Can Your Couples Do the Couple Huddle?
PACT Level 3 Therapist
PACT therapists help couples create what Stan Tatkin calls a couple bubble. In this relational space, each partner can be themselves and accept each other as is. The bubble is an ecosystem that fosters safety and security for partners. Once their couple bubble is established, couples may benefit from taking action to proactively solve problems by couple huddling.
Partners tend to underestimate the rewards of mutual influence. They deal with their couple problems independently without consulting their partner. In doing so, they fail to realize that their partner brings helpful insights and resources to challenges. Learning to couple huddle applies the secure-functioning principle that partners protect their relationship and workshop problems together via collaboration.
What is Couple Huddling?
When partners come together to solve a problem or reach a common goal, they are huddling. Partners can feel stuck in a pressing...
Love in the Time of the Coronavirus: PACT and Telehealth
As PACT therapists, we are trained to be ready to move with our couple. The COVID-19 pandemic is an exceptional virus that has compelled health professionals around the world to adapt best practices and improvise. By using telehealth sessions, they continue to provide care during this unprecedented moment in history. In this article, we share our thoughts and suggestions about how you may consider moving with your clients and adapting your practice of PACT to serve your couples through telehealth.
This introductory...
Be Ready to Drop Your Darlings and Other Lessons from PACT
By Beth O’Brien, Ph.D., Licensed Psychologist
PACT Level 3 Therapist, PACT Ambassador
In PACT training, Dr. Stan Tatkin shared this gem: “Be prepared to drop your darlings.” Darlings are those valuable insights a counselor acquires as s/he sees the concerns of the couple unfold. My initial response to his suggestion was “Oh, no!”
As a couple’s therapist of over 20 years, I’ve had many darlings to insert into the therapeutic work. Dr. Tatkin’s gem became an important guideline, as it advocated for the couple therapist to be open, flexible, aware of timing, and able to assess the benefit of an intervention.
Who hasn’t had the experience of sharing a clinical observation that falls flat? Which counselor hasn’t had a perceived valuable comment result in the couple squinting their eyes, their facial expression indicating discord, their inner thoughts confusion?
Before sharing a darling, I had to...
Renewing Love at a Wired for Love Retreat
by Beth O’Brien, PhD, licensed psychologist
PACT Level III candidate
http://bethobriencounseling.com/
“Fast acting, long lasting.” Those are the words one couple used to describe their experience of PACT in session with me. As a PACT Level III candidate, I find that once each partner learns to really understand the other and how the other works, their relationship runs more smoothly.
Couples often begin their first counseling session pointing their finger at the other partner. They blame, explain, and defend. I understand that they are angry and hurt, and it took a while for them to come to counseling. As our sessions continue, the partners experience the benefit of safe and secure functioning, and this becomes the primary goal for their relationship and how they want to be with one another. Through PACT interventions, they begin to collaborate more. “I” becomes “we.” They look out for one another more. What the other person says and needs...
