Caroline Russell Smith, LCSW-R

PACT Level 2 Therapist

I was voted “Most Likely to Become the Next Dr. Ruth” in my high school yearbook, but not until 16 years into my career as an individual therapist did I finally complete sex therapy certification. I had virtually no experience with couples therapy (let alone the PACT approach), but I would soon know a lot about sex! What could possibly go wrong?

I nailed my framed certified sex therapist diploma to the wall and got to work. The first three couples who sought my services were kind, collaborative souls, more reticent than fiery, whose secure functioning gifted me a false sense of clinical competence. Psychoeducation did the heavy lifting, and the couples happily headed off into the sunset with improved sexual functioning. 

My fourth couple continued chatting with each other on their way to my office from the waiting area, hardly acknowledging me, then sat on my couch (no PACT set-up then) and stared at me in stony...

Stan Tatkin, PsyD, MFT

In the summer of 2020, the PACT Institute – and Tracey and I personally – made a commitment to improve our diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts and to better serve systemically marginalized communities. We immediately started working with a DEI consultant to help us look critically at our organization and where we could do better. 

My Personal Journey

My own understanding expanded significantly at the end of the first training this year. When someone asked about what I considered betrayal, I mentioned mismanagement of thirds and the reveal of information that, if previously known, would have changed everything. I gave examples of this and rattled off my usual list, including finding out your partner is not the gender they were assigned at birth. 

I was initially shocked to find the chat room buzzing with accusations of my acting out transphobia. Me? Transphobic? No! People are misunderstanding my meaning. What? 

I realized...

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...

By Renée Burwell

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...

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...

By Kate Balestrieri, Psy.D., CST, CSAT-S

PACT Level 3 Candidate

modernintimacy.com

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....

By Margaret Martin, LCSW, SEP

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...

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...

by Jacqui Christie, M.Psych

PACT Level 2 Therapist, PACT Ambassador

 Anyone who works with couples knows how tricky the particulars of partner dynamics can be. In fact, the more people in the room, the more energy gets brought into that room. The potential for that energy to become intense is high. 

Have you felt the heat rise between two partners as you work with them? You would know then that if you’re not paying close attention, things can easily go haywire. During my early career, I saw mainly individual clients, though I worked with couples from time to time.

However, after most of my couple sessions, I felt unskilled in one way or another and a more than a little let down. Don’t get me wrong, the couples wanted to keep coming, so I knew I must have been doing something right, but I didn’t seem to have a strong direction or model to guide me. 

Becoming a PACT Therapist

On a personal level, I was a longstanding fan of the Hendrix’s books,...

We’ve known for a long time about the many benefits of cultivating a sense of gratitude: more joy, less stress, better health.

So when anxiety started to bubble up earlier this year, it seemed like an especially good time to begin a more intentional practice of flexing those gratitude muscles. Since then, we’ve made a habit of writing down what we are grateful for each day.

Even though life has been stressful and unpredictable, we’ve found a lot to appreciate. To start, we are truly thankful for our PACT community. This year especially, we found that we’re all in this together.

Silver Linings in 2020

Yes, there have been silver linings.

When we moved suddenly to offer training online earlier this year instead of the in-person training we had planned, we were scrambling to figure things out. Not only did we quickly learn about the usefulness of online training, we learned how resilient and supportive and dedicated our PACT community really is.

You stuck with...