Terry Real, a marriage and family therapist with 42 years of experience, dives deep into modern masculinity and emotional connection. He discusses how traditional ideals of masculinity hinder men's vulnerability, causing relational distress. Real advocates for redefining manhood to incorporate emotions for healthier relationships and family dynamics. With urgency, he highlights the need for men to embrace vulnerability and rebuild their connections in a society that often discourages it, aiming for a transformative approach to emotional wellness.
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Therapeutic Emotion Amplification
Terry Real uses a confrontational style to amplify men's faint feelings in therapy.
He mirrors clients' emotions, often with strong language, to uncover their true feelings.
insights INSIGHT
Disconnected Boys, Disconnected Men
Men often lead from 'superior position' with covert shame while women lead from 'accommodating shame' with covert grandiosity.
Disconnecting boys from vulnerability leads to disconnected men, undermining healthy relationships.
question_answer ANECDOTE
Terry's Childhood Trauma
Terry grew up with an abusive, rage-filled father who feared vulnerability.
His father’s contempt for weakness stemmed from trauma and losses in his own childhood.
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Getting Past You and Me to Build a More Loving Relationship
Terrence Real
Bruce Springsteen
In this transformative book, Terrence Real addresses the impact of toxic individualism on intimate relationships. He provides a science-backed skillset to help couples overcome repetitive fights and distant relationships by fostering a culture of compassion, collaboration, and closeness. Real shares stories of couples whose relationships have been saved through these skills and discusses the broader cultural context that reinforces relationship dysfunction. The book is praised for its insightful and practical advice, making it a valuable resource for those seeking true intimacy.
A session with Terry Real, a marriage and family therapist, can get uncomfortable. He’s known to mirror and amplify the emotions of his clients, sometimes cursing and nearly yelling, often in an attempt to get men in touch with the emotions they’re not used to honoring.
Real says men are often pushed to shut off their expression of vulnerability when they’re young as part of the process of becoming a man. That process, he says, can lead to myriad problems in their relationships. He sees it as his job to pull them back into vulnerability and intimacy, reconfiguring their understanding of masculinity in order to build more wholesome and connected families.
In this episode, Real explains why vulnerability is so essential to healthy masculinity and why his work with men feels more urgent than ever. He explains why he thinks our current models of masculinity are broken and what it will take to build new ones.
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