Bart and Susan: Consultation with Melissa Ferrari, PACFA Registered & AARC Registered

A NOTE FROM JASON:

Hello from Berkeley-  We all know the therapy cliches about how we end up marrying our parents or how our early childhoods lay out the behavior patterns of our functioning as adults.  The cliches are true-- one way that we learn to help couples is by understanding models of human development and early relationship patterns.  

The therapists who has a deep understanding of the science of attachment and utilizes it well to help couples can heal old attachment wounds and move development forward.  It’s a powerful tool.  So This episode answers the question... How does a couples therapist learn how to connect early attachment to the current day challenges that couples face?!  

I am very fortunate to have a rock-solid consultant for this dive into attachment.  My fellow PACT couples therapist Melissa Ferrari.  Melissa is based in Australia and her curiosity and enthusiasm for helping couples is infectious.  

I want to pull out a quote from the episode that really stuck with me, Melissa asks- “How does this couple lay together, knowing we both feel inadequate together and that's okay?”  If you have been following along this far you will know that “this couple” is Bart and Susan and that addressing feelings of inadequacy has been one of the main themes and struggles in the interviews.  

Melissa asks us to imagine how couples therapy could build a safe enough container for Bart and Susan to share their feelings of inadequacy about being deeply dependent upon each other as a way to move the relationship forward.  It’s really a beautiful way to frame their challenges and it rests on a solid foundation of helping to heal old attachment wounds through building safety and security in Bart and Susan’s current relationship.  To me, it very moving, exciting  and poetic.  I hope you feel the same when you take a listen.  JB

ABOUT SEASON 2 of HUMAN NURTURE:

Hosted by Jason Brand, LCSW a practicing couples therapist in Berkeley, California.  

In Season 2 of Human Nurture we will cover PACT in Training.  PACT stands for a Psychobiological Approach to Couples Therapy and has a reputation for effectively helping the most challenging situations that come up between couples.  

This season, we will answer the question, "How does a couples therapist learn to help with THAT?!?"  

"THAT?!?" could be any challenge that a couple brings into counseling-- from infidelity, to arguments about money, to processing past trauma, to decisions about the health and well being of a child. 

This season gives an insider's view to the world of couples therapy through interviews with actual couples and consultation interviews with other expert PACT therapists.  If you are a couples therapist looking to sharpen your skills, or if you are just curious about how couples therapists learn to do their job, tune into this season of Human Nurture.