The Use of PACT Principles in Non-Romantic Dyads
Yvonne Oke, LMFT
PACT Level 2
https://www.mymoderntherapy.com/yvonne-oke
One of my favorite things about the PACT model is the ability to be creative. As a marriage and family therapist, I have the opportunity to work with not only romantic dyads but also dyads that consist of family members, friends, and coworkers. As I began to learn about the PACT model, I wondered what secure functioning would look like in dyads of other structures. My use of some of the PACT principles and interventions in other dyads proved helpful in allowing my clients to create relationships that felt safe and secure.
Of course, secure functioning looks different in relationships that are not romantic. The expectation to meet the needs of others is not the same as those of our most important relationship. However, I have found that every relationship has a set of rules and expectations for how to stay connected, and PACT can help people identify what those rules need to be.
As we all know, people can...
The Elephant in the Room: Racism in the Therapy Space
PACT Level 1 Therapist
There is an elephant in the room. It is big, it is smelly, it is old, and it doesn’t seem to want to go away. Money won’t move it. Ignoring it doesn’t change it. Some choose to dress it with niceties to make it appear more tolerable, but its harm still remains.
This elephant takes many shapes, making it hard for some to recognize when it’s right in your way. It can be subtle, overt, passive, abrupt, implicit, covert, and even micro. Until we are able to address the elephant in all its forms directly by name, it will continue to fester and transform, creating havoc in all spaces, even in those as esteemed as the therapy space.
Its name is racism, and some would say it is as old as humanity. It is the foundational economic structure for the United States and many other parts of the world. Although structures such as American slavery and Jim Crow laws are no longer in existence, the residual impact and trauma of...
Kids Need Parents to Put Their Couple Relationship First
PACT Level 2 Therapist
The best piece of parenting advice I ever heard had nothing to do with sleep, solid foods, or baby wearing. In fact, it had nothing to do directly with my baby. It was simple yet radical wisdom from a trusted source: my mentor and Baby Bomb coauthor Stan Tatkin. Stan taught me, with the science to back it up, to always put my relationship with my husband first. No matter what.
He told me to do this as a student, as a therapist, and as a new mom. And let me tell you, I never needed that advice more than when I was in the throes of early motherhood. Except maybe during this past year of the pandemic. In times of crisis, we all need our partnerships to hold us steady and provide us with a secure base from which we can grow, be creative, and problem solve.
This is so, so, so important that Stan and I wrote a whole book about it: Baby Bomb: A Relationship Survival Guide for New Parents (New Harbinger, 2021).
The Honeymoon
All...
The Fine Art of Failing
by Caelen S. Cann, LPC, LAC, ADS
PACT Level 3 Candidate
Irish novelist Samuel Beckett once said, “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”
When I graduated from Naropa University with my master’s in counseling, I was fortunate enough to have Buddhist teacher, author, and nun Pema Chödrön give the commencement speech. As a longtime fan of Pema, I was thrilled to be able to hear and see her (and bow to her as I received my diploma), but what stuck with me the most was not the star-struck nature of being in her presence, it was the lesson she provided in her speech. When trying to decide what to tell the auditorium full of graduating people, fresh-faced and new into the world of counseling and other fields, she thought about what skill we really needed that was not stressed enough: the fine art of failing.
“There is a lot of emphasis on succeeding,” Pema said, “and whether we buy the...
From Me to We: When Perspective is Key
PACT Level 1
In Japanese, the phrase sottaku doji means “simultaneously pecking from inside and outside.” Zen Buddhism uses this as a metaphor for the relationship between teacher and student; the student is pecking from the inside, and the teacher from the outside at the shell of the student’s limited understanding and ability to perceive the true nature of reality.
With a deep bow to the wisdom of that lineage, I suggest we borrow this image to better understand the process of change and transformation in general. Does change occur from the outside in, using external behaviors to alter one’s internal state? Or, does it originate from the inside out, changing one’s mindset to support choosing new behaviors?
Just as in the pecking metaphor, the short answer is both; we need upgraded, more effective behaviors as well as internal meaning-making shifts. And, particularly in the case of successfully...
From Hurt to Hot: Helping Couples Navigate Sex After Trauma
By Kate Balestrieri, Psy.D., CST, CSAT-S
PACT Level 3 Candidate
Sexual trauma knows no discrimination. It can happen to anyone, at any age, and occurs across gender, race, religious affiliation, and socioeconomic status. The statistics vary from study to study, but of reported cases, most studies concur that one out of three women and one out of six men will experience some form of sexual abuse prior to the age of 18. More obvious examples of sexual trauma might include molestation, rape, and sexual harassment at work. However, some of the more covert examples include early exposure to sexually graphic content, sexual betrayal, sexual shaming as a child or adult, and repeated sexual objectification.
For most couples, sex is an integral and enjoyable experience. Sex can be a chance to have fun, destress, and reconnect. Survivors of sexual trauma may have a bifurcated relationship to sex. At times they may feel liberated with pleasure, connection, and embodiment....
Defining Healthy Dependence
PACT Level 3 Candidate
In an attempt to understand and treat clients, therapists often use terms, such as codependent, toxic, narcissistic. These words then find their way into pop culture and, like a bad game of telephone, can lose their intended meaning or become distorted.
I’ve had clients come in, claiming that their spouse was a narcissist when after a few sessions we were able to uncover that their spouse was simply under-skilled at communicating empathy.
In another instance, a partner described their mate as bipolar when they were kind and cheery most of the time but struggled to be able to calm themselves down when feeling disconnected from the partner during conflict.
I’ve found people can have a difficult time accurately assessing what behaviors are healthy and unhealthy in their romantic relationships. In our highly individualistic culture, one word gets a particularly bad rap: dependency.
Dependency
When is dependency...
Why Video Recording My Sessions Makes Me a Better Therapist
PACT Level 3 Candidate
Training in the PACT model sparks excitement for clinicians. It also presents a steep learning curve. Even seasoned therapists experience some uncertainty when learning such an active and complex approach. PACT challenges therapists to integrate multiple components and theories into a sophisticated model. The full integration, while quite satisfying, takes time, patience, and practice.
As with any new skill or approach, the process feels less daunting when therapists incorporate deliberate practice techniques into their learning. One of those techniques and a key element in PACT, videotaping sessions, aids clinicians in honing their PACT proficiencies. Reviewing recordings of sessions a few minutes per week facilitates learning and helps take a therapist’s work to new levels.
In this post I outline some of the advantages of the technique and share tools to help newcomers increase their comfort and confidence in...
On Being Found
by Stan Tatkin, PsyD, MFT
PACT Founder
A study by Nagasawa and his colleagues in Japan (2009) some years ago involving dogs and their owners found that if a dog looked into its owner’s eyes by finding the gaze first, the owner’s oxytocin levels went up. (I suspect dopamine might also be increased). However, if the owner’s gaze found the dog’s eyes first, no increase in oxytocin resulted. This finding has continued to “dog” me as I thought about infant attachment studies and adult romantic relationships. What is it about a dog, a baby, or a lover finding our eyes that leads to an increase in dopamine, oxytocin, vasopressin, or other neurochemicals related to the reward system?
During early infancy, when the newborn’s gaze is largely undirected, the catching of the mother’s gaze by the infant leads to a dopaminergic rush—a reward that is evident in the mother’s subsequent inviting vocal tone and facial expression. This...
How the Pandemic Has Changed Us
From the Science of Psychotherapy, January 2021
By Stan Tatkin, PsyD, MFT
Most people will probably agree that 2020 has been an exceedingly difficult year: the world moving away from liberal democracy; a global pandemic that may continue well into 2022; global economic markets in crisis; nation-state superpowers waxing and waning; increasing threat of global warming; fear of cyberwars coming to fruition; the rise of what is now being called Big Social Data and social-media manipulation of the “truth”; the perfecting of deepfake technology; and the extinction of humankind through self-learning A.I. Yeah, what a year.
One could also argue that this is an extraordinary time to be alive. The challenges we face are like none other. Human beings have always predicted the end of the world as we know it. Yet each time over the millennia we seem to make it — either through human ingenuity, human...
