What is PACT?
Understanding the Foundations of PACT Therapy
PACT stands for Psychobiological Approach to Couples Therapy.
PACT therapy prioritizes connection and attunement over verbal communication. It invites couples to find a felt connection using non-verbals such as eye contact, body positioning, sensitivity to each other’s cues and direct bids for care and attention.
PACT therapy emerged from Stan Tatkin’s career working with groups and individuals dealing with issues caused by personality disorders, addictions and trauma. When his own marriage went into crisis he began to work towards early prevention with mother-infant dyads. The failure of his marriage plagued him and he began to transfer his thinking about infant attachment, arousal regulation, and developmental neuroscience to adult couples in an attempt to understand his own loss.
The PACT approach pays close attention to the brain, mind and body. It is based on the premise that the implicit, primitive and nonverbal parts of the brain are responsible for most behavior in adult primary attachment relationships.
For therapy nerds, Stan’s work also incorporates structural and strategic family therapies gestalt, psychodrama, body psychotherapies, mindfulness, Morita and Naikan therapies and object relations. Although this combination of approaches sounds a bit scattershot, Tatkin’s genius lies in his ability combine elements of different approaches into a coherent and applicable framework.
Stan’s simple epiphany that the couple is ‘in each other’s care’ forms the basis of PACT. He shifted his emphasis away from self-regulation and towards interactive co-regulation and precipitated a creative process that began in 2003 and continues to evolve.
The Goals of PACT
Maintain a healthy and embodied connection
Learn how to help each other feel secure and safe
Minimize each other’s stress and protect each other’s health
Learn how to fight well
Learn to tolerate and navigate each other’s emotional highs and lows
What to Expect in a PACT Session?
The therapist will pay close attention to shifts in your face, body and voice and ask you to pay closer attention to these in your partner.
The therapist will invite you to re-enact experiences that trouble your relationship in order to work through them in real time.
The therapist will invite you to explore aspects of your past that may have laid the groundwork for unconscious and habitual patterns you bring into relationships.
My Approach to PACT
Although PACT provides an effective framework it will always be implemented in combination with the therapist’s distinct style and background. For example, I often use the sand tray for re-enactments and family of origin work. And I make modifications for clients that do not tolerate eye contact and/or feel resistant to directive interventions.
PACT work requires physical as well as emotional availability from both partners. It is more demanding on the nervous system than individual work where the therapist can focus exclusively on keeping one client safe and cared for. For couple’s dealing with a history of trauma it is recommended that you maintain a relationship with an individual therapist alongside the couple’s work.
My therapeutic style my not be a good fit if one partner is leaning out of the relationship and wants to use couple’s work to explore their reasons for leaving. If our sessions are leading toward the possibility of a separation, I may offer a referral to a therapist that specializes in this type of work.
I like to give a heads up that you may be tired, dysregulated and emotionally tender after a couple’s session. If possible, it is a good idea to schedule some stress-free time together after couples to rest, look after each other and integrate the work you have done.
Further Exploration of PACT
Explore PACT even further with this video by Stan Tatkin.
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