how to be a relational therapist training

This training is designed for therapists: LMFTs, LCSWs, LPCCs, LEPs, as well as associates/pre-licensed clinicians and graduate students currently enrolled in a psychotherapy program. It’s for any therapist who wants to deepen their capacity for relational work.

This training is a great fit if you’re feeling limited by manualized or technique-heavy approaches and want to bring more authenticity, curiosity, and connection into the therapy room.

Whether you’re a graduate student, newly licensed, or decades into your career, How to Be a Relational Therapist: Level One offers a foundation in relational theory and practice that helps you feel more confident, real, and effective with clients.

This training is for you if you:

• Are able to attend an in-person training in Highland Park, Los Angeles.

• Therapists wanting to understand relational therapy more

• Therapists wanting to gain and practice relational therapy skills

• Therapists wanting to build community with other therapists with shared clinical interests

• Therapists wanting to increase their ability to question therapeutic norms and standards rooted in oppressive systems

• Therapists wanting to find a therapeutic style that fosters more personal authenticity, sustainability, and works to combat burnout as a clinician

• Therapists wanting to learn new clinical skills and interventions for working with individual clients

• Please note: the training material is primarily focused on supporting therapists working in private practice who see clients on a long-term basis (approximately 1+ year or so). If you work in an agency setting or with short-term clients, you absolutely can benefit from this training, just know that it is primarily geared towards longer-term work.

Relational therapy invites you to move beyond neutrality and perfectionism—to bring your full, human self into the therapeutic relationship. This approach strengthens trust, deepens insight, and supports lasting change for both you and your clients.

Participants often describe this training as a turning point in their professional life: reconnecting them with the heart of the work and providing the community, language, and support they’ve been craving.

You’ll gain a practical foundation in relational therapy, including tools for working in the here-and-now, navigating power and privilege, and using your own emotional experience as a source of connection and healing.

You’ll also leave with a renewed sense of confidence and sustainability in your practice—knowing how to stay grounded, authentic, and alive in the work instead of burned out by it.

Probably not—many clinicians who join this training already identify as working relationally.

One of the most common pieces of feedback we hear is that clinicians thought they were practicing relational therapy until starting the training. This isn’t because they were “doing it wrong,” but because relational work has far more depth, nuance, and range than most of us are initially taught.

For many participants, the training becomes an opportunity to deepen into authenticity, presence, and ethical vulnerability in ways that feel both clarifying and expanding.

Clinicians often leave with a more embodied understanding of what it means to take relational risks, to be genuinely impacted by clients, and to bring more of themselves into the therapeutic relationship, all while staying grounded in ethics, boundaries, and clinical responsibility.

If you’re curious about how relational therapy can feel more alive, more honest, and more sustainable in your work, this training is likely to meet you where you are and invite you further.

We’re so glad you asked! After completing Level One, you’ll be eligible for How to Be a Relational Therapist: Level Two, which takes you deeper into the real-world (often messy!) challenges of relational work—complex dynamics, challenging emotions like grief and shame, therapist vulnerability, and working through repair.

Many participants choose to complete both levels (or the full bundle) to strengthen their skills and grow in a supportive, ongoing community of relational clinicians.

To preserve the cohort feel, we ask that attendees join the trainings in-person at our office in Highland Park.

We've received a lot of interest in an online option, but we don't currently have plans for a virtual cohort. However, we may offer them in the future and we are actively working on putting together some virtual CE offerings! If you'd like to be the first to know when our virtual options are ready, please submit your info via our interest form.