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Faculty

Stan Tatkin

PsyD, LMFT
Founder
PACT Institute

Stan Tatkin, PsyD, MFT, is a clinician, researcher, teacher, and developer of A Psychobiological Approach to Couple Therapy® (PACT). He has a clinical practice in Calabasas, CA, and, with his wife, Dr. Tracey Tatkin, co-founded the PACT Institute for the purpose of training other psychotherapists to use this method in their clinical practice.

In addition, Dr. Tatkin teaches and supervises family medicine residents at Kaiser Permanente, Woodland Hills, CA, and is an assistant clinical professor at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine, Department of Family Medicine. He is on the board of directors of the Lifespan Learning Institute and serves as a member of Relationships First Counsel, a nonprofit organization founded by Harville Hendrix and Helen LaKelly Hunt.

Books/CDs by Dr. Tatkin include:

• Wired for Love, 2nd edition
• In Each Other's Care
• Romantic Relationships, Touring and Mental Health
• What Every Therapist Ought to Know
• We Do
• Your Brain on Love
• Wired for Dating
• The Relationship Rx
• Baby Bomb
• Love and War in Intimate Relationships

2024 Sessions

Purpose-Centered Couple Therapy

As with any approach, couple therapy must have a clear vision toward which the couple can navigate. We may call this the therapeutic goal or therapeutic narrative. The clarity by which the therapist holds this vision and expects the couple to meet this goal largely determines therapeutic success. We might ask the couple before us, “Why are you a couple?” “What’s the point of your relationship?” “Who or what do you both serve?” Most partners will say, “We love each other,” or, “We have children,” or, “We have similar things in common.” This workshop focuses on what predicts long term success in adult romantic relationships. We will discuss how purpose and shared vision sets the stage for meaningful, long-lasting relationships, and how a lack of purpose, shared meaning, and shared principles of governance (guardrails that protect partners from each other) is a predictor of accumulated, psychobiological threat and eventual dissolution. Here we examine couple capacity to co-regulate distress states as essential to threat reduction as well as confront the couple attitude when it comes to what sustains relationships over the long run. Love is not enough to ensure relationship endurance given the ever-present, survival-based nature of the human primate.

Presenter

Wednesday, December 13 1:55–3:25 PM
Room Pacific - AB (Hilton)
Faculty

Stan Tatkin

PsyD, LMFT
Founder
PACT Institute

Stan Tatkin, PsyD, MFT, is a clinician, researcher, teacher, and developer of A Psychobiological Approach to Couple Therapy® (PACT). He has a clinical practice in Calabasas, CA, and, with his wife, Dr. Tracey Tatkin, co-founded the PACT Institute for the purpose of training other psychotherapists to use this method in their clinical practice.

In addition, Dr. Tatkin teaches and supervises family medicine residents at Kaiser Permanente, Woodland Hills, CA, and is an assistant clinical professor at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine, Department of Family Medicine. He is on the board of directors of the Lifespan Learning Institute and serves as a member of Relationships First Counsel, a nonprofit organization founded by Harville Hendrix and Helen LaKelly Hunt.

Books/CDs by Dr. Tatkin include:

• Wired for Love, 2nd edition
• In Each Other's Care
• Romantic Relationships, Touring and Mental Health
• What Every Therapist Ought to Know
• We Do
• Your Brain on Love
• Wired for Dating
• The Relationship Rx
• Baby Bomb
• Love and War in Intimate Relationships

The Use of Containers in Couple Therapy

Couple therapists must be able to organize each session in such a way that allows for measuring progress in their treatment plan. One such way is to think of placing the couple and therapist in discreet “containers” or exercises that stress the couple. These exercises, tasks, or games allow the therapist to test and retest hypotheses, test a particular capacity, or otherwise allow the therapist to view couple performance in real time. These containers include a task, timing, and possible roles casted by the therapist and may include a role the therapist must also play. An example might be a psychodrama whereby partners must replay a recent event – step by step – as the therapist, or as “the investigator,” gets the facts. Or another container might involve a deal breaker issue whereby partners are required to persuade each other out of a deal breaker while the therapist plays the role of mediating only the way partners argue their points.<br><br>In this demonstration, attendees will learn how containers may be used within a couple sessions. This unique way of organizing therapeutic investigations/interventions can help couple therapists assess problems and progress in each session.

Discussant

Presenter

Thursday, December 14 3:05–4:35 PM
Room Pacific - AB (Hilton)
Clinical Demo with Discussant
Faculty

Ellyn Bader

PhD
CEO-Co-Founder & Director
The Couples Institute

Psychotherapist, Founder of The Couples Institute® and Creator of The Developmental Model

Dr. Ellyn Bader is one of the early founders of “couples therapy,” as well as a recognized thought leader and trailblazer in relationship therapy worldwide. Acting on years of exploration and therapy sessions, she discovered that bringing the couple together in sessions was far more effective than working with each partner individually.

Through her informal research and thousands of sessions, Ellyn co-created “The Developmental Model,” a revolutionary approach that is highly adaptable to the complex needs of two people growing, changing, and staying connected in a relationship. The model has deeply influenced the therapeutic world and is currently used in 72 countries. It is taught by many graduate programs using her award-winning textbook In Quest of the Mythical Mate, which has been reprinted over 20 times.

Ellyn co-founded The Couples Institute® (1984) and co-authored Tell Me No Lies (2001) with her husband, Dr. Peter Pearson. The two have been a frequently trusted resource by TV, radio, podcast, and print publications, appearing on Nightline, NPR, CBS This Morning, Today Show, Good Morning America, and in articles in The Wall Street Journal, O Magazine, Cosmopolitan, and over 70 others.

She continues to evolve the field of couples therapy through her tireless commitment. She offers world-class training to thousands of therapists on applying “The Developmental Model” and becoming masterful at the art of couples therapy.

Faculty

Stan Tatkin

PsyD, LMFT
Founder
PACT Institute

Stan Tatkin, PsyD, MFT, is a clinician, researcher, teacher, and developer of A Psychobiological Approach to Couple Therapy® (PACT). He has a clinical practice in Calabasas, CA, and, with his wife, Dr. Tracey Tatkin, co-founded the PACT Institute for the purpose of training other psychotherapists to use this method in their clinical practice.

In addition, Dr. Tatkin teaches and supervises family medicine residents at Kaiser Permanente, Woodland Hills, CA, and is an assistant clinical professor at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine, Department of Family Medicine. He is on the board of directors of the Lifespan Learning Institute and serves as a member of Relationships First Counsel, a nonprofit organization founded by Harville Hendrix and Helen LaKelly Hunt.

Books/CDs by Dr. Tatkin include:

• Wired for Love, 2nd edition
• In Each Other's Care
• Romantic Relationships, Touring and Mental Health
• What Every Therapist Ought to Know
• We Do
• Your Brain on Love
• Wired for Dating
• The Relationship Rx
• Baby Bomb
• Love and War in Intimate Relationships
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