By Sefora Janel Ray, MFT
Berkeley, CA
http://therapytothrive.com/

I had no idea when I took the PACT training to become a couples therapist that it would affect my personal life so dramatically. I can confidently say now that the reason I’m in a secure relationship is because I took the PACT training and learned how my attachment style affected my dating life. Through PACT, I gained the understanding and skills that helped me to find the love of my life and to create a fully supportive partnership.

I’m a therapist, so I knew for years that I had what is known in PACT as the wave style of attachment (also called the anxious ambivalent or the angry resistant attachment style). My parents divorced when I was five; both my parents worked full time, and I didn’t get the individualized attention and care from them that I craved. They were both very angry and critical of each other, which sometimes leaked onto my sister and me. In adulthood, I was aware that the lack of...

Debra L. Kaplan, MA, LPC, CSAT-S
PACT level 1
Tucson, AZ
debrakaplancounseling.com

Couple therapy is challenging, and some clinicians find it too intimidating to attempt. They worry, for example, that a misattuned observation could alienate not just one but both partners. There are also potential issues involving tact, timing of interventions, and poor management of session structure. For a PACT therapist, the greater challenge lies not in working with what is known but rather in what often underlies why couples seek therapy: their inability to tolerate and regulate individual and dydadic stress. Addressing the early development of partners' attachment experiences with their primary caregivers provides the PACT therapist with vital information about intrusions in the couple bond, as well as helps to assess the partners' capacities for coregulation (the ability to manage their emotions, as well as know when and how to soothe or...

Allison Howe, LMHC 
PACT Level II 
Saratoga Springs, NY 
www.facebook.com/AllisonHoweLMHC

As PACT-trained therapists, it is perplexing when we find ourselves working with a couple who are not moving into secure functioning. There are a number of factors to consider: Is there a deal breaker that hasn’t been addressed? Are both partners truly committed? Are resources outside the therapy office allocated to restructuring the relationship? 

As we work to move couples from a one-person psychological system into a two-person system, we are facilitating the development of skills. Learning to have relaxed and mutually satisfying conversations requires skill. However, when partners demonstrate curiosity and interest in their partner, they are taking an essential step forward. Their time and attention are a precious resource and are too often in short supply. 

The changes we are endorsing...

by Carolyn Sharp, LICSW
PACT level 3 candidate
Seattle, WA
http://www.carolynsharp.com/

One of the richest aspects of the PACT approach is the experiential, embodied nature of the sessions. Over the course of a 2- to 3-hour session, couples develop a felt understanding of one another and of a new way of relating. As a PACT practitioner, I am continually awed by the power of this approach to help couples reach new levels of connection and healing. In the last year, I began offering couple therapy intensives and retreats as two ways to multiply and deepen that experience over many hours on back-to-back days, and provide opportunities for PACT interventions on steroids.

In a call to me, Bess described through tears her love for her husband of 15 years, Theo, and the ways she had hurt him despite this love. Emotional infidelities had created fissures in the trust and safety of their connection, and both were questioning whether they could get it back. Because of the critical nature of...

Patricia Williams, LCSW
Westchester, NY & Vermont
PACT Level 2
patriciawilliams.net

As a couple therapist, it has long been a passion of mine to help couples prepare for the birth of a child, not only prenatally but post birth, as well. There is substantial evidence that marital satisfaction declines when couples have children, and early interventions to counteract that are lacking (Cowan & Hetherington, 1991). In my experience, few couples are prepared for how pregnancy and the addition of a third (or subsequent children) will challenge their relationship and what they can do to make it an optimal experience as a foundation for themselves and their family. 

I love the term birth bubble. Jen Pifer, who works as a doula and is also well versed in the principles of PACT, used those words to describe what she strives for when assisting in...

Inga Gentile, MFT  
PACT faculty 
Bardu, Norway 
www.ingagentile.com 

In the PACT model, a priority is placed on experience over interpretation. This is in part because we target the more primitive, less plastic parts of the brain (which are experience driven) when staging interventions that lead to psychological development and behavioral change. Sometimes we stage those interventions, and at other times they occur spontaneously in something the couple themselves do. Either way, PACT therapists pay careful attention to moments that may uncover something previously unknown or to affect change.  

A young couple I saw, Dan and Laura, clearly loved each other very much and were both remarkably high achieving and accomplished in many ways. They also presented as depleted, exhausted, frustrated, and lonely. In other words, what we...

Amanda Woolveridge, M.App.sci.
PACT Level II
Sydney, Australia
amandawoolveridgecounselling.com.au

John yanked open the curtains at 10:30 am. Light flooded the bedroom as he placed their one-year-old baby on Susanne, who looked bleary eyed and confused as she struggled to wake up. “He’s been asking for you,” John said, before he disappeared downstairs. In his role as house husband, he had decided that Susanne, who had reluctantly returned to full time work after 9 months at home, had slept in long enough for a weekend.

The day was not off to a good start for Susanne. She felt shocked into wakefulness, jarred by the sudden noise and light, confused by the instant demands of her little son, and completely abandoned by John. Because of her complex developmental childhood trauma history, all the alarm bells in her amygdala jangled simultaneously. The stage was set for her to have what John calls “one of her episodes.” She came thundering down the stairs to let...

Jason Polk, LCSW, LAC
PACT Level II
Denver, CO
paramitacounseling.com

There is no magic bullet to maintaining and raising children within a blended family (a family with children from multiple relationships), and I am not an expert in the finer points of day-to-day interactions in a blended family. But while working with couples who have blended families, I have observed that they do better when they follow one basic principle: they hold each other as primary in the relationship—or we could say, as the king and queen of the household.

This may sound straightforward enough, but it is not always easy to put into practice, especially because overt and covert allegiances and alliances are often formed among each partner’s own children within the blended family. In therapy, parents often justify these allegiances and alliances by recounting the numerous difficulties they have been through with...

Eda Arduman, Ma.
PACT Level II therapist
Istanbul, Turkey
edaarduman.com

Agreeing to disagree can be easier said than done. Some people believe that their beliefs and values constitute their character, and thus can’t be changed. But a relationship in which change is disallowed will not be successful in the long term. The process of understanding a partner—including the risk of having to change in unexpected ways—can be bewildering. For example, who takes the leadership role? Who follows? The couple must learn to negotiate their differences, as well as any resulting conflicts, while creating and maintaining secure functioning.

I work in Istanbul, a city that bridges two continents, and cross-cultural couples are common in my practice. I want to share one example. Roland is Belgian, and Didem is Turkish. They met while students at a university in London, and have been married for 13 years, with two children. She works as an executive, he as a consultant. They joint...

Krista Jordan, Ph.D., ABPP
PACT Level III candidate
Austin, TX
www.kristajordan.com

“He doesn’t find me attractive,” she lamented, eyes cast downward toward his shoes.

My interest as this couple’s therapist was piqued: the woman before me could easily be mistaken for a model. I turned to him and said, “Tell her what you find attractive about her.”

After an uncomfortable pause, he offered, “I like her hair; it’s dark.”

I felt confused. What about her eyes? Lips? She looked even more dejected, focusing intently on the carpet. “What else?” I queried.

He seemed to be searching for a lost item. “Um, her back is really toned.”

I could see her collapsing further, the corners of her mouths starting to droop. “What about her face?”

He paused. “Um, I like her eyes. They’re kind.”

I began to wonder if we had stumbled upon a deficit. I turned to him and said, “Describe your...