ONLINE THERAPY IN WASHINGTON STATE & California

PACT Couples Therapy

Directive, Challenging and Supportive Couples Therapy

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You’ve Been To Traditional Couples Therapy, But Need Something More

Have you been in talk therapy for months or years without seeing and experiencing change? 

  • PACT therapy can help the most challenging couples and types of conflicts

Do you find yourself stuck in the same cycles of conflict? Do you want to get to the core of your issues?

  • You don’t want to repeat and rehash old arguments over and over in therapy

Is it hard to understand your partner who has a history of trauma?

  • You’re not sure what to do or how to respond to triggers and moments of overwhelm

I practice a form of couples therapy called PACT which facilitates deep, long lasting, growth, change and insight.

What is Psychobiological Approach to Couples Therapy (PACT)?

  • PACT is a specialized couples therapy modality that teaches couples how to pay attention to physical and emotional cues when in conflict.

  • The therapist teaches clients how to work through the heart of the issue, which may be different than what the fight is about.

PACT Helps Couples Who

✔️ Hold tension in their bodies 

✔️ Experience the same relationship issues and want to shift unhelpful patterns/dynamics

✔️ Struggle to effectively communicate with each other

✔️ Feel disconnected from one another

✔️ Find it hard to trust one another

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What To Expect in an PACT Therapy Session

Paying close attention to your facial expression and other physiological evidence of arousal

  • Moment-to-moment changes and responses in partners' faces, voices, and body language as they act and react to each other

  • I teach couples to notice these changes in their partners so they can better read and understand each other.

Arousal Regulation

  • I’ll teach you the moment-to-moment ability to manage emotions and responses.

  • Instead of losing control with an emotional response, you learn to manage confidently. 

  • This leads to better conflict management and communication.

Understand and acknowledge triggers and how your nervous system becomes activated

  • Education on what happens when someone is triggered

  • Ways to slow down and take care of one another when you’re activated

Address the Root Cause of Issues

  • Understanding what is at the core of your conflict and tensions

Learn How To Fight Fairly

  • Couples learn how to fight fair and be resourceful to each other, even under the most difficult circumstances.

Re-Enactments

  • The challenging situations out of the office may be reenacted and reinvented not only for more accurate memory retrieval but also so that interventions enter the brain where they are actually needed should future situations arise

Make Mutual Agreements

  • Couples develop a web of agreements that act as a safety net for each other and their relationship

Facing One Another

  • Couples face each other during the entire session so they benefit from the validation of reading each other’s nonverbal cues and understanding where they typically misread each other

Therapist as coach, teacher, and advisor

  • Therapist acts as coaches or wise advisors, challenging the couple, as well as anticipating and diffusing problems prior to their occurrence.

Videotaped

  • Sometimes sessions are video taped and watched with clients, so you can see what I see

PACT Therapy Can Help You

✔️ Learn how to take care of one another and create a couple bubble

✔️ Make agreements effectively taking into account both of your input

✔️ Identify the purpose of your relationship (what do you two do for one another that you can’t pay someone else to do?)

✔️ Understand the connection between mind and body and how these shape your reactions under stress

✔️ Have healthy and secure functioning relationships

✔️ Slow down and stay in the present moment (rather than the past and future) 

✔️ Become more comfortable with vulnerability and share your feelings and emotions with someone else (rather than alone) 

✔️ Feel more safe in your body (and understand the reactions and ways to manage them) 

✔️ Better understand why you do what you do (to interrupt unhelpful relationship and emotional cycles)

✔️ Create corrective emotional experiences (to heal from past experiences)

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Healing Is Possible

There is hope.

I’ve worked with many survivors of childhood, attachment, and developmental trauma who now have more peace, joy, freedom in their lives.

I work with survivors of trauma who are now parents who want to parent healthier children and break the cycle of trauma.

I work with therapists and social workers who are wounded healers.

I work with professionals who feel exhausted, overwhelmed, burnt out, and want to take better care of themselves.

I work with individuals who are dating or in relationships and want to create and sustain healthier and more satisfying relationships.

You can feel more joy and peace.

You deserve to have a life where you feel at home not just in your head, but in your body and emotions. You deserve authentic connection and loving relationships with people you trust and care for. 

Reach out today to schedule a consultation.

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Still Have Questions?

  • You can consider:

    • Discernment counseling which helps relationships where one partner is leaning towards separating and the other is not and wants to stay together. This form of counseling is great for “tough clients”

    • Individual therapy which can help you learn, explore, and assess your own relationship issues (boundaries, communication, emotions, attachment) and how they show up in your current relationship

    • Self knowledge through reading books, listening to podcasts, watching videos, etc.

    Attending couples counseling where one partner is unsure/doesn’t want to attend will not be helpful because it takes commitment to the process for couples therapy to be effective. In some cases, it can actually be ineffective and harmful.

    Discernment counseling would be a better fit. I am not trained in discernment counseling.

  • I do not work with couples/relationships in:

    • Active domestic violence/intimate partner violence

    • Narcissistic abuse

    • Where active infidelity is occurring

    Before other issues in the relationship can be effectively addressed the abusive behavior must end.

    Domestic violence is defined as “a pattern of coercive behavior used by one person to control and subordinate another in an intimate relationship.

    These behaviors may include physical, sexual, psychological, and economic abuse” (Oregon Domestic Violence Council).

  • Couples see me for about 3-6 months.

  • You might cry. Many people do. And it's completely okay.

    Crying is a normal, helpful, and natural way for our bodies to release pent-up emotions. Crying is a way to let go of the pain, sadness, or frustration you may be carrying inside. By crying, you're actually taking a step towards healing.

    Or you might not cry. And that’s okay too.

  • My No Secrets policy is based upon the premise that when I agree to work with a couple or relationship, I consider that relationship/couple to be the patient.

    Whatever is shared outside of session will not be held as a secret.

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Start Therapy Today

Beginning therapy is the hardest step.

I’m here to make it as easy as possible.

I offer in person therapy in Seattle’s Ballard neighborhood Mondays - Thursdays.

I also offer online therapy for residents of California living in Los Angeles as well as the San Francisco Bay Area.

SCHEDULE YOUR first session