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Healing and Growth Through Connection

At the Bloomington Center for Connection, relational therapy offers a growth-oriented, creative path toward deeper connection with yourself, others, and the world around you. Grounded in Relational-Cultural Theory (RCT), this approach invites reflection, curiosity, and play as ways to build growth-fostering relationships that promote personal and collective healing.

What is relational therapy?

Relational therapy is a private-pay, non-medical service designed to nurture authentic relationships and personal growth. It is not considered medically necessary and is therefore not billable to insurance. Rather than diagnosing or treating mental illness, relational therapy helps people explore how connection and disconnection shape their lives currently and historically, and how restoring connection supports healing.

Why Choose Relational Therapy

Insurance-based therapy often focuses on reducing symptoms and meeting medical requirements. Relational therapy provides space for something different:

  • Freedom from labels and diagnostic criteria
  • Fewer worries about the impact of diagnosis on future life or health insurance plans
  • Curiosity and play as tools for exploration
  • Authentic connection that encourages discovery and healing
  • Relational growth that naturally extends into the communities that surround us

When we heal our relationships, we help heal the surrounding systems. Growth-fostering relationships ripple outward, creating a world with more empathy, equity, and care.

How does play figure into this?

As we grow up, surviving in our culture can mean putting on a “grown-up face”—trying to be proper, productive, or composed—and in the process, we can lose touch with our playfulness and authenticity. Reconnecting with play helps us touch in with our core ways of making meaning. Through play, we renew our vitality, creativity, and authenticity—the same qualities that make relationships thrive. In relational therapy, play becomes a way to explore connection itself—a living practice of curiosity, creativity, and wonder. Play invites us to meet each other in the present moment and rediscover what makes us feel most alive.

Kids playing in leaves
Play helps us discover authenticity, curiosity, and the aliveness that make relationships thrive.

Who might benefit?

Relational therapy may be right for you if you're:

  • Wanting to strengthen your relationships or communication
  • Worried about "losing yourself" in relationships but not resonating with the language around boundaries that dominates the mental health field
  • Seeking growth and authenticity outside the medical model
  • Navigating life transitions, identity shifts, or creative blocks
  • Looking for connection, community, and a renewed sense of possibility

Cost and Accessibility

Because relational therapy is offered outside the insurance system, it allows for flexible pacing and greater privacy. Sliding-scale and opt-out discounts are available for those who are underinsured or uninsured, ensuring that connection-based healing remains accessible.

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Deepen your understanding of Relational Cultural Theory through small group experience, learning the best way to learn RCT: in connection! One of the most unique aspects of your Learning Circle Membership is the option to join a Cohort Group. 

Intimate Learning Circle Cohort Groups!

Every Learning Circle Member has the option to sign up for a cohort group. We have.a group on the second Friday afternoon of every month, from 3-5:00 Eastern, starting July 10, 2026. This group is a continuation of the cohort started last year, and is ideal for clinicians who already have a solid understanding of Relational Cultural Therapy. You can apply to join it here.

Our other current Learning Circle Cohort group is the fourth Monday of each month from 11:00-1:00 Eastern. This group is perfect for someone just discovering RCT, but is also an excellent place for deep discussion of RCT concepts with people of varying levels of experience. You can apply to join the Monday group here.

If neither of those times work for you, please join our waiting list. As soon as our cohort groups fill up, and there are enough people to create a new group, we will add one! If we have enough local people in our "go local" add-on, we will even add an in-person cohort. 

While we also have our quarterly trainings, as well as some other bonus trainings and our two monthly consultations, we highly recommend signing up for a cohort. These learning groups offer opportunities to explore RCT concepts in our own lives, in our clinical lives, and in the real-time interactions we are having in the group.

Request an Appointment

Schedule an initial intake, a group intake, or a regular appointment. Please allow at least 48 hours so intake forms can be completed ahead of the appointment.

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Contact a Therapist

Provide information about your desired care to a specific BCC therapist.

Contact
An image of a cartoon figure using a magnifying glass to study two hedgehogs trying to connect despite their bristles. This represents the key Relational Cultural Theory concept, the Central Relational Paradox.

What to expect

Each Learning Circle Cohort group will have a couple of specific RCT concepts, a small amount of explanation and visual aids, followed by discussion and questions. The group format is designed to attune to the needs of the participants and can be different each time.