Creating Connection ─ A Relational-Cultural Approach With Couples

Relational-Cultural Theory (RCT) posits that people grow through and toward relationship throughout the lifespan. Rather than emphasizing movement toward autonomy and self-sufficiency, it focuses on the power of connection in people’s lives. Culture and power are seen as formative in individual and social development. As a model, RCT is ideal for work with couples: it encourages active participation in relationships, fosters the well-being of everyone involved, and provides guidelines for working with disconnections and building relational resilience. Creating Connection helps readers to understand the pain of disconnection and to use RCT to heal relationships in a variety of settings, including with heterosexual couples, stepparents, lesbian and gay couples, and mixed race couples. In addition to an emphasis on helping couples find authentic connection, RCT points to the need for changing the cultural conditions that contribute to the problems of disconnection. Polarities of “you vs. me” will be replaced with the healing concept of “us.”

Judith V. Jordan, PhD, ABPP in Clinical Psychology, is the Director of the Jean Baker Miller Training Institute at the Wellesley Centers for Women, and Assistant Professor of Psychology at Harvard Medical School. She is a founding scholar of Relational-Cultural Theory.

Jon Carlson, PsyD, EdD, ABPP, is Distinguished Professor in the Division of Psychology and Counseling at Governors State University, and a psychologist at the Wellness Clinic in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin.