Stan Tatkin is a clinician, researcher, teacher, and developer of A Psychobiological Approach to Couple Therapy (PACT). PACT is a polytheoretical, non-linear approach to dyadic systems that integrates developmental neuroscience, arousal regulation, and attachment theory. Psychobiology centers on early attachment and its effect on the developing brain and autonomic nervous system. PACT encourages partners to adopt secure-functioning principles of behavior apart from their actual attachment organization. Tatkin created the PACT Institute in 2010 with his wife, Tracey Boldemann-Tatkin, PhD, to train mental health professionals to think and work through a psychobiological lens in their clinical practice. Tatkin's work, based on a social-emotional capacity model, focuses on what partners can and cannot do to mitigate threat reactions during stressful interactive sequences. The clinician pays particular attention to each partner's moment-by-moment implicit and explicit behaviors, such as microexpressions, micromovements, and other non-verbal and verbal cues. Sessions are commonly video recorded, and portions may be played back to the couple for feedback and interpretation. Video recorded sessions may also be examined by the clinician for post-inquiry and research by means of digital frame analysis in order to study a couple's behavior more precisely. The goal of the PACT Institute is to help couples and individuals reduce interpersonal stress and threat consequences through secure-functioning principles of fairness, justice, sensitivity, collaboration, and cooperation. Through the PACT Institute, Tatkin has trained thousands of therapists to integrate PACT into clinical practice throughout the U.S., Canada, England, Norway, Turkey, Australia, and Spain. He also co-leads Wired for Love Couple Retreats with his wife, Tracey. Tatkin's clinical practice is in Calabasas, California. He teaches and supervises family medicine residents at Kaiser Permanente, Woodland Hills, California, and is an associate clinical professor at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine, Department of Family Medicine. Tatkin is known for integrating various theories and models to form the foundation of the comprehensive principles and methodologies he teaches. As a result, the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapists, California, honored Tatkin with the Educator of the Year award 2014. Tatkin is on the board of directors of Lifespan Learning Institute and serves as a member on the Relationships First Advisory Board, a nonprofit organization founded by Harville Hendrix and Helen LaKelly Hunt.
Biography Tatkin studied at Antioch University Los Angeles, where he earned his undergraduate and graduate degrees. He received his Psy.D in clinical psychology from Ryokan College in 1994; the college later shut down. Tatkin received his early training in developmental self and object relations (Masterson Institute), Gestalt, psychodrama, and family systems theory. His private practice specialized for some time in treating adolescents and adults with personality disorders. More recently, his interests turned to psycho-neurobiological theories of human relationship and applying principles of early mother-infant attachment to adult romantic relationships. Tatkin was a primary inpatient group therapist at the John Bradshaw Center, where among other things, he taught mindfulness to patients and staff. He was trained in vipassana meditation by Shinzen Young, PhD, and became an experienced facilitator. He was also trained by David Reynolds, PhD, in two Japanese forms of psychotherapy, Morita and Naikan. Tatkin was clinical director of Charter Hospital's intensive outpatient drug and alcohol program. Trained in self and object relations for working with personality disorders through the Masterson Institute, he specialized early in his career as a clinician in treating adolescents and adults with personality disorders and drug and alcohol addiction. A former president of the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists, Ventura County chapter, he is a veteran member of Allan N. Schore’s study group. He also trained in the Adult Attachment Interview by way of Mary Main and Erik Hesse's program through UC Berkeley. He was also trained in Paul Ekman’s Facial Action Coding System by Erika Rosenberg.
A Psychobiological Approach Tatkin developed A Psychobiological Approach to Couple Therapy (PACT). PACT developed out of research in three areas: neuroscience, attachment theory and biology of human arousal. )
Publications
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