by Rachel Holland, DClinPsych, PACT faculty, Buckinghamshire, UK
Email: [email protected]

One of the characteristics of secure functioning a PACT therapist communicates is that romantic couples, as the King and Queen of their domain, protect their relationship and each other in public and in private.

I had been working with Peter and Jane for four sessions. They came to therapy for help with intimacy, and our initial work focused on therapeutic alliance and social contracting. Both were outsourcing their arousal regulation away from the relationship to substances.

From the Partner Attachment Inventory (PAI), I knew both Peter and Jane experienced emotional neglect in childhood. They had parents and caregivers who were either unavailable and didn’t protect them sufficiently or behaved in ways that were frightening. More importantly, the couple now had this information about each other and a better understanding about how each operated. They were beginning to...

by Eva Van Prooyen, M.F.T., PACT faculty, Los Angeles CA
Website:  Eva.VP.com
Email:  [email protected]

Healthy, secure relationships are a source of vital energy. PACT therapists know people feel good when they understand how to be successful partners. We are energized by a secure connection to another person. Our need to be securely attached is so powerful that it can get us through the hardest of times and help us float through day-to-day routines with ease, skill, and grace.

Secure functioning is based on a high degree of respect for one another’s experience. Interactions and shared experiences are fair, just, and sensitive. If your partner feels even slightly unwanted, undervalued, disliked, unseen, or unimportant, he or she will—quite frankly—act weird and underperform in the relationship.

Insecurity and insecure attachment negatively affect brain performance. Development can be slowed down because the brain is using most of its resources to...

by Hans Jorg Stahlschmidt, Ph.D., PACT faculty, Berkeley CA,
Website: www.stahlschmidt-therapy.com
Email: [email protected]

Burnout is common among psychotherapists. Countless articles and books deal with reasons for and prevention of burnout. However, some instances of burnout are nearly impossible to prevent, given dysfunctional institutional settings, demanding and taxing work hours, and a difficult and acting out clientele. Many commentators have opined that psychotherapists may lack sufficient self-care to counter the ongoing stress of dealing with the psychological pain and trauma of their patients, especially in the context of isolation characteristic of this profession.

For me, becoming a PACT therapist has proven to be the best burnout prevention. This approach requires a strong therapeutic frame and a complex set of skills that is rooted in a defined conceptual foundation. It also allows a freedom I have not experienced in other therapeutic approaches. This is the...

by Stan Tatkin, PsyD, MFT

In matters of betrayal—lying, cheating, stealing—the breach of the attachment system is acute and often long lasting and can be understood neurologically as a trauma-related problem.

Franklin and Zeynep, a couple in their early 40s with two young children, came to therapy because of a discovered set of sexual affairs. Franklin, an American-born academician, was found to have an affair with one of his students. Zeynep, a Turkish-born emergency room nurse, discovered the affair after accidentally viewing Franklin's phone text messages. The texts were explicitly sexual and contained incontrovertible evidence of Franklin's deceptions and betrayals. Although Franklin was contrite and desperately wanted to be let back into the relationship, he had great difficulty dealing with Zeynep’s unrelenting preoccupation with his affair. She wanted to know details. Fearful of making matters worse, he refused to give details. Zeynep would wake up in the...

by Stan Tatkin, PsyD, MFT,
stantatkin.com

I’m an avid lover of theory, all kinds of theory—psychoanalytic, systems, humanistic-existential, and so on. I think my appreciation of theories grows as I age, as does my appreciation of people, relationships, music, art, and politics. As I grow older and hopefully wiser as a clinician and educator, my appreciation increases for the various approaches to psychotherapy available today, just as the illusion decreases that my particular approach to couple therapy is better than the other ones out there. In the couples arena, I greatly admire the work of Sue Johnson, Ellyn Bader and Peter Pearson, David Schnarch, John and Julie Gottman, Esther Perel, Dan Wile, Harville Hendrix, Marion Solomon, Terry Real, Rob Fisher, and many others. These are not only master therapists, but enormously creative producers of inspiration to couple therapists worldwide.

Having developed an approach myself—in part, a result of having been...

by Stan Tatkin, PsyD, MFT,
stantatkin.com

This addendum to my previous post, Train Your Partner, is intended to clarify another important concept in relationship management. So many of us struggle with how to “parent” or “train” our partner when we feel rejected, dismissed, ignored, or flat out resisted by him or her. We often get angry and attack or withdraw and give up. While both reactions are reasonable they will likely be received as threatening (yes, I know…you were threatened first). Also threatening are complaints, especially in the form of questions:

“Why do you always do this to me?”
“Why can’t you just do what I want for once?”
“What is wrong with you?”
“Why do you always take his/her side?”

…and so on. The problem with questions, particularly of these kind, is they require resources in your partner’s brain and it is likely that your partner’s brain is either mostly...

by Stan Tatkin, PsyD, MFT,
stantatkin.com

Romantic love is an addiction. Although we "feel" romantic love, the feeling is largely the result of a particular brain circuitry and neurochemical cocktail more closely related to the addiction or reward circuit.

Successful long term couples understand how to maintain their "addiction" to one another through daily techniques that result in mutual amplification of positive feeling. In other words, partners are able to rekindle their reward circuitry, the very same neural network that contributed to their initial romantic excitement with one another. There are three practicals ways to do this, two of which are well-known and the third not-so-well-known.

1. The Lovers' Gaze (aka primary intersubjectivity)
2. Joint attention to a third object, person, idea, activity, etc. (aka secondary intersubjectivity)
3. Conversion of Personal Positive Feeling for Mutual Amplification

The Lovers' Gaze

Arguably, it is with the eyes, or more specifically, the...

by Stan Tatkin, PsyD, MFT,
stantatkin.com

Quite different from Airplanes and Submarines are Tortoises and Hares. While the former points to arousal preference for either high sympathetic or low parasympathetic states, the latter refers to mental processing speed, or "RPMs" as I like to call it. There are Hare and Tortoise partners in my office quite often. The Hare will run circles around the Tortoise partner, especially during periods of distress. It's important to note that the Tortoise is never fast and the Hare is never slow, distress notwithstanding. However, when partners become aroused during conflict it becomes evident that the Hare has the advantage and must be cautioned against disorienting or steamrolling his/her partner.

A Hare must be careful not to induce mutual dysregulation within the couple system by losing and befuddling his or her slower partner. Moving too fast, both verbally and non-verbally, can appear threatening and even predatory. The tortoise must help his...