Arousal and Affect Regulation in Couple Therapy (PACT) - Video

"Stan Tatkin's presentation focuses on the second domain of a psychobiological approach to couple therapy (i.e., the sub-psychological matter of the autonomic nervous system, neuroendocrine system, the vagal complex), which presents perhaps the most significant challenge to long-term romantic relationships. It is also the domain, which represents one of the greatest contributions of Allan Schore's work to PACT. Through lecture and demonstration Tatkin teaches how to work on arousal regulation issues with couples.Couple therapy has had a long tradition of ineffectiveness, possibly because earlier approaches attempted to retrofit cognitive, behavioral, and psychoanalytic models to a dyadic system. Systems theory seemed to promise a more appropriate model for family therapy; however, that too did not fully address the intersubjective, phenomenological problems of the two-person system. To meet the complexity of the couple system, an integrated psychobiological approach to couple therapy must be employed, one that addresses that system from a bottom-up, procedural memory perspective. In essence, this approach combines the contributions of three key domains: attachment theory; arousal and affect regulation; and neuroscience, including the social-emotional deficits of the right brain. "