By Falon Hooks, MA, t-LMFT
PACT Level 2 Therapist

If you are coming into my office for couples therapy, I can guess that one central concern is communication. Whether it is too infrequent, too intense, or too uncomfortable of a topic, many of you will sit lips pursed, hoping the unspoken moment will pass. 

Those micro-moments of anxiety and disconnection add up quickly. Before you realize it, you cannot remember the last time you sat facing your partner to chat and, more importantly, connect. 

When I consider how communication between partners must work, I immediately turn to secure-functioning principles of honesty and transparency. Just say what is true.

How many times have you felt a shift in your partner’s mood and the moment you inquire, they brush it off? Their replies range from a grunt to “Nothing” to “I don’t want to talk right now.” 

Alarm bells start to sound, you clam up, and you are quite certain trouble is looming. You...

Clinton Power

PACT Level 2 Therapist, PACT Ambassador
clintonpower.com.au

Some people want chocolates and roses for Valentine's Day, but it's not the small (or big) romantic gestures on special occasions that lead to relationship success. To go from an initial date to a long-term relationship you need to look for qualities in a potential mate that make you feel safe and open with that other person. What you may not know is that these traits can lead you in the direction of developing a secure-functioning relationship.

What is a secure-functioning relationship?

A term coined by PACT co-founder Dr. Stan Tatkin, a secure-functioning relationship is an interpersonal system based on principles of true mutuality, collaboration, justice, fairness, and sensitivity. You and your partner are taking on the world together. You protect each other from the threats of the external, the outside world, and from the internal, each other. A secure functioning relationship acknowledges and celebrates...

By Debra Campbell, MS, LMFT
PACT Ambassador, Level 3
gocuris.com/debracampbell.html

When a couple comes to our office, they bring a dynamic in the relationship that pains them.  Neither partner sees the issue in the same way, and they don’t know how to solve it.  Often, they’ve argued about it repeatedly. Talking about it just starts the argument again.

The rate at which the disagreement escalates is an indicator of how many times they’ve argued the same issue.  We know they’re not dealing with anything new because the brain deals with novelty much more slowly than something we have habituated.  How, as therapists, can we help the couple slow down and experience something new?

In PACT Couples Therapy, we use proximity, micro-expression, and body language to achieve more constructive outcomes that have a lasting effect outside of session. Here’s a familiar scenario:

Last fall, Rebecca and Bob were running late to their therapy session....

By Jason Polk, LCSW, LAC 
PACT level II Therapist 
Denver, CO 
https://coloradorelationshiprecovery.com/

Repair is one of the most important things for couple s to master. If there was an incident or argument that caused one or both of you distress, repair moves you back into harmony, or at least to a neutral state where you’re both calm and are no longer lobbing hurtful words or actions at each other. 

Repair is the place where you reconnect as lovers, or at least as partners. In order to repair and reconnect, we have to give something for our partner to connect to. And what we can’t connect to is anger, blame, or self-pity. So, we need to pause and become aware of what’s underneath this protective armor and share that. This is called vulnerability. In PACT, it can be called taking care of our self.  

If you take the time to self-reflect on the feeling that your anger is protecting, through the lens of PACT, you’re...

By Eva Van Prooyen, M.F.T.
PACT certified couple therapist
evavp.com
[email protected]

Relationships are messy, and all couples experience conflict. Becoming skillful at repairing those conflicts quickly is the ultimate goal, but when we are in distress, under threat, or in the heat of an argument, it can be hard to stay connected to the (higher cortical) parts of our brain, which use intelligence to create and maintain peace and harmony. The (lower/subcortical) fast-acting, survival-oriented parts of our brain are poised to quickly identify danger and respond with a rapid reflex, directing us straight into battle.

Winston and Abby, a couple in their mid-30s, came to couple therapy 5 years into their marriage because they had "stalled," were having the "same type of fight," and felt "resentment and fatigue" were setting in. They wanted to stay together but were stuck in a never-ending loop of finger...

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...

by Stan Tatkin, PsyD, MFT,
stantatkin.com

Our brain is biased toward making war than love. Our brainstem and lower limbic structures are always on the lookout for threat and danger. And painful memories are more easily made than pleasurable ones. This bias serves the human imperative "thou shalt not be killed." Memories are formed, at least in large part, by glutamate (neurotransmitter) and adrenaline (hormone). Strong or intense emotional experience, aided by glutamate and adrenaline, will help long term memory formation, particularly if the emotional intensity is protracted.

When one person hurts another, intentionally or not, the injured party seeks relief. If relief is not provided in a timely manner, that hurt will likely go into long term memory. When partners ignore or dismiss injuries or make unskillful attempts at repair, the offending partner is CREATING a bad memory in the injured partner -- something that will certainly come back to haunt.

Remedy: Fix, repair, make right,...