No. But YOU can.

With the right support, feedback, practice, tools, and a shared framework, couples can recover from extremely challenging circumstances and choices to build safe, supportive, trustworthy partnerships. How extremely challenging? PACT has supported couples to heal from multi-decade betrayal trauma, undisclosed addictions (involving substances, sex and/or gambling), and high-conflict histories.

You chose each other. Together, you are responsible for the relationship. No therapist can actually do the couple's work to "fix" things. I can, however, honor your decision to continue to choose each other, and I can give you excellent tools to build the relationship you desire.

Couples who are committed to each other, who know they want to stay together, but haven't been able to figure out how to do so without hurting each other are excellent PACT candidates.

PACT successfully supports couples who may feel that they are in crisis, or who are trying to heal from betrayal trauma, deception, and/or cycling through high-conflict confrontations.

There isn't any type of couple who wouldn't benefit from PACT principles and skills, although PACT is specifically effective for relationships involving a 2-person system where partners have committed to making each other their primary priority.

PACT includes ideas from many wonderful approaches to couples' therapy. There isn't a "right way," other than the way that works for your partnership. This explanation doesn't come from peer-reviewed literature. Rather, it's my own understanding of each of these modalities, and why I chose to specialize in PACT, although I have training in and respect for other approaches.

Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT): EFT is fantastic for helping us understand what attachment is, and how it affects an individual in a relationship and the dynamic of the relationship, itself. EFT's tools tend to prioritize "single-person psychology," which can often contribute to a couple feeling helpless and stuck in a frustrating attachment pattern of big feelings and small skills.

The Gottman Method: Gottman's excellent work is based in skill development, and Gottman skills are essential to a couples' secure functioning. In my own practice, I see the Gottman approach isn't quite enough on its own. Couples need to understand the relationship between the neurobiology of co-regulation and maintaining a secure functioning relationship before they can apply Gottman's excellent skills.

The Developmental Model: Dr. Ellyn Bader's essential work at the Couple's Institute focuses on differentiation, or supporting each individual within a couple to separate from their partner in healthy ways. I incorporate several exercises of Dr. Bader's, as they are excellent tools to help members of a couple learn about and advocate for their wants and needs. PACT diverges from the Developmental Model, however, in that the Developmental Model assumes that independence is the ideal arrangement for partnership, and so it prioritizes each individual taking care of themselves. In contrast, PACT understands relationships to be interdependent, and so supports individuals within a couple to learn how to take care of themselves without simultaneously harming their partner, and, consequently, their partnership.

Every partnership is different. The way every partnership expresses stress is different, too.

Some have explosive arguments. Some are navigating betrayal. Some are surviving addiction. Some can act like the perfect couple at a party but haven't touched each other in years. Childhood trauma, chronic pain, porn, money, parenting, extramarital relationships; there is not enough space on this page to continue listing all of the causes and effects of relationship strain.

The PACT approach is a strengths based approach. It's a place where no relationship pattern or sexual desire is shocking, where every choice is analyzed simply in terms of how it's working for you and the partnership.

Every partnership gets stronger when it defines itself. PACT can teach you what, and because you decide the 'how' together, there's not much it can't handle.

PACT is goal-oriented.

PACT sessions are intentionally facilitated to support your partnership to strengthen your "couple bubble," and practice the skills and habits of mind necessary for you to build a secure functioning relationship.

PACT is efficient.

Often, couples avoid therapy because they fear that they'll just be paying someone to watch them fight. A PACT therapist may allow a fight for a few minutes, as it allows us to collect data, learn client body language and facial expression, and formulate hypothesis which we then run by the couple. A PACT therapist, however, will also not hesitate to interrupt an argument, or even a calm explanation from one of the partners, if it is headed in a direction other than solving a problem or building a secure functioning partnership.

PACT engages you in activities.

A PACT session is, most importantly, responsive to client need, and so it can look different from session to session. That said, there are some key features that remain consistent:

• You will spend more time facing each other directly than facing the therapist (even though I may still be prompting the conversation).

• You will be asked to participate in activities that will help you to notice, inquire, and learn about your partner (and they about you) in specific, guided ways.

• You will both be interrupted and/or redirected if your approach is harming your partnership.

• You may be offered suggestions regarding your facial expression, posture, word choice, tone of voice, and content of your comments as you talk to your partner.

Think of the PACT therapist like an animate mirror, noticing the things you're doing and not doing that may be keeping you from the partnership you crave.

My PACT sessions are 110 minutes long.

Dr. Tatkin, PACT's founder, holds 3-4 hour sessions, but I find that that amount of time is challenging for couples to both protect and afford.

A 50-minute session is usually just enough time to get a couple agitated, but not sufficient time to support skill building towards calming and supporting each other to leave the session resolved.

For this reason, I don't do 50-minute couples' sessions. A "double" session of 110 minutes seems to be the sweet spot in which we can get powerful work done and end on a functional, forward-facing note.