Relational-Cultural Theory


The Jean Baker Miller Training Institute (JBMTI) at the Wellesley Centers for Women is the home of Relational-Cultural Theory (RCT) which posits that people grow through and toward relationships throughout the lifespan The institute is dedicated to enlarging our understanding of human connections and enhancing human possibility. We examine both the personal and social factors that lead to painful disconnections; and we seek ways to increase our capacity to find strength and facilitate social change by building respectful and encouraging connections. Our work, which focuses on relationship development, has been applied in clinical settings as well as in organizations and has been hailed by some as a transformative model of human potential.

RCT has grown from the early work of Jean Baker Miller who wrote the best selling book Toward New Psychology of Women in 1976. In this book, Jean explored the importance of dynamics of dominance and subordination in human relationships and began to reframe the psychology of women as a psychology centered in relationships. This work has been further developed since 1978 by a collaborative group including founding scholars Jean Baker Miller, Judith V. Jordan, Irene Stiver and Janet Surrey. An expanded group of scholars, researchers and clinicians have written over ten books and over one hundred works in progress on RCT. The work has had both academic and popular success.

In addition to theoretical, organizational and clinical publications, the Institute has offered an array of training experiences and supports the development of ongoing RCT practice communities. Past workshops have focused on relational leadership, intensive clinical practice seminars, the mother-daughter relationship, mothers and sons, relational mindfulness, the neurobiology of connection, working with shame, mentoring, relational resilience, transformative relationships. A history of this work, This Changes Everything, has been written by Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Christina Robb.

Read more about the development of relational-cultural theory.

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