Description:
Educational Objectives:
*Sessions may be edited for content and to preserve confidentiality*
Outline:
Introduction and Speaker Backgrounds
Siegel (Harvard) focuses on mindfulness and psychotherapy; Tatkin (UCLA) developed the Psychobiological Approach to Couple Therapy (PACT).
Session explores mindfulness, attachment, Buddhist psychology, and neuroscience.
Defining Mindfulness and Attachment
Mindfulness = awareness with acceptance; often called “heartfulness.”
Attachment = safety and security, shaped by early relationships.
Both help people feel okay with present experience and promote emotional regulation.
Neurobiology of Mindfulness and Attachment
Mindfulness alters brain regions tied to emotion regulation (e.g., ventromedial bundle, anterior insula).
Insight meditation helps regulate emotion, pain, and thoughts.
Secure attachment and mindfulness build equanimity and resilience.
Mindfulness and Emotional Regulation
Mindfulness builds tolerance for emotional highs/lows (equanimity).
Western mindfulness has shifted from thinking to feeling-focused.
Self-compassion exercises (Neff, Germer) help soothe and regulate emotion.
Tatkin shares personal use of mindfulness for managing physical pain.
Mindfulness and Pain Management
Meditators experience pain with less judgment, reducing suffering.
Buddha’s “Two Arrows” metaphor: we suffer more from mental judgment than from the pain itself.
Mindfulness tunes into body awareness (interoception) via the insula.
Anterior cingulate helps regulate emotion and pain experience.
Interpersonal Regulation and Couples Therapy
Mindfulness teaches restraint and awareness of impulses.
Orbitofrontal cortex regulates affect/arousal in relationships.
Co-regulation is key in couples therapy: partners manage states together.
Therapists must stay grounded, avoiding reactive countertransference.
Mindfulness in Intimate Relationships
Mindfulness helps dissolve ego, fostering deeper connection.
Less attachment to personal narratives allows greater intimacy.
Tatkin notes meditation experts may still struggle in relationships—relational skills require practice.
Visual cues play a role in romantic connection and regulation.
Mindfulness in Clinical Practice
Therapists must regulate their own arousal to stay present and effective.
Mindfulness increases therapist attunement and emotional control.
Higher resolution awareness helps therapists track subtle client cues.
Self-regulation is essential for healthy therapeutic relationships.
Mindfulness and Autism in Couples Therapy
Tatkin discusses working with neurodiverse couples—focus on deficits vs. defenses.
Therapy should help both partners adapt and meet each other’s needs.
Emphasizes compassion, patience, and understanding developmental gaps.
Mindfulness and Relational Dynamics
Memory and perception shape ongoing relational patterns.
Projective identification is a key dynamic in couples therapy.
Mindfulness fosters self-compassion and loving-kindness.
Therapists support couples in co-regulation and managing emotional dynamics.
Ronald D. Siegel, PsyD, is Assistant Professor of Psychology, part time at Harvard Medical School, where he has taught for over 30 years. He is a long-time student of mindfulness meditation and serves on the board of directors and faculty of the Institute for Meditation and Psychotherapy.
Dr. Siegel teaches internationally about mindfulness and psychotherapy and mind–body treatment, has worked for many years in community mental health with inner-city children and families, and maintains a private practice in Lincoln, Massachusetts. He is the coauthor of Back Sense: A Revolutionary Approach to Halting the Cycle of Chronic Back Pain, which integrates Western and Eastern approaches for treating chronic back pain, coeditor of the acclaimed books for professionals, Mindfulness and Psychotherapy and Wisdom and Compassion in Psychotherapy: Deepening Mindfulness in Clinical Practice, and coauthor of the new professional text, Sitting Together: Essential Skills for Mindfulness-based Psychotherapy.
Stan Tatkin, PsyD, MFT, is a clinician, researcher, teacher, and developer of A Psychobiological Approach to Couple Therapy (PACT®). He has a clinical practice in Calabasas, CA, where he has specialized for the last 15 years in working with couples and individuals who wish to be in relationships. He and his wife, Tracey Boldemann-Tatkin, developed the PACT Institute for the purpose of training other psychotherapists to use this method in their clinical practice.