Read the body. Decode the brain. Treat the couple with confidence.
PACT Level 1 training’s comprehensive toolset empowers you to be a successful couple therapist.Â
Couple therapy doesn’t have to be daunting.
PACT training gives you theoretical foundations and a powerful set of tools, rarely taught in school. Â
Build the skills, the confidence, and the community to be an excellent couple therapist.
Fall 2026:Â
- August 29-30
- September 19-20
- October 10-11
- November 7-8
All sessions are 10:00am - 3:30pm Pacific Time.
Convert to your time zone here.
Spring 2027:
- February 6-7
- March 6-7
- April 3-4
- May 1-2
All sessions are 8am - 1:30pm Pacific Time.
Convert to your time zone here.
Online via Zoom
Investment:
$1,999
Couple therapy is the most in-demand type of therapy.
Whether you want to pick up where your degree ended or expand your practice, learning PACT enables you to help couples develop fully, treat each other fairly, and build their best life together.
Even if you’re an experienced individual therapist, working with two people and their two nervous systems at once can feel overwhelming. Our therapists tell us that the PACT methodology leads to a fulfilling and thriving practice as they help couples navigate to happier and more peaceful lives.Â
The Benefits of PACT Level 1 Training
Skill-centric
You’ll learn tools that will empower you in session, particularly methods for working with two clients at once, methods for reading the body, and techniques for de-escalation and reconnection.
Comprehensive
With 40 live training hours and 24 hours of on-demand video, PACT’s rigor is designed for the therapist who is committed to leveling up.
Neuroscience-based
The biology-based background teaches how to track the nervous system to understand attachment styles, capacity, and the memory system that drives unconscious behavior.
Versatile
PACT is designed to integrate well with other therapeutic models you may be trained in. In fact, PACT gets stronger as it intermingles with other modalities.
Fulfilling
The PACT methodology works immediately, so you’ll see gratifying results as you also become more efficient, effective, and grounded in your practice.
An active community
Train alongside trusted colleagues and join a community that supports your growth long after the last weekend.
Searches for couple counseling grew 50% in 2025! Do you have the skills to handle the demand?
What you'll learn:
- Use core PACT interventions, including our unique basic interviewing skills to work with both partners simultaneously rather than alternating between them.Â
- Deepen your understanding of arousal regulation and learn how to support the couple in regulating one another.Â
- Translate the work into outcomes: couples who develop more fully, treat each other fairly, develop a secure relationship that sustains them both.Â
- Conceptualize the couple as the client, shifting from an individual lens to a dyadic, systemic one.
- Apply a psychobiological framework grounded in attachment theory, arousal regulation, and the neuroscience of relationship.
- Track a couple in real time, reading nonverbal and somatic cues to surface attachment patterns and memory systems, which show up in the moment-to-moment interactions between the partners.
- Bring unconscious, involuntary patterns into conscious awareness, so couples can understand the automatic nature of being human and how to work collaboratively in real time.
What you’ll get:Â
- 40 hours of live training over 4 weekends
- Live Q&A sessionsÂ
- 24 hours of on-demand video training
- Small class sizes and breakout groups
- Demonstrations
- Help from experienced PACT therapists during the live sessions and in between modulesÂ
- Attachment-style assessment strategiesÂ
- Interventions toolsÂ
- Clinical video presentations and case enactments designed to help you see PACT in action
- Experiential exercises, small-group discussions, and practice to help you integrate PACT techniques into your clinical practice
- Opportunities to ask questions and get answers to real-life issues
- Digital copy of the PACT Training Manual
- Lifetime access to the PACT Institute’s Level 1 Alumni LibraryÂ
- 2Â months of access to PACTplus: Alumni Community membership after you complete Level 1
- 40 CE hours sponsored by APA and NBCC
- A supportive community of clinicians
Take a deeper look at PACT.
The Psychobiological Approach to Couple TherapyⓇ (PACT) is based on the idea that couples are two nervous systems wired together. Understanding the nervous system unlocks couple therapy.Â
PACT was developed by Stan Tatkin, PsyD, MFT. As a model of couple therapy, PACT combines attachment theory, developmental neuroscience, and emotional regulation.
PACT has a reputation for effectively treating the most challenging couples. For more than 20 years, thousands of couple therapists have been trained in the PACT methodology, bringing secure functioning to tens of thousands of couples. We hope your clients are next to benefit from it!Â
PACT helps couples to overcome chronic relationship struggles and find happiness through secure functioning.
Attachment Theory
The explanation for the biological need to bond with others is explained by experiences in early relationships that inform the sense of safety and security you bring to adult relationships.
Insecurities that have been carried through life can wreak havoc for a couple if these issues are not resolved. A PACT-trained couple therapist helps couples move away from anxious or avoidant attachment into secure-functioning relationships.
Neuroscience
Some areas of the brain are wired to reduce threat and danger and seek security. Others are geared to establish mutuality and loving connection.
Understanding how the brain works provides a physiological basis for understanding how people act and react within relationships, thus allowing you to better understand your clients’ behaviors.
Biology of Human Arousal
Arousal is the moment-to-moment ability to manage your energy, alertness, and readiness to engage. Learning to manage your own arousal as well as the arousal state of your clients can improve secure functioning and conflict resolution in relationships.
PACT's proven techniques help your clients slow down so you can repair and reconnect quickly, all while better self-regulating.
What skills will you learn?
PACT teaches skills grounded in attachment and the nervous system, so you know why a technique works. PACT therapists utilize bottom-up interventions, revealing the somatic narrative which is implicit and often out of conscious awareness. PACT teaches partners that much of what happens between them is not personal or content-based but psychobiological. Put simply, it’s not that one partner or the other is right, wrong, or loads the dishwasher better, it’s that their entangled nervous systems need new skills for peaceful and healthy interactions.
Interventions
In PACT, we have a series of tools we call interventions, which put pressure on the couples in safe and supported ways. By placing them in scenarios that reveal what they can and cannot do, you as a therapist can help them learn new possibilities. PACT interventions can be utilized by the therapist to reveal a hidden truth, better understand conflict, and become more skillful when a couple is in an active disagreement. These interventions are excellent tools to regulate nervous systems and teach the couple a new skill.
Here are a few tools you’ll learn to:
Cross-Track:
The therapist learns to visually scan both partners, especially the one not speaking. Using their gaze, they can capture somatic tells and microexpressions.
Cross-Question and Cross-Interpret:Â
By asking Partner B about Partner A, you take the pressure off of Partner A, allowing you as the therapist to observe Partner A’s more-regulated responses. You get to see Partner A authentically and somatically while learning about Partner B’s narrative — twice the amount of information while supporting their regulatory systems. Additionally, you reinforce PACT’s stance that they are in each other’s care by presuming they are knowledgeable about one another.
Stage a Scene:
PACT is the “Show-Me Therapy.” Rather than having them tell you about a fight, you have them recreate it. Then you slow it down, adding questions and insights to help the couple understand the unconscious factors, errors, and misappraisals that affect their arguments.
2026 PACT Level 1 Fall
August 29-30 | September 19-20 | October 10-11 | November 7-8
All sessions are 10:00am - 3:30pm Pacific
Financial Aid for PACT Training
The PACT Institute offers need-based scholarships intended for clinicians with demonstrated financial hardship and a passion for working with couples. We also offer Global Flex Pricing for clinicians living outside of the United States.
Learn more about scholarships and other financial aid for PACT training.
FAQ
What’s a module?Â
PACT Level 1 training is divided into 4 modules.
Each module includes:Â
- Pre-work to complete before the weekend:Â
- 5-7 hours of training videos
- Assigned reading from the PACT Manual and elsewhere
- The live teaching weekends
- Quizzes that you complete after each video to move onto the next module
- A walkthrough of our portal and how the modules and homework are organizedÂ
How does PACT integrate with other therapy models?Â
PACT is designed to integrate well with other models you may be trained in. In fact, PACT gets stronger as it intermingles with other modalities.Â
PACT developer Dr. Stan Tatkin takes us through different models of couple and individual therapy and how they integrate successfully with PACT.
What kinds of financial aid does PACT offer?Â
At the PACT Institute, we believe financial circumstances shouldn’t stand in the way of your professional growth. We offer several options to help make training more accessible:
- Need-based scholarships for clinicians experiencing financial hardship
- Global Flex Pricing for clinicians living in countries where local currency exchange rates make U.S. dollar tuition especially burdensome
- Flexible payment plans so you can spread out the cost of registration over time
Learn more about financial aid options for PACT Training.
What if I need to miss a session?
If you need to miss a date of a training, email admin@thepactinstitute.com to make arrangements.Â
We offer accommodations for special needs and religious or cultural considerations. Contact Evie, our PACT Training Manager, at evie@thepactinstitute.com for more information.Â
If you need to miss a session, we offer recordings of the sessions, and we extend an invitation to the equivalent session in a future cohort of the training. Generally, you will not be considered PACT-trained or receive CEs until a live makeup session is completed. However, contact admin@thepactinstitute to discuss specifics.
Experienced Teachers
Each PACT instructor brings years of experience teaching PACT principles and skills, along with a passion for supporting clinicians and helping couples thrive.
In PACT Level 1: Foundations, you’ll learn from a team of experienced clinicians and teachers.
Eda Arduman, MA
“I aim to support emerging PACT therapists in developing their ability to remain centered and find joy in the process of working with PACT.”
Lilian Borges, Counselor, MA, LPC
“I am thrilled to teach PACT Level 1 and be part of a team of teachers who are incredibly knowledgeable, dedicated, and experienced. We are passionate about secure functioning: teaching to our couples, students and being secure functioning in our relationship with each other. The integrity in what we teach and who we are are reflected in the classes at the PACT Institute, creating a great environment for learning.”
Morgan Hart, MSW, LCSW
"I feel so lucky that I discovered the PACT model early in my career. It has been 13 years since I began learning this approach to couple therapy, and I am grateful to have developed the competence and confidence to help my clients meaningfully improve their relationships. Working with PACT principles and applying this knowledge to my own primary relationships has also enhanced my personal life. I feel supported by the PACT community, which is made up of such dedicated, experienced, and passionate people. I am honored to be part of this secure-functioning organization and excited to be joining the PACT faculty teaching Level 1. I welcome a dynamic new cohort of students and hope they experience the transformative and lasting power of this brilliant model."
Allison Howe, LMHC, MA, EdM
“Being a Level 1 Instructor has reignited my joy in the study of the PACT model and sharing it with other brave therapists who are on the same journey. I’m excited to support students in building their secure-functioning narrative. This narrative is an essential foundation and the compass in our couple’s work.”
Beth O’Brien, PhD, Licensed Psychologist
“I am excited to teach therapists how they can level up their work with couples by adapting the PACT lenses of secure functioning. I also look forward to meeting and getting to know the class participants as well as team teach with the highly skilled and talented PACT co-instructors.”
Julie Rappaport, MA, LPC
“I’m pumped to teach all the PACT fundamentals so therapists gain the utmost confidence in working with couples.”
Level 1 Requirements
PACT Level 1: Foundations is intended for licensed and pre-licensed marriage and family therapists, professional counselors, social workers, psychologists, and psychiatrists. Â
To qualify for attendance in the PACT training, a pre-licensed clinician must (a) be in the final year of graduate school, (b) actively see clients as a supervisee and/or intern, and (c) have a supervisor’s approval to attend the training.
COACHES ARE NOT ELIGIBLE FOR TRAINING.Â
Level 1 training is offered in English.
CE Information
Level 1 training is sponsored by the PACT Institute (ACEP #6641, PCE #5551, and SW CPE #0104) for 40 continuing education hours. Â
New York Social Workers: PACT Institute SW CPE is recognized by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Social Work as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed social workers #0104.
New York Social Workers & Mental Health Practitioners: PACT Institute, LLC is recognized by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Mental Health Practitioners as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed mental health counselors. #MHC-0114.
Psychologists: The PACT Institute is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. The PACT Institute maintains responsibility for this program and its content.
Marriage and Family Therapists, Licensed Professional Clinical Counselors, Licensed Educational Psychologists, Licensed Clinical Social Workers, and Certified Counselors:
Level 1 Training Objectives
After completing PACT Level 1 Online Training, you will be able to:
- Distinguish between the three PACT domains.
- Identify the parts of the brain central to social-emotional functioning.
- Identify visual and auditory recognitions for hypo arousal.
- Identify visual and auditory recognitions for hyper arousal.
- Apply the principles and demonstrate the skills of arousal regulation assessment.
- Describe the significance of attachment to couple therapy.
- Apply the principles and demonstrate the skills of attachment assessment.
- Describe the secure/insecure continuum.
- Distinguish between top-down and bottom-up interventions.
- Illustrate and distinguish the three different attachment styles.
- Explain and apply the principles and demonstrate the skills for attachment intervention.
- Explain and apply the principles and demonstrate the skills for arousal regulation intervention.
- Explain and apply the principles and demonstrate the skills for the basic PACT interviewing process.
- Describe and illustrate the elements of the therapeutic frame.
- Explain and practice the principles of therapist self-regulation.
- Distinguish the characteristics of disorganized attachment.
- Apply the principles and demonstrate the skills for management of thirds.
- Apply the principles and demonstrate the skills for collaborative narratives.
- Apply the principles and demonstrate the skills for corralling questions.
- Apply the principles and demonstrate the skills for bending metal.
- Describe the development of the social brain.
- Describe the neuroendocrine system.
- Apply the principles and demonstrate the skills for intervention with secure partners.
- Apply the principles and demonstrate the skills for intervention with avoidant partners.
- Apply the principles and demonstrate the skills for interventions for angry resistant partners.
- Apply the principles and explain the limitations needed for working with disorganized partners.Â
- Describe and appraise case conceptualization.Â
- Define and employ therapeutic alliance.
- Analyze arousal bias and attachment type.
- Explain and apply the principles and demonstrate the skills for working with high-arousal couples.
- Explain and apply the principles and demonstrate the skills for working with low-arousal couples.
- Explain and apply the principles and demonstrate the skills for working with high-low arousal couples.
- Explain and apply the principles and demonstrate the skills for working with dysregulated couples.
- Integrate the domains of arousal regulation and attachment.
"This remains the most impactful training I’ve had in my career. I had worried that the course would not translate well to online learning but it was exceptionally effective."
PACT Level 1 Online student in Los Angeles, CA
"I don’t think the [online] format handicapped us at all. The training weekend was much less expensive than traveling… and much less disruptive for both work and family time. I’d gladly sign onto this format again without any worry of loss of educational content or collegial experience. Many thanks to all! "
PACT Level 1 Online student in Boulder, CO
"This was such a powerful and useful training. I honestly feel like I am a better therapist because of it; with couples, sure, but also with individuals. "
PACT Level 1 Online student in Los Angeles, Ca
"Simply wonderful. Although we were in Zoom meetings, I experienced no sense of disconnection from Stan, Tracey or the other participants. The breakouts were fertile and novel learning experiences also. I was thoroughly impressed with the use of the technology, its efficiency and effectiveness."