Episodes
Monday Oct 04, 2021
Bart and Susan: Producer Wrap-up with Carolyn Sharp, LiCSW
Monday Oct 04, 2021
Monday Oct 04, 2021
A NOTE FROM JASON:
Greetings, this is the final episode of the first leg of this three part journey. Today we wrap up with our first couple Bart and Susan.
In this first series of episodes, there has been a conversation going on behind the scenes with my producer Carolyn Sharp. The conversation has been about not only the content of what you have heard so far but also a more general conversation about this nascent podcast.
Carolyn is a level 3 PACT therapist out of Seattle, Washington and like I say at the end of the episode, she is one of my go-to people for honest truth. She does it with humor and humility and I have so appreciated her insights in bringing you these episodes.
So, as we say goodbye to Bart and Susan and get ready to move on to the next couple, Carolyn and I thought that it would be good to give you a sense of the behind the scenes conversation and talk more generally about the process of making these episodes.
A listening note for those who are keeping score at home:
The question I am answering this season is of course-- “How does a couples therapist learn to do that?!?” And over the course of the Bart and Susan interviews this question has evolved and been refined.
It began with the issue as Bart and Susan initially presented it:
-- How does a couples therapist learn to deal with differences around money, time and work within a couple?
Then after the first clinical interview it became:
-- How does a couples therapist learn to manage feelings of inadequacy in a couple?
And, then in the final interview with Bart and Susan:
-- How does a couples therapist learn to navigate a void that has developed in a couple?
In this episode, we refine the question further to:
-- How does a couples therapist learn to help a couple that presents with one person who is over functioning and the other who is under functioning?
Hint: It’s not as simple as getting the under functioning person to just function better. I like this as the final question for Bart and Susan because it seems to hold the complexity of their struggles and has a logical simplicity.
Try it on for size and let me know what you think.
Monday Sep 20, 2021
Bart and Susan: Consultation with Debbie Campbell, LMFT
Monday Sep 20, 2021
Monday Sep 20, 2021
A NOTE FROM JASON:
Hello! So we are beginning to wrap up our time with the first couple of the season, Bart and Susan. What you are about to hear is a consultation interview with my level 3 PACT colleague, Debbie Campbell out of Dallas Texas.
I don’t know if I’ve ever read a list of a persons background that better describes their clinical style and approach than Debbie’s. She a student and practitioner of sport psychology, positive psychology, couples counseling, psychodrama, and neuroscience. You’ll hear it in her, she’s like a performance athlete, personal trainer, PACT expert and brain nerd with real warmth and compassion all in one package.
I came to Debbie with a big question: How does a couples therapist learn to use the patterns of arousal regulation and understanding of developmental neuroscience to create safer and more secure relationships? If that just sounds like confusing jargon, well you are in the right place to make it all a whole lot more clear.
One note, in listening back to the interview, we talk a great deal about pacing. How fast or slow should a therapist go in couples therapy. I think what we are really talking about but don’t name directly is pressure- so we also focus on - How does a couples therapist know how much pressure to apply to bring about change in a couple? The answer to this has lots to do with arousal and neuroscience and attachment. So, hold onto your hat, it's an action packed episode that I hope you enjoy! 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.
Monday Sep 06, 2021
Monday Sep 06, 2021
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.
Monday Aug 23, 2021
Monday Aug 23, 2021
A NOTE FROM JASON:
Hey, I hope you got a chance to listen to the first half of the second interview with Bart and Susan. Just in case you are not up to speed, Bart and Susan are an engaged couple in their 50’s who have been together for 3 years. They face challenges around, “money, work and time” that keep them from moving securely towards marriage.
In this second interview you get a real sense of how Bart’s enthusiasm and Susan’s thoughtfulness act as the glue that brought them together. The challenge is that these very strengths appear quite different under the microscope of depending deeply on each other.
Susan’s thoughtfulness comes with worry and Bart’s enthusiasm lacks follow through.This worked well enough when they were on their own, now they realize that they are going to need to learn together how to become a thoughtful and enthusiastic team. In order to do this, Bart is learning how to better hold worry and Susan is learning how to better hold enthusiasm. (Notice the many times in this interview Bart presents to Susan how he is trying to be more thoughtful and Susan tries to hold onto his enthusiasm.)
In order to grow in these ways, they have to stop the patterns that led to going into destructive self protective places. Susan has to slow her worry about her future with Bart and he has to slow his over promising without organization and follow through. They are both happy to report that they have stopped themselves from going into some of these old patterns but not functioning in these ways also leaves a void between them.
Finding a way to help the couple venture into that void and experience, “a gentle unfolding of the soul” (as Rob Fisher put it in Season 1 - Episode 11) is the job of the couples therapist. How do you learn to do that?!? Well, take a listen to my clinical interview and then listen to my two follow up interviews (arriving next month) with Melissa Ferrari and Debbie Campbell as we take up that very question.
Thank you for tuning in and I hope you enjoy.
Monday Aug 09, 2021
Monday Aug 09, 2021
A NOTE FROM JASON:
Hello and thanks for listening. So far this season we met our first couple, Bart and Susan, and then listened in on my consultation session with Hans Stahlschmidt.
It’s now time to hear a follow up session with Bart and Susan.
In the first interview with Bart and Susan, we heard the couple describe the very different ways they manage emotions and how this was keeping them from being able to build a solid foundation for a future together. They used a metaphor of boxes and how Bart puts emotional overwhelm into boxes and Susan has no boxes at all. They described how this leads to arguments, shutdowns and hurt feelings that keep big things like “money, work and time” from ever being figured out.
In consultation, Hans helped me to see that they were describing ways that they both feel alone during times of great stress, how these are likely patterns developed in their early childhoods and how this leaves them vulnerable to feeling inadequate in their current relationship. He then helped me to think through ways that couple therapy could help them to learn to undo old patterns and dare to risk trusting deeply in each other.
In this second interview, that process of undoing old patterns and learning to deepen trust has progressed, however, it is not easy going. As Bart learns to open boxes, he becomes more hopeful that he can change. As Susan puts her feelings into boxes she begins to feel hopeless that things are going to change enough to satisfy both of their needs. Susan waits for Bart to change with worries about a void between them and the question of will they be able to find each other quickly enough to stay together becomes the focus of the couple's clinical interview.
That should give you some context for the first half of the second couple clinical with Bart and Susan. The next three episodes are going to consultation interviews that wrap up my work with Bart and Susan.
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.
Monday Jul 26, 2021
Bart and Susan: Consultation with Hans Stahlschmidt, PhD
Monday Jul 26, 2021
Monday Jul 26, 2021
A NOTE FROM JASON:
Hello - I hope you got a sense of what it’s like to be in the couples therapist’s chair in the clinical interview with Bart and Susan. In this episode, I’m excited to give you a sense of what a consultation interview between therapists sounds like. My colleague and mentor Hans Stahlschmidt joins me as we discuss his impressions of my work with Bart and Susan. Thanks for joining me! 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.
Monday Jul 12, 2021
Monday Jul 12, 2021
A NOTE FROM JASON:
Hi Again- In this second half of our first couple clinical interview we finish up the interview with Bart and Susan. On the surface, their challenge in moving their relationship forward is about money, time and work, however, as we get into the session we find that the question of managing feelings of inadequacy is really where the help is needed.
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.
Monday Jun 28, 2021
Monday Jun 28, 2021
A NOTE FROM JASON:
Hello Again- In this first half of our first couple clinical interview we meet Bart and Susan. On the surface, their challenge in moving forward in their relation is about money, time and work, however, as we get into the session we find that the question of managing feelings of inadequacy is really where the help is needed.
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.
Monday Jun 14, 2021
Season 2 Introduction- Meet the Actual Couples
Monday Jun 14, 2021
Monday Jun 14, 2021
A NOTE FROM JASON:
Hi there- In this introductory episode you will meet the 3 couples that will be featured throughout the season, hear about the process of making season 2 of the podcast and get some tips for listening with the ear of a psychobiologist. Thank you for checking it out. 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.
Wednesday Jul 01, 2020
Human Nurture - Ep 16 - PACT in Theory - Ed Tronick and Claudia Gold on Attachment
Wednesday Jul 01, 2020
Wednesday Jul 01, 2020
We have arrived at the final episode of Season 1 of Human Nurture!
Not only is this the finale, it is also about attachment theory-- one of PACT's main ingredients -- and it features the renowned researcher Ed Tronick.
Ed joins us with his co-author Claudia Gold to discuss their recently released book, The Power of Discord. Ed and Claudia offer a take on attachment theory that focuses on growth through the process of mismatch, mess and repair. They look at this process through Claudia's clinical work and Ed's attachment research with care-givers and young children through the Still Face Experiment.
It is a heart-felt interview that touches on the current discord in our lives as COVID-19 spreads across our world and the murder of George Floyd reverberates through protests in our streets. We are also joined by the founder of PACT, Stan Tatkin, who provides us with his thoughts on the interview with Ed and Claudia, attachment theory and the overwhelming challenges of this moment in our lives.
Time-----
00:00:00 - 00:01:45 -Jason Introduction
00:01:45-01:01:16 - Jason, Ed Tronick and Claudia Gold
01:01:16-01:18:13 - Jason and Stan Tatkin
Resources-----
The Power of Discord on Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/Power-Discord-Relationships-Building-Resilience/dp/0316488879
Still Face Experiment example video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apzXGEbZht0
Ed Tronick WikiPedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Tronick
Claudia Golde's website and books:
https://www.claudiamgoldmd.com/