healing the inner critic and developing a more balanced internal dialogue
• Anxiety: Understanding how relational patterns contribute to anxiety and developing healthier ways of managing stress
• Imposter syndrome: Addressing the shame-based beliefs that fuel feelings of inadequacy

Relational Parenting Applications

For parents seeking to improve family dynamics, RLT principles apply beautifully to relational parenting. The same awareness of power dynamics, emotional regulation, and authentic connection that transforms couples relationships can create healthier family systems and stronger parent-child bonds.

What to Expect: Your Journey with Me

Comprehensive Intake Process

I begin with a thorough intake packet that includes measures to help us gauge progress and inform our treatment plan. Our first session is typically about me getting to know you, your background, contributing factors, and setting goals for our work together.

I look at you as whole people and the systems you exist in—including family, work, and cultural factors—to create a holistic plan. For those seeking specific work like trauma processing, I may integrate ART or Brainspotting right from the start.

Customized Treatment Approach

Treatment is personalized to your unique needs. Some couples meet weekly, others prefer longer sessions every other week. We can maintain a standing appointment or schedule more flexibly based on your preferences and circumstances.

For couples work, I recommend starting with 80-minute sessions, often every two weeks. I like to ask for a three-month initial commitment to doing work both in and out of session to see how far we can get and determine if we're on the right track.

At about 3-6 months, we'll reassess our measures to determine progress and identify areas where work remains. We update goals regularly to stay on track together, ensuring our work continues to serve your evolving needs while providing ongoing support for your growth.

Active, Engaged Approach

You can expect a licensed therapist who is engaged and direct. I work actively with clients, using a combination of reflective listening and directive intervention. I'm not a passive observer—I'm an active participant in helping you create the changes you're seeking.

This means I'll point out patterns as I see them, offer concrete suggestions, and sometimes challenge you to step outside your comfort zone. All of this happens within a framework of compassion and respect for your pace and readiness for change.

Serving Roseville and Beyond

Located in Roseville, California, I provide in-person sessions for local clients who prefer face-to-face connection. I also offer online sessions throughout California and Texas, making this specialized approach accessible to couples regardless of location.

Online sessions can be just as effective as in-person work, particularly for couples who are motivated and ready to engage in the process. The flexibility of online sessions also makes it easier to schedule longer intensives or work around busy schedules.

Taking the Next Step

If you're tired of repeating the same relationship patterns and ready for a practical and positive approach to creating lasting change, Relational Life Therapy might be exactly what you've been looking for. The combination of rapid results, practical skills, and deep healing makes RLT particularly appealing to couples who have tried other approaches without success.

Every relationship is unique, and my approach is always customized to your specific needs, goals, and circumstances. There's no one-size-fits-all solution, but there are proven principles and techniques that can help you break through stuck patterns and create the meaningful connections you're seeking.

Whether you're dealing with communication breakdowns, power imbalances, emotional reactivity, or simply want to deepen your connection, RLT provides a clear roadmap for transformation. The new skills you'll learn extend far beyond our work together, giving you tools for continued growth and connection throughout your life.

If you're curious about how RLT might help your relationship, I invite you to reach out. Together, we can explore whether this approach aligns with your goals and determine the best path forward for your unique situation. Building authentic, lasting connection doesn't happen overnight, but with the right guidance and tools, even long-standing patterns can shift more quickly than you might imagine.

Contact me today to learn more about session availability, approach, and how we can begin this transformative journey together. Your relationship deserves the attention, care, and expert guidance that can help it flourish.