Us

Have you ever found yourself replaying the same argument with your partner, no matter how hard you try to change it? In Us: Getting Past You and Me to Build a More Loving Relationship, family therapist Terrence Real invites you to confront that universal frustration. His central claim is bold: the root of our relational suffering lies in the modern obsession with individualism—the illusion that we are independent, self-sufficient entities. To create deeply connected, enduring relationships, we must move beyond the adversarial stance of “you and me” and rediscover the fertile ground of “us.”

Real proposes that healthy love is an ecology of interconnected lives, not an arena of competing egos. He blends neuroscience, psychology, cultural history, and decades of therapy work to show that intimacy isn’t a static state of mutual happiness, but an ongoing, embodied practice of repair, empathy, and mutual regulation.

The Core Idea: Escaping the 'Myth of the Individual'

Real argues that most of us bring a silent myth into our relationships: the belief that we are self-contained individuals who must protect ourselves against dependency. This culture of individualism, deeply rooted in Western history, has distorted our sense of love and community. Our brains, he reveals, are built not for competition but for connection and co-regulation. When you feel heard, your nervous system literally calms down. When you and your partner argue, it’s not just ideas that clash—it’s two nervous systems flaring into alarm.

Yet in moments of conflict, Real observes, our physiology betrays us. The brain’s emotional alarm system—the amygdala—grabs control, while our wiser prefrontal cortex (the part that reasons, empathizes, and balances perspective) goes offline. Suddenly, we are no longer rational adults but reenacting old childhood defenses. We lose our grip on “us” and devolve into “you versus me.”

From Adaptive Child to Wise Adult

Real uses two archetypes to map this shift. The Adaptive Child is the defensive, reactive self born out of early trauma—be it neglect, overcontrol, or emotional disconnection. This part of you has one goal: survival, even at the cost of connection. It is rigid, controlling, perfectionistic, and often harsh—traits that once kept you safe but now poison intimacy.

By contrast, the Wise Adult represents your integrated, present-centered self. It can hold nuance, regulate emotion, and approach differences creatively. The everyday work of a loving relationship, Real insists, is learning to pause when the Adaptive Child takes over—and to reengage from the Wise Adult’s place of humility, courage, and empathy. This deliberate act of self-regulation is what he calls relational mindfulness.

“In those heated moments when anger or fear takes over,” Real writes, “remember—your partner is not your enemy. The goal isn’t to win, but to find your way back to us.”

The Broader Mission: From Patriarchy to Partnership

The personal healing Real advocates is inseparable from social change. He contends that the same patriarchal values that prize domination, control, and emotional stoicism in men—and self-sacrifice and silence in women—tear couples apart and damage society. He tracks how centuries of “rugged individualism” and “romantic expressiveness” have collided, pitting freedom against belonging. Healing our relationships, then, becomes a revolutionary act: to dismantle toxic hierarchies of gender, race, and privilege, starting in our most intimate spaces.

This idea culminates in his vision of “ecological love,” in which we see ourselves not as masters or victims but as interdependent participants in a living system. Just as the health of an environment depends on balance, repair, and reciprocity, so does the health of a relationship. You can’t dominate your way to intimacy, nor can you disappear into harmony; you must learn to work together as a conscious team.

The Heart of the Journey: Remembering Love

Throughout the book, Real returns to a simple but transformative question: Can you remember love when it matters most? When you’re triggered—when fear or anger floods your system—can you recall that this person you’re fighting is someone you care about? True mastery, he says, is measured not by how rarely you fight but by how swiftly and gracefully you repair. “Everyone says relationships take work,” Real warns, “but few understand that the work is moment to moment.”

The book’s many stories—from Bruce, a domineering husband learning remorse, to Angela, a betrayed wife discovering her strength—illustrate that transformation is possible when partners commit to seeing each other anew. Love is not static; it is an ongoing practice of returning to connection after every rupture, expanding from isolation back into belonging.

Ultimately, Us is more than a manual for better relationships; it’s a manifesto for a relational civilization. Real implores us to grow up—not just individually but collectively—to trade self-protection for collaboration, contempt for compassion, and the illusion of independence for the freedom of interdependence. When we remember “us,” he says, we recover the wisdom of what it means to be human.

Real argues that much of our relational pain stems from a cultural lie: the notion that we are separate, self-reliant individuals. Drawing on psychology, neuroscience, and cultural history, he dismantles this “myth of the individual,” tracing its roots to Western Enlightenment thinking and its devastating effects on love, gender, and community.

How the Illusion of Independence Began

Real explores how philosophers like John Locke and René Descartes framed the human being as a rational, autonomous entity. Later, Romantic thinkers such as Goethe rebelled by celebrating the expressive, emotional self. Together, these two traditions—rugged individualism and romantic individualism—became the cornerstones of Western identity. Our culture rewards separation, competition, and self-definition, even though our biology tells another story.

The Social Brain: Why We’re Hardwired for Connection

Modern neuroscience, Real shows, reveals that our minds extend beyond our skin. Through experiments such as the rubber hand illusion and studies of baby-caregiver attunement, we now know that the brain is a relational organ. Infants’ neural development depends on connection; adults co-regulate each other’s nervous systems through touch, empathy, and presence. This is the scientific basis of Real’s claim that “we were never meant to self-regulate.”

“Failure to thrive,” Real reminds us, “is what happens not just to infants but to all of us when we are cut off from care.”

Social Baseline Theory and the ‘Group Mind’

To illustrate our deep interdependence, Real cites Lane Beckes and James Coan’s Social Baseline Theory, which shows that the human brain assumes the presence of others as a baseline state. When you are supported by someone you trust, your brain literally conserves energy. The more connection you feel, the less stress your body produces. This means that intimacy is not a luxury—it’s a biological necessity.

Real links this insight to psychological experiments: when people held their partner’s hand during a stressful task, their neural distress dropped significantly. “We are wired,” he says, “not to stand alone, but to stand together.”

Individualism’s Cultural Consequences

By glorifying independence, Western society has alienated us from our own nature. The “self-made man” ideal encourages men to dominate and women to accommodate, creating chronic power imbalances. This has spilled over into how we treat the planet—a belief that we are above nature rather than part of it. Real calls for a shift from hubris to humility—recognizing that we are embedded in ecological systems of reciprocity, whether in marriages or ecosystems.

Ultimately, the myth of the individual is not just a philosophical mistake—it is an emotional one. It teaches us that needing others is weakness, when in fact vulnerability is the foundation of strength. To heal our relationships, Real insists, we must trade the delusion of dominion for the wisdom of interdependence: not “I am,” but “we are.”

At the heart of Real’s therapeutic model lies a compassionate yet rigorous process: learning to recognize and heal the Adaptive Child—the younger, wounded self that hijacks your reactions in relationships. This part of you isn’t bad, he reminds readers; it’s simply outdated. The behaviors that once kept you safe as a child now sabotage intimacy.

Understanding the Adaptive Child

Your Adaptive Child formed in response to trauma—sometimes big, like abuse, or small, like emotional neglect. Real introduces the concept of relational trauma: the accumulation of thousands of small moments when children feel unseen, controlled, or abandoned. These invisible wounds leave lasting imprints on how we love and fight.

For example, a child whose parents were intrusive might grow up avoiding closeness, while one who was emotionally abandoned might become clingy or controlling. Real maps these patterns on his Trauma Grid, showing how injuries along two axes—boundaries (intrusion vs. abandonment) and power (inferiority vs. grandiosity)—predict an adult’s relational style.

Meeting, Not Banishing, Your Inner Child

Real rejects the notion that we must “control” or “conquer” our immaturity. Instead, he teaches you to parent your inner child. When you feel triggered, he suggests imagining the younger part of you sitting safely on your lap. You can listen compassionately—“I know you’re scared”—but keep that child’s hands off the steering wheel. As he quips, “You are welcome in the car, but you’re not driving.”

From Reaction to Conscious Choice

Transformation begins when you identify your habitual stance—do you pursue, withdraw, please, or retaliate? These reactions follow what Real calls the five “losing strategies”: being right, controlling, venting, retaliating, and withdrawing. By recognizing them, you create the pause needed to shift from instinctual reaction to relational response. That pause, supported by breath and mindfulness, is the moment where healing begins.

“The real work of love,” Real writes, “is not daily or weekly—it’s minute to minute. In this moment, which version of you will show up?”

By befriending rather than fighting our Adaptive Child, we reclaim the lost parts of ourselves that long for connection. We move from the survival logic of the past to the creative possibility of the present—and from isolation to partnership.

Real argues that love cannot flourish in hierarchies. Patriarchy, with its unspoken creed—dominate or be dominated—infects both personal relationships and global politics. To move from control to connection, we must dismantle the myths of superiority and submission embedded in gender, culture, and class.

How Patriarchy Shapes Love

Traditional masculinity teaches men to prize mastery, strength, and autonomy. Women, in turn, learn to manage men’s emotions through caretaking or silence—a habit Real identifies as codependent control. Both roles, he insists, are forms of manipulation. They block vulnerability, the very core of intimacy.

In the story of Jim and Brit, Real illustrates these dynamics: Jim clings to “rugged individualism,” equating help with weakness, while Brit embodies “romantic individualism,” desperately expressing her feelings but neglecting the collective “we.” Their healing begins only when they trade the desire to be right for the intention to be connected.

Democracy in the Home

Real reframes equality not as sameness but as mutual accountability. He calls this “personal democracy”—a relationship where both voices matter, and decisions serve the health of the partnership rather than one ego. When partners stop tallying fairness and start asking, “What works for us?”, love transforms from a zero-sum game into a living collaboration.

He extends this idea to society, arguing that relational maturity mirrors civic maturity. The myth of independence has led to systemic inequities—sexism, racism, elitism—that mirror the power plays in troubled marriages. Restoring equality at home becomes practice for restoring justice in the world.

Real’s radical proposition is that love is ecological: what harms one partner harms both; what heals one nourishes the whole. In this view, intimacy is democracy in microcosm—each moment a chance to embody fairness, respect, and compassion.

Conflict, says Real, is inevitable. What determines a couple’s success is not how often they fight, but how consistently they repair. Drawing on child development research by Ed Tronick, he highlights a powerful principle: human relationships operate best when roughly 30% harmony and 70% disharmony are followed by repair. It’s not conflict that destroys intimacy—it’s neglecting to fix it.

The Cycle of Harmony, Disharmony, and Repair

Every relationship moves through three states: harmony (connection and flow), disharmony (conflict or disconnection), and repair (reconnection). We fall apart and come back together—it’s as old as peek-a-boo between infant and parent. This rhythm builds trust because each repair proves that closeness can survive conflict. “Real connection,” Tronick observed, “is not perfect attunement but surviving the mess—together.”

Relational Mindfulness in Action

When your partner is upset, Real counsels, it is not your “turn.” Skip the justifications and drop the defensive logic. Instead, focus on helping them feel safe again. He offers practical tools such as Janet Hurley’s Feedback Wheel—a step-by-step method for addressing hurts:

• Describe what happened
• Share what you made up about it
• Express your feelings
• State what would help you feel better

By taking ownership (“This is how I experienced it”) instead of accusation (“You always…”), you leave room for empathy and change. The partner’s job is not to debate but to listen, reflect, and give what they can. Real likens it to customer service: “If your partner says the microwave is broken, don’t tell them about your toaster.”

Soft Power: The Art of Assertive Kindness

The secret to successful repair, Real teaches, lies in soft power—asserting your needs while cherishing the relationship. He recounts an episode where his friend Alan confronted him fiercely but lovingly, starting with, “Terry, I love you,” before naming the grievance. That expression of love disarmed his defensiveness. Love and accountability, Real shows, are not opposites—they are twins.

Repair is not about who’s right but who’s brave enough to reach first. Each reconciliation strengthens the muscle of trust. Over time, Real suggests, couples who practice healthy repair live not in endless peace but in abiding security: they know they can lose their balance and find it again.

Real widens the lens from family therapy to social healing. Just as individuals inherit unhealed traumas, societies pass down legacies of domination—patriarchy, racism, and classism—that distort our capacity for connection. Healing, therefore, is both personal and collective: we must face not only our childhood wounds but the systems that bred them.

Breaking Multigenerational Patterns

“Family pathology,” Real writes, “rolls from generation to generation like fire in the woods until one person turns to face the flames.” His clients, like Ted the philanderer or Desiree the rager, break their inherited cycles only when they confront both love and harm in their parents. Through exercises of dialogue and visualization, he guides them to say goodbye—not to their parents themselves, but to the destructive legacies they passed on.

This act, called facing the flames, allows adult children to stop replaying their parents’ unfinished stories in their own relationships. As they release the past, they free future generations from repeating it.

Privilege, Shame, and the Great Lie

Real draws a parallel between personal grandiosity and social superiority. Racism, sexism, and elitism, he argues, are cultural extensions of the same delusion that one person can be “above” another. His concept of moral injury reframes how privilege wounds the privileged: when we dehumanize others, we must numb our empathy, splitting from our own humanity. The cost of superiority, Real insists, is profound loneliness.

Passing It Back Instead of Passing It On

Whether you’re healing generational trauma or unlearning inherited prejudice, the process is the same: awareness, grief, and deliberate transformation. Real urges readers to practice full-respect living—a vow never to use or tolerate contempt, whether toward others or oneself. “There is no redeeming value in harshness,” he declares. Instead, embody relational integrity: the courage to stay kind while holding firm boundaries.

In this way, the personal revolution of therapy becomes a social one. Every time we choose empathy over ego, we heal a small piece of history. As Real concludes, “We must learn to live not over one another, but with one another.”

In his conclusion and epilogue, Real lifts his lens skyward. Human suffering, he argues, stems from what anthropologist Gregory Bateson called “mankind’s epistemological mistake”: the belief that we are separate from nature, from each other, and from spirit. The antidote is not domination or escape, but belonging—remembering that we are part of an interconnected whole.

From Little Mind to Big Mind

Real bridges psychotherapy and spirituality. In your ordinary, ego-driven “Little Mind,” he says, you obsess over control, achievement, and self-definition. In “Big Mind”—what Buddhists call Buddha-nature or Tao—you experience unity and compassion. The work of maturity is to let your Wise Adult hold your restless Adaptive Child with love, just as the universe holds you. This, he suggests, is the truest form of healing: dying to your separateness and waking to your connection.

Ecology as a Spiritual Practice

Drawing on the mystic writings of Lao-tzu and the alchemical studies of Mircea Eliade, Real likens relational wisdom to the skill of the ancient metalworker. When the craftsman worked in harmony with nature, he was a saint; when he exploited it for greed, he was a thief. Whether creating technology or navigating marriage, our actions carry moral weight depending on our intention: do we impose, or do we collaborate?

He also invokes the Jewish concept of tikkun olam—the sacred duty to repair the shattered world by mending ourselves. Every act of empathy, every mindful breath during conflict, becomes an act of restoration. “Nature has no rewards or punishments,” Real concludes, echoing psychologist Robert Ingersoll, “only consequences.”

Choosing Us

To become whole is to remember the forgotten word at the center of Real’s philosophy: Us. Whether tending a marriage, raising children, or repairing the planet, the work is the same—turn toward the other, listen, repair, and include. Love is not a feeling we possess, but a practice we perform moment by moment.

In the end, Real offers not just guidance but a blessing: in choosing connection over control, humility over hubris, and compassion over contempt, we return home to ourselves and to one another. “This world,” he writes, “does not belong to us. We belong to one another.”