RadTreeListView is oriented to handling "real" data hierarchies, where the child hierarchy is a homogeneous-typed collection property of the bound type. This is one of the prerequisites for using HierarchyCollectionView, which lays in the core RadTreeListView data engine. For self referencing hierarchies, please consider using the respective feature of RadGridView - http://docs.telerik.com/devtools/wpf/controls/radgridview/hierarchical-gridview/self-referencing-grid.