Relational-Cultural Theory

Core RCT Concepts

The core ideas of RCT point to the centrality of relationship in people's lives. Initially developed to better understand and represent women's experience, RCT now posits that all people grow through and towards connection throughout the lifespan. RCT also studies how highly individualistic cultures interfere with growth-in-connection and undermine psychological well-being. ‘Power-over’ systems combined with hyper-individualistic, competitive values create chronic and destructive disconnections as well as unhappiness for people who feel pressured to separate and go it alone. RCT has not only contributed to the practice of a more relational and contextually sensitive therapy but also stressed the importance of social change and social justice to bring about more mutuality and connection in all our lives. Practising the RCT precepts of mutual empathy, authenticity, ‘power with’ and growth-in-connection challenges the hyper-individualistic status quo in psychology, psychotherapy and social political organization. Until quite recently, most Western developmental and clinical theories were built around the notion of ‘the separate self’. Studies show that the USA has placed far more value on developing a separate self than any other society. The dominant ideals of those in power—White, male, middle-class, heterosexual males—lead people to believe that acting out of self-interest and finding safety in exercising power over others is the best and most natural way to be in the world. Standards of maturity and psychological well-being are often skewed in the direction of building a strong separate self. Thus, child rearing, clinical interventions and educational policy have all focused on the importance of bringing dependent babies into an adult state of independence, autonomy and self-sufficiency.

‘Hardwired’ to Connect

New neuroscience data supports the core concept of RCT that humans grow through and towards connection throughout the lifespan. Humans need connection as much as they need water and air; they are neurologically hardwired to respond with extreme urgency to isolation or exclusion. People's brains function best and grow in relationships; the pain of exclusion travels to the same area in the brain (the anterior cingulate) and is recorded in the same way as physical pain. Functional MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) studies show us that social pain is real pain. This has implications for social programmes and attitudes towards groups that are marginalized and excluded from the mainstream. The pain of exclusion and even the threat of exclusion are as debilitating for people as serious physical pain, such as that from chronic arthritis, migraines or severe burns. Isolation is one of the essential sources of suffering in people's lives. Our bodies and brains are primed to register extreme alarm when we are cut-off from human connection.

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