Using PACT in Individual Therapy: A Pro-Relationship Stance 

Margaret Martin, LCSW, SEP
PACT Level III candidate
Austin, TX
margaretmartinlcsw.com

When I started my career, I was a dyed-in-the-wool individual therapist, with little or no interest in couple therapy. My master’s program offered minimal education in couple therapy, and because I had no plans to pursue that, I assumed my training in couples’ work would end there. But then a friend convinced me that taking the PACT training would help me grow as an individual therapist. What began as a tepid dipping of my toes into the pool of couple therapy evolved into a dive into a deep, fulfilling sea. Not only do I love my work with couples, but my training as a couple therapist has enhanced my work with individuals.

The principles that make up the foundation of PACT apply to all kinds of relationships, not just romantic partnerships. Individual clients bring their struggles with partners, ex-spouses, friends, coworkers, parents, and children. Although the PACT approach helps therapists support individual clients in their romantic partnerships, the fundamental principle of PACT—moving couples toward secure-functioning relationships—also applies to a variety of relationship dyads.

Couple therapists sometimes describe encounters with individual therapists who seem to unintentionally undermine the work of couple therapy. This occurs most frequently when an individual therapist, in an effort to support a client, backs the client by throwing the client’s partner under the bus. This does a grave disservice to the client and can be detrimental to the couple relationship. In contrast, individual therapists trained in PACT offer a more balanced perspective when helping clients with difficult relationships, even if seeing couples never becomes part of their practice.

The PACT model supports therapists taking a pro-relationship stance. This means a belief in putting the needs of the relationship first, before individual needs. Being pro-relationship includes an understanding that in a healthy relationship, what’s good for one is good for the other. Having adopted this mindset, I look at the dynamics of relationships differently than I did in the past. Consequently, I have a different approach with individual clients regarding their relationships. When I take a pro-relationship stance, I avoid blaming one individual for relational discord, and recognize instead that both parties in the relationship contribute to conflict and misunderstandings. By bringing my pro-relationship stance to individual sessions, I better help clients test old beliefs about relationships and develop new ways of looking at their partners and their relationship dynamics.

Before becoming a couple therapist, I periodically bought into my individual clients’ narratives about their partners. In those instances, I accepted at face value the client’s description of his or her partner as being insensitive, lacking empathy, or being just an out-and-out jerk. In so doing, I was complicit in the client’s drawing of a line in the sand of the relationship. I hadn’t learned to ask classic PACT questions, such as, “What do you know about your partner’s childhood that would make him respond that way? Who treated him like that as a child?” In couples’ sessions, PACT therapists use these kinds of questions to help couples look beyond the knee-jerk reactions they have to their partner’s behavior (“he’s a jerk”). They begin to see any number of other possible explanations for a partner’s unwanted behavior. For example, one partner may realize that his wife’s inability to apologize and make a repair following an argument stems from no one ever having done that for her as a child, rather than “she’s a jerk.”

I now use this same curiosity and inquiry with individual clients regarding their complaints about partners (and siblings, coworkers, friends, parents). As a result, I see the change in clients’ negative views of their partners. By challenging their narrow assumptions and tendency to label, clients develop a better understanding of their loved one. This shift in my approach helps clients develop their own pro-relationship stance and move toward secure-functioning relationships.