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...
With Love from Big Sur: Building the Couple Bubble
On a rainy Sunday afternoon in May, we wrapped up the Wired for Love Couples Retreat at Esalen in Big Sur, California. I assisted Stan Tatkin and Tracey Boldemann-Tatkin with 30 couples who came to find out how PACT can strengthen their relationship. This scenario illustrates how couples learn to shift their focus from self-protecting to strengthening their couple bubble. The couple bubble is a mutually constructed and maintained eco-system that provides protection from an often challenging outside world.
Friday Evening: Shelter from the Storm
After taking the winding turns of Highway 1 that opened onto the expanse of the Pacific Ocean, Annie and Sam put down their bags and went to Esalen’s natural hot springs. This was their first couples retreat and, on the drive, both admitted to being more than a little nervous. The baths relaxed their bodies. Their minds still raced with the stresses at home...
Joysticks and Controllers: Using PACT With Kids Who Use Video Games Obsessively
Jason Brand, LCSW
PACT Level II
Berkeley, CA
www.jasonbrand.com
Video games used to have joysticks—simple black boxes with a red trigger button and a stick for movement. Today they have controllers that are multi-buttoned, provide sensory feedback, and obey spoken commands. In many families, I see a longing to return to the joyful days of the joystick. In these families, the controller has become far more than just a way to manipulate video games on the digital screen; it is the nexus of a power struggle for healthy development in the child.
Michael, age fourteen, was caught up in this kind of family drama. Unlike kids who act out and do dangerous things outside the home, Michael was “acting in” by refusing to do anything away from the digital screen. His parents had lost control. They swung between desperate extremes. In one moment, they were gently delivering dinner to the computer because he refused to come to the table and eat. In the next, they were violently...
