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Self-Regulation and the PACT Therapist
By Carolyn Sharp, LICSW
PACT Level III Therapist
http://www.carolynsharp.com/
After laughing with Marty about the wonderful date they had, Peter adds, “Of course we had to go to the restaurant you wanted.” With that slight emphasis on going to Marty’s restaurant pick, they go from shared laughter to bulging eyes and hostile voices, following each other out of connection and into attack. All it takes is one wrong comment to spin into the dynamic this high-arousal and high-conflict couple came to address. My heart rate increases and my throat tightens as my mind imagines the session going out of control. With my own arousal rising, I’m in danger of losing my capacity to be helpful.
Christina and Sam stare listlessly at the floor during extended pauses after my questions and comments. Their passivity and disconnection are in charge here, and neither partner makes a move toward closeness or engagement. I feel a yawn forming and can hear every sound outside my window, as boredom threatens my effectiveness. This couple will continue to do what they always do if I don’t activate the energy in the room.
In both these cases, the couple’s work together depends on my ability to self-regulate—to calm myself in the former and to self-activate in the latter. With PACT’s embodied approach (whereby the therapist uses the live felt-experiences of a couple to help them learn new ways of being with one another), my job is to help the couple learn to co-regulate each other’s nervous systems so they can find connection and safety. Their ability to do this is central to forming a secure-functioning relationship.
As a PACT therapist, self-regulation allows me to set the tone for the sessions and to create the frame and expectations for partners’ behavior. Additionally, when I am self-regulated, I have the capacity to marshal all my resources to respond helpfully with any interventions needed. I can’t fall outside my own window of tolerance or allow myself to react from emotion. Central to the skill of self-regulation is awareness of the strengths, challenges, and triggers within my own arousal system. The volume and speed of a couple’s speech can be irritating to my system, but tone and emotion are what cause my heart rate to spike. In the other direction, the slowness of their responses can be lulling, but disengagement between partners is the cause of a drop in my attention and attunement. Being aware of these triggers is the key to my ability to notice and take action.
The use of deliberate practice and repetitive skill-building exercises to automate responses to calm or activate myself when stressed has been enormously helpful to my self-regulation (Rousmaniere, 2016). I practice resetting my system when excited or bored so I can do so in session, without pause. Developing the emotional muscle memory to calm or excite myself makes it more likely that I can do the same in times of stress or in overwhelming situations.
Two of the simplest and most reliable means of self-regulation are exhalation and simple grounding (i.e., the ability to return my attention to my body and the room quickly). Using these has proven invaluable, and I often invite couples to practice them with each other when the room goes “high temperature” or “frozen” (the vernacular I share with couples). Lastly, the PACT serenity prayer serves as a powerful grounding in my role and responsibilities as a therapist. Through self-regulation, I am present with the couple before me and I allow them to practice being in each other’s care. The skills of self-regulation were useful in sessions with the two couples I described.
Peter and Marty came to PACT to learn to head off their explosive conflicts, as well as to help each other get through those conflicts safely. Through attunement and better co-regulation they are learning to do this. My self-regulation is integral to their process as I stay present and tuned in, while fully in my own window of tolerance. With a long, slow whistle on my exhale (indicating a nonverbal “wow” to Peter’s comment about the restaurant), I catch their attention. They are immediately connected through their mutual irritation at my interruption, followed quickly by amusement as they realize I just distracted them from their escalating fight. Being tuned into the energy in the room and its impact on me allows me to use a distraction to help regulate this couple and move them back within their window of tolerance and into each other’s care. Following a repair to one another, we talk about the things they have been practicing at home to get out of these scenarios, and then they practice regulating each other.
Christina and Sam came to therapy for help reigniting the passion and connection they lost over time as they focused all their energy on things outside their connection. Helping them requires me to activate the energy in the room, so I stand up and have them join me and take each other’s hands. Sam follows my request and begins to describe Christina’s face. Tears come as Christina feels Sam’s presence. Describing him, in turn, elicits a big smile, the first he has shown today. I watch them squeeze each other’s hands and then move into a hug. I vocalize the shift made when moving to each other. The listlessness I felt when I paid attention to my own response alerted me to the direction I needed to take to help them move toward each other.
Couple therapy can vacillate between high and low energy, between conflict and disengagement. Unregulated, therapists can quickly follow clients down any number of unproductive paths. Remaining grounded and regulated is our most powerful tool in maintaining our focus on facilitating secure-functioning couples.
Reference
Rousmaniere, T. (2016). Deliberate practice for early career psychotherapists. Psychotherapy Bulletin, 51(3), 25–29.
The Secure Family Asana
by Lon Rankin, LPCC, PACT faculty, Santa Fe, NM
Website: LonRankin.com
Email: Lon@ThePACTInstitute.com
Every species of mammal uses the limbic system—the social, emotional, relational part of the brain—to create strong bonds that provide safety and a felt sense of security. Adult-child bonding is especially crucial for the development of the complex human brain and nervous system, and the development of an internal felt sense of security in the world—both real and perceived. When parents are too often inattentive of their child’s emotional needs, this bonding does not happen optimally, and the injury of insecurity can prevail.
Memories, especially negative ones, are extremely powerful in influencing our perception of the world and our behaviors. Our subjective experience is colored by our past. All experiences, at any age, involving fear and threat are “velcroed” into the memory system in the interest of self-protection, but memories from childhood have particular potency. Children do not survive very long without parental attention and protection, and times of parental inattention, misattunement, and neglect are perceived as profoundly threatening. These memories become deeply wired into the brain and imprinted in the mind. (This is the basis for the value of inner child work in modern psychotherapy.) Many of the patients we work with are reacting from these often implicit and unconscious, velcroed threat memories and their activation, without proper awareness and attention from their partner.
PACT therapists understand the workings of this internal safety and security system, and the importance of this area in our work with couples. As PACT therapists, we motivate movement from projected, negative, internalized relational blueprints toward secure functioning within the primary partnership. In moving couples in this direction, we understand the importance of partners “holding each other in mind,” especially in these places of old injury. We ask them to take on the mantle of the attending parent in these areas of distress by holding their partner and their partner’s history in mind.
Toward this end, I often do the following exercise with my patients. My wife’s passion for yoga helped me envision this practice, so I affectionately call it the Secure Family Asana. (Āsana is a Sanskrit term to describe yoga postures that can promote change.)
At an appropriate place in a couple’s treatment, I invite them to sit face to face and interactively regulate each other. I have both partners imagine their arms around both their own inner child and their partner’s inner child (see Figure 1). I ask the couple to imagine being attentive parents to the places of childhood insecurity, and for this to be mutual, face to face and eye to eye.
Figure 1
Using this imagery and practicing it externally can promote the replacement of insecure blueprints within the procedural memory system. An internalized felt sense of comforting safety can then enhance secure functioning within the couple in times of distress, rather than the repetition of injury from the original memory patterns.
As PACT therapists, we know that secure functioning is characterized by a balance of valuing both self and the relationship. Therefore, we encourage couples to tend their own historical and present-time hurts, as well as be there for their partner’s hurts. Two strong, secure, internalized partners regulate these past injuries and their repetitive projected activations together. Old hurts are securely attended to in a mutual manner, rather than being allowed to take over and threaten the partnership.
This Secure Family Asana exercise embodies the tending of self and other, in both past and present. It encourages the healing of old hurts, and the growth of an internalized reparative family system. Couples can practice it to powerfully support their movement toward secure functioning.
Copyright Lon Rankin
Accelerating Development with PACT
by Jeff Pincus, LCSW, PACT faculty, Boulder, CO
Website: CouplesTherapyBoulder.com
Email: Jeff@ThePACTInstitute.com
Emotional development doesn’t happen in isolation. The entire field of psychotherapy rests upon the premise that one human being can help another to move beyond vestigial strategies developed in the context of the distant past and to live life in a way that is less encumbered by personal history. We consider this to be emotional or psychological growth. Part of the blessing of being human is that this process can be ongoing as we learn, grow, and continue to develop across our entire lifespan.
As a PACT therapist, PACT trainer, and husband who continues to put PACT principles to the test in my own marriage, I have been awed by the acceleration of development and maturation that occurs within a committed partnership when both parties co-create a foundation of secure functioning. This is the bedrock that PACT helps couples stand upon, and that supports a resurgence of development where there has been regression, idleness, and apathy.
Many models of couple therapy have merit. What sets PACT apart is its understanding about how the processes of emotional maturation, individuation, and differentiation actually occur. We are biologically wired for curiosity, creativity, and learning, but these functions can only take place when the experience of safety and security is online. When our safety and security are perceived to be at risk, our attention and behaviors are dominated by the tasks of mobilizing away from threat (fleeing), subduing danger (fighting), or shutting down (collapse). When processes organized around the drive for survival consume a relationship, couples stay in an immature state where there is no room for practicing and learning to occur. As clinicians, when we witness these behaviors in the therapy, we consider such ineffective strategies to be “acting out.”
Secure functioning both requires and facilitates each partner to develop emotionally, take pro-relationship risks with each other, and be collaborative. As PACT therapists, we expect this from our clients. We see their potential, and we are willing to push them when necessary so that they actually taste their capacity to be better. During a session, this may be in the form of directing them to reach out even when their instinctual impulse is to withdraw, to maintain eye contact when the habitual tendency is to gaze avert, or to say something loving when the reflex is to attack or defend.
Through such practicing, each member of the dyad risks shedding old, primitive defenses to become a more resilient and robust adult. Each takes greater responsibility for the current state of the relationship, and for moving it forward toward deeper satisfaction. This is true differentiation. PACT helps couples become their best adult selves in a relationship where growth and personal development are a natural outcome of love and commitment.
Copyright Jeff Pincus
Red Sky in the Morning, Sailors Take Warning
by Elaine Tuccio, LCSW, PACT faculty, Austin, TX
Email: elaine@thepactinstitute.com
One of the most common complaints made by couples who come to therapy is that they feel they do not know how to communicate well with one another. The words “we have problems communicating,” or something along those lines, are often preceded or followed by a deep sigh—the signal of long-held misery and defeat.
The PACT therapist using the Partner Attachment Inventory (PAI) can obtain enough information within the first session to help a couple see that their problems are not simply communication. In fact, where couples tend to falter most is in reading signs and signals—the nonverbal cadence on which primary attachment relationships are built. Life’s forces have caused drift in their relationships. A mix of financial stress, betrayal, conflicting priorities of career and family, and addictions have thrown them into survival mode. As a result of early unmet developmental needs and attachment injuries, they find themselves at sea in their adult romantic partnership. Instead of smooth sailing, they tack too much or lean too little.
Consider Chuck and Tina, who are committed, loving parents to a child with cerebral palsy. In therapy, Chuck voiced frustration that his wife would not talk with him. Tina listened to every word as she held back tears, bit her lower lip, and wrung her hands, then stammered out words to defend herself. Both partners were clearly expressive, but in their own learned attachment style of communication. Tina’s parents had poured all their energy into their kids, but she couldn’t recall them talking at length with one another. They divorced when she was ten. Chuck’s father left when he was two. His doting mother never remarried, and he spent a lot of time alone in front of the television. The PAI helped this couple discover that neither was raised with examples of partners negotiating. This significant finding built hope for Chuck and Tina and helped them see that both wanted to communicate but they did not know how—yet.
Old-time sailors knew to be on the lookout for atmospheric changes, to stay in constant communication with their shipmates, and to point ahead always. As young sailors, they were guided by masters of the sea and learned to expect the best but plan for the worst, and leave nothing to chance. Not everyone entering a relationship is fortunate enough to be launched in a boat rigged for all sailing conditions. PACT therapists are trained to be master navigators at the helm. We help couples help themselves on rocky seas, in and out of narrow channels, and around sandbars. We teach them to distinguish between a red sky in the morning and a red sky at night so they can avoid storms that may be brewing and instead delight in life as it is—wonderful, unpredictable, painful, loving, beautiful, and forever changing.
Copyright Elaine Tuccio
Secure Enough to Be Spontaneous
by Hans Jorg Stahlschmidt, Ph.D., PACT faculty, Berkeley CA,
Website: www.stahlschmidt-therapy.com
Email: hans@thepactinstitute.com
Burnout is common among psychotherapists. Countless articles and books deal with reasons for and prevention of burnout. However, some instances of burnout are nearly impossible to prevent, given dysfunctional institutional settings, demanding and taxing work hours, and a difficult and acting out clientele. Many commentators have opined that psychotherapists may lack sufficient self-care to counter the ongoing stress of dealing with the psychological pain and trauma of their patients, especially in the context of isolation characteristic of this profession.
For me, becoming a PACT therapist has proven to be the best burnout prevention. This approach requires a strong therapeutic frame and a complex set of skills that is rooted in a defined conceptual foundation. It also allows a freedom I have not experienced in other therapeutic approaches. This is the freedom to make use of one’s self and to allow spontaneity in the therapy room. This, in turn, makes work not only more fun and more exciting, but also more rewarding.
PACT focuses on the expressions and signals of the autonomic nervous system. PACT therapy is a bottom-up, show-me process. As therapists, we have to know about our own facial expressions, gestures, and how we come across to others, so we can regulate more intentionally and effectively. To be master regulators who can facilitate a more real, truthful, and authentic relationship between partners, we have to be able to regulate ourselves.
The emphasis in PACT is on “regulating,” which does not mean controlling or being neutral or reserved. I remember being in a psychoanalytic training group 22 years ago and feeling I had to apply a sense of carefulness and guardedness because self-expression that revealed too much about my personhood would contaminate the therapeutic work. That stance required me to exhibit reserve and the control of emotional expression in order to be seen as a neutral figure upon whom the patient could project his or her inner processes. The interaction was limited, and spontaneity rare.
As humans, we can feel and see the difference between a limbic smile and a social smile. Our patients can detect the difference between artificial warmth and authentic warmth, and between simulated empathy and authentic empathy. Because we are in the business of limbic regulation, as therapists we can’t rely on social and artificial signaling in our interactions with couples. We have to be able to bring into play real responses.
Our patients can detect our fear and will not trust us if we pretend. If we are overly guarded, we will not be effective in our attempts to move a couple toward secure functioning. We need both a sense of our own security and a sense of freedom to be able to let feelings, thoughts, impulses, and desires arise and guide our interactions so they do not create a “minefield” and resemble the more careful and guarded stance of previous approaches.
My freedom starts when I greet a couple in the waiting room. I am really happy to see them. I look forward to being with them. I can’t help but smile. I think it is a limbic smile. It is part of “falling in love” with the couples with whom I work. Ten years ago, I did not always fall in love with the couples with whom I worked. But now I do.
An essential challenge to becoming a PACT therapist is to move oneself toward secure functioning. With a stance of secure functioning, the internal regulatory and emotional field of the therapist is not experienced as a minefield that necessitates stepping carefully and gingerly. Rather, the internal vicissitudes can be trusted, and the freedom to risk spontaneous expression can be modeled for the couple.
According to PACT, a therapist is more like a host who can make the couple feel at ease than like an intimidating expert. PACT therapists develop the capacity to relax and then move in. They find a rhythm in their work that includes spontaneity and the ability to trust their own sources of inspiration. In the words of Stan Tatkin, we move from inspiration rather than pressure.
Copyright Hans Stahlschmidt
Betrayal Causes Trauma
by Stan Tatkin, PsyD, MFT,
stantatkin.com
In matters of betrayal—lying, cheating, stealing—the breach of the attachment system is acute and often long lasting and can be understood neurologically as a trauma-related problem.
Franklin and Zeynep, a couple in their early 40s with two young children, came to therapy because of a discovered set of sexual affairs. Franklin, an American-born academician, was found to have an affair with one of his students. Zeynep, a Turkish-born emergency room nurse, discovered the affair after accidentally viewing Franklin’s phone text messages. The texts were explicitly sexual and contained incontrovertible evidence of Franklin’s deceptions and betrayals. Although Franklin was contrite and desperately wanted to be let back into the relationship, he had great difficulty dealing with Zeynep’s unrelenting preoccupation with his affair. She wanted to know details. Fearful of making matters worse, he refused to give details. Zeynep would wake up in the middle of the night crying, and suddenly burst into a rage while they drove to dinner. She did not want Franklin to touch her. He was not to sleep in their marital bed. Franklin’s patience was at an end. He began to believe that Zeynep was purposely punishing him and was invested in making his life a living hell. Neither partner wanted the relationship to end, but neither could escape the strong wake of the betrayal itself.
PACT therapists will recognize that betrayal by a primary attachment figure is likely to be processed as trauma. Betrayals in adult romantic partnerships most commonly revolve around sex and/or finances, but central to all betrayals is the matter of deception. Partners who feel deceived by their loved ones suffer a particular kind of loss that can affect the historical memory of that relationship. Deceived partners will review the entire relationship in an attempt to reorganize their experiences of self and other. This review reorients the memory toward doubt, fear, and rage. In Zeynep’s case, we see that she could not stop thinking about Franklin’s betrayal and demanding details. Even though he did not provide details, her brain filled in its own details, which fed her doubt and fear. Flooded by these emotions, she would alternately withdraw from him and rage at him.
Once initiated, this review process cannot be interrupted because the brain must reorganize and adapt to the new information. As in PTSD, the brain and body must metabolize the trauma and cope with amygdalar hyperactivity as the amygdala responds to multiple internal and external triggers. However, different from PTSD, betrayal forces a hippocampal review and re-contextualization of the past with new information from the present. PTSD usually does not compel the brain to review past events; in fact, victims of PTSD commonly wish to avoid any review of the traumatic event, and their hippocampal function can be compromised by the traumatic event.
Betrayal, therefore, usually leads to a preoccupation with the new reality-shattering information. This presents an enormous challenge to the couple attempting to recover from it. Like Zeynep, the victim cannot stop being preoccupied with the past, present, and future, nor escape the emotional volatility that accompanies this process. The perpetrator therefore must tolerate the other partner’s perseveration and emotional volatility, as well as the constant questioning, grief, and anger that come with the healing process. In this case, Franklin had to learn patience for the couple to have any chance at rebuilding their relationship. Somewhat ironically, the perpetrator is in a unique position as not only the cause of the trauma but also its solution. This is not an easy task for the perpetrator to perform. Yet, the PACT therapist takes the position that the betraying partner must provide ongoing and sufficient support to regulate disturbing states related to the trauma whenever they arise.
Copyright © 2003-2014 Stan Tatkin, PsyD – all rights reserved
2014 Annual Interpersonal Neurobiology Conference at UCLA
Join me, Allan Schore, Dan Siegel, Sir Richard Bowlby, Philip Bromberg, Pat Ogden, Lou Cozolino, Gay Bradshaw, Alex Katehakis, Drew Pinsky, Margaret Wilkinson, Ruth Lanius, Darcia Narvaez, Jennifer McIntosh, Christopher Kennedy Lawford, and Judith R. Schore for this year’s annual UCLA conference sponsored by Lifespan Learning. UCLA March 14-16 2014, Brochure
On Being Found
by Stan Tatkin, PsyD, MFT,
stantatkin.com
A study by Nagasawa and his colleagues in Japan (2009) some years ago involving dogs and their owners found that if a dog looked into its owner’s eyes by finding the gaze first, the owner’s oxytocin levels went up. (I suspect dopamine might also be increased). However, if the owner’s gaze found the dog’s eyes first, no increase in oxytocin resulted. This finding has continued to “dog” me as I thought about infant attachment studies and adult romantic relationships. What is it about a dog, a baby, or a lover finding our eyes that leads to an increase in dopamine, oxytocin, vasopressin, or other neurochemicals related to the reward system?
During early infancy, when the newborn’s gaze is largely undirected, the catching of the mother’s gaze by the infant leads to a dopaminergic rush—a reward that is evident in the mother’s subsequent inviting vocal tone and facial expression. This excitement on her part amplifies the infant’s own interest in returning to the mother’s gaze, and thus the pattern repeats. We might imagine that if the mother chased the infant’s eyes (as in the case of the dog), the same neurochemical reaction would not occur for her. There does seem to be, in fact, a difference between finding and being found.
Find the Baby
A common maxim in the field of infant development is that, in the first year of life, the baby must lead. The baby’s mind has yet to be located; it is floating in some nether land, waiting to be discovered by an interested, attentive, and curious adult mind. The adult mind, or brain, must find the baby’s mind, and that can only be accomplished by allowing the baby to lead and the caregiver to follow. Donald Winnicott wrote about the mother’s intense primary maternal preoccupation with the newborn. She focuses attention on the nonverbal being, who can neither fend for itself nor express needs in an adult manner, and whose very life depends upon an interested other who can read its cues for comfort, food, and relief from pain. Indeed, the mother’s capacity for what Dan Siegel (2009) terms mindsight—her ability to read the infant’s needs and locate the baby’s mind—creates an external psychobiological womb-like experience for the defenseless, unhatched infant (Mahler, Bergman, & Pine, 1975).
Find Your Partner
Unlike the baby, your partner’s mind should be fully formed (we hope), and therefore not in need of being found in order to survive in the world. Nonetheless, it could be argued that both you and your partner need to be found to thrive in mind, body, and spirit if life together is to be worth much. Do you know how to find your partner? Have you been found?
The Eyes Have It
We are animals that function optimally by regulating our nervous systems (and emotions) interactively with others. The means of interactive (or mutual) regulation is primarily through touch, vision, and sound, in that order. Though touch has great power to down- and up-regulate another person, eye contact comes in a very close second. Indeed, when it comes to finding and being found, the eyes have it.
When we gaze at our partner (or baby or dog, for that matter), we are in real time. By gazing I don’t mean staring or looking through or looking inward; by gazing I mean being fully present in the eyes of our loved one. If we maintain presence—something our partner can see—we also become anchored in real time, in the present moment. If we look into our partner’s eyes, we can see him or her think, feel, and change before us.
Finding, Losing, and Finding Again
In case you think finding and being found is a one-time event, you’re dead wrong. The process of finding and being found is a series of losing the other and being lost. It’s an error-filled process of attunement and misattunement, of error making and error correction, of injury and repair. It’s not being found for good that is most important; rather, it is the continuous interest, as demonstrated by the other, in refinding you over and over again!
Our focused gaze and interest in finding our partner over and over again not only cultivate a feeling of love and excitement (dopamine), but also reintroduce us to the strangerness that is our partner—his or her uniqueness, unpredictability, and complexity. Our sense of self and other becomes refreshed, new, updated, and novel. When our partner gazes attentively, he or she can find us despite our attempts to hide or remain unknown and unfound. Couples who rely on interactive regulation, which is really close-up play, benefit from the moment-by-moment experience of finding and being found.
Of course, we must have an interest in finding our partner! Some partners are as disinterested in finding each other as were their parents in finding them as a baby. Some partners are overly interested in finding but not in being found, as happened in childhood with their caregivers. Always turning away toward the self as a masturbatory exercise in self-finding is as lonely as always turning toward another person in a perpetual search for the other who may one day find us. Finding and being found must be interactive, mutual, and effortful. Otherwise, just stick with the dog.
Mahler, M. S., Bergman, A., & Pine, F. (1975). The psychological birth of the human infant: symbiosis and individuation. New York, NY: Basic Books.
Nagasawa, M., Kikusui, T., Onaka, T., & Ohta, M. (2009). Dog’s gaze at its owner increases owner’s urinary oxytocin during social interaction. Hormones and Behavior, 55, 3, 434–441.
Siegel, D. (2009). Mindsight: The new science of personal transformation. New York, NY: Bantam.
© 2003-2013 Stan Tatkin, PsyD – all rights reserved
Arousal Regulation and Mindfulness for Couples
by Stan Tatkin, PsyD, MFT,
stantatkin.com
In PACT, we talk about various strategies for emotional and arousal regulation. Auto-regulation is a process of self-management that is internally focused, energy conserving (because it doesn’t involve interactions with people), and somewhat dissociative. It is a non-social strategy in the sense that it does not require another person. For instance, when I manage myself by self-stimulating and self-soothing; others are not required or even wanted. Some people find using mindfulness practices for auto-regulatory purposes to be a better strategy than constantly seeking to be left alone.
Self-regulation, on the other hand, is a pro-social strategy that focuses on self-management. In other words, I manage myself so I can better maintain social engagement with others.
Mindfulness practices can be used effectively for self-regulatory purposes. I suspect this is one of the reasons behind their recent popularity.
In fact, the term “mindfulness” carries various subtle shades of meaning, reflecting different schools of practice. For example, when I studied Morita and Naikan (two forms of Japanese psychotherapy) with David K. Reynolds (1989), mindfulness was emphasized differently in each. Morita required me to pay continuous attention to the outside world while accepting my thoughts and feelings as outside my conscious control. Because thoughts and feelings cannot be controlled by will alone (like the weather), the smart thing to do is to accept them “as is” and focus on one’s purpose. So I learned to be mindful and centered on purpose (not on feeling or thinking). The initial result of such a practice was intense existential angst, but eventually it disciplined me to appreciate details in the world around me while being less hung up on my internal world. Naikan required a continuous attention on what I received from people, what I gave to people, and the trouble I caused people. The initial result of that practice was strong feelings of guilt and remorse, but it also led to profound, pervasive feelings of gratitude. Naikan practice helped me see what I got from people and what I continually get from people despite my attitude, my greediness, my envy, and my self-centeredness.
When I learned vipassana (a form of Theravada Buddhist meditation), also known as insight meditation, from Shinzen (Stephen) Young, mindfulness meant continuous, moment-by-moment attention to body sensations, thoughts, emotions, impulses, and urges as they arose and soon faded. The two-part technology of vipassana (attention and equanimity) taught me to manage my internal world. Notice and allow. Notice and allow. I could learn to handle physical pain, as well as mental and emotional anguish, without suffering. Wow. Talk about self-regulation! Vipassana was (and is) a mind-blower.
Each of these—Morita, Naikan, and vipassana—is an example of mindfulness practice. Each is powerful and quite different from the others, yet each yields benefits for only as long as the practice is maintained. Stop the practice and the benefits stop, too.
These practices can be done either alone or with a partner. For instance, my wife and I can decide to practice vipassana or any other mindfulness practice together, in the same room at the same time. Nice.
We can also face each other and practice mindfulness meditation while in each other’s eyes (simultaneous attention to both inside and outside). Practicing in this way cultivates interactive regulation (sometimes referred to as co-regulation or mutual regulation). Because it involves use of the near senses (e.g., vision, voice, or touch), interactive regulation is like a dance between two nervous systems, two minds, two bodies. It is a social-emotional balancing act that requires attention, presence, and equanimity. Each of the following suggestions emphasizes mindfulness and equanimity as a two-person, interactive regulatory practice.
Using Morita, mindful attention is placed onto the outside world. That includes your partner! We pay attention to each other’s eyes, facial expressions, body movements, implicit signals and bids for attention. We accept feelings and thoughts, both positive and negative, “as is,” without judgment or complaint. Instead, we focus on purpose, such as providing each other relief, anticipating each other’s needs and wants, and attending to what needs to be done rather than on what we feel or think. For example, my wife and I can decide to have an entire evening of nonverbal interactions—on purpose, of course. We can make and eat dinner, relying solely on nonverbal communication. We have to anticipate each other’s moves; interpret each other’s signals (e.g., “pass the salt”); and work together cooperatively.
This practice of noble silence can continue through the evening and into bedtime, as well as during our transition to sleep. An adventurous couple could try this for an entire day or maybe even a weekend. If you’re in a couple, see what it’s like. Pretend you can’t talk and can only use nonverbals.
Another Morita mindfulness exercise could involve giving one another a massage. The massage should be like a mindfulness meditation in which the giver pays moment-to-moment, purposeful attention to the act, while accepting all thoughts and feelings “as is.” The Morita reason for giving a massage is that it needs to be done with full attention! The good thing about massage, like eye contact, is that the receiving partner can always tell if the giving partner’s mind is drifting.
In Wired for Love, I suggest that couples do bedtime rituals. One such ritual is to do a loving kindness meditation. Variations of loving kindness practices include those stemming from vipassana. Naikan also has a loving kindness practice that can be done at any time of day. For instance, make a list of people who gave you things today, whether or not you wanted the gift, whether or not they intended to give it to you, or whether their attitude was good or bad. Take a piece of paper and draw three columns, with the first entitled “What he/she gave to me today.” Both partners should spend considerable time on this particular column before moving on to the next column, which is entitled “What I gave him/her/them today.” The third column should be entitled “The trouble I caused him/her today.” This last column should also receive proper attention to detail. Reading this list aloud to one another can become a Naikan loving kindness practice.
Alternatively, a couple can give their best wishes to those people past and present, living and dead, as the partners drift off to sleep at night. This mindfulness practice of attending to others in a loving way can provide an internal social connection for those who feel alone, lonely, abandoned, or isolated.
Whether doing vipassana, Naikan, Morita, or any other self-enhancing mindfulness practice, the purpose should be to increase one’s presence. It should not be a means to avoid, space out, trip out, self-soothe or self-stimulate. We are social creatures and mindfulness should be a means toward becoming more connected to ourselves and others.
Reynolds, D. K. (1989). Flowing bridges, quiet waters: Japanese psychotherapies, Morita and Naikan. Albany: State University of New York Press.
© 2003-2013 Stan Tatkin, PsyD – all rights reserved
Be Attractive, Not Scary
by Stan Tatkin, PsyD, MFT,
stantatkin.com
Having a “couple bubble” helps maintain a safe and secure ecosystem that keeps intruding, destructive elements away. The world inside the couple bubble should be more safe, more secure, more encouraging, and less stressful than the world outside the bubble. That means not only protection from the outside but also from inside. Many couples fail to understand that the primary attachment system, aka the adult romantic relationship, operates on attraction and not on fear, threat, or guilt. We usually come by our partners by way of attraction and it is by attraction that we keep our partners (and ourselves) happy.
If each partner is unable to find multiple ways to cajole, persuade, seduce, influence, or otherwise get each other to come home, come to bed, go someplace, or do something, he or she will most certainly resort to the use of fear, threat, or guilt — a penny-wise, pound-foolish stratagem.
Practice now and find your inner negotiator. Be fetching, beguiling, inviting, seductive, charming, alluring. Be collaborative, resourceful, flexible and by all means, don’t be scary!
© 2003-2013 – Stan Tatkin, PsyD – all rights reserved
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