Over the past 15 years, the Couples Clinic team has pioneered a new approach for helping people develop more satisfying relationships. This approach, Pragmatic-Experiential Therapy for Couples (PET-C), translates new discoveries in the fields of neurobiology  and relationship science into practical strategies for improving relationships.  This approach to couples therapy, detailed in the books, Emotional Intelligence in Couple Therapy, and Developing Habits for Relationship Success, is used widely by therapists across the country.   In recent years, it has been the topic of numerous keynote addresses at professional conferences, dozens of professional journal articles, and has been featured recently in The Oprah Magazine, the Washington Post, Cosmopolitan Magazine, and other outlets.  Read about one couples experience with PET-C here and another couples experience here.

What is PET-C?

A series of landmark studies in the past three decades have identified exactly what people who succeed in their intimate relationships do differently than those who fail.  Researchers discovered a core set of emotional habits that that are so powerfully positive that, when a people have them, they end up having satisfying long-term relationships over 90% of the time.  PET-C will help you and your partner more fully develop these emotional habits that are so highly predictive of relationship success. 

The attitudes and behaviors necessary to succeed in relationships are easy to understand and learn, but can be very difficult to do, because, at key moments, you may find yourself in a state of mind that isn’t compatible with the needed behavior or attitude.  In order to change your thinking or behaviors, you must develop the ability to get into the right frame of mind for the task.  Marriage researchers have discovered that, when a marriage is distressed, each partner generally reacts to the other during arguments in highly predictable and patterned ways.  Thanks to some very helpful brain research in the past 15 years, we now know that this is because, across our lives, each of our brains gets conditioned to produce highly specific response programs.  These are conditioned brain circuits that are pre-programmed so that, once triggered, they unfold as if they had a mind of their own, producing a predictable pattern of thoughts, feelings and behaviors.  Brain researchers call these brain states “executive operating systems;” or “intrinsic motivational circuits;” ordinary people call them “states of mind” or “moods.”   The important thing is not what they are called, but to recognize that these internal response programs can dramatically dictate how you interact with your partner. To improve your relationship, you will need to become familiar with the specific mood state patterns that happen inside of you during key intimate situations.  Your best shot at acting differently comes when you develop the ability to shift internal states when needed.  Your therapist will help you and your partner increase your abilities to to shift out of mood states that often propel you into non-productive fighting.

Pragmatic Experiential Therapy for Couples is an approach that helps partners build the skills of emotional intelligence. During the course of couples therapy, partners use a personalized digital workbook (Developing Habits for Relationship Success) containing over 50 exercises and worksheets that help them develop new relationship habits.  As therapy progresses, the therapist also makes digital recordings consisting of “reminders” and messages of support that clients listen to on a daily basis.  These messages are recorded on digital sound devices, then burned onto CDs so that people can listen in their cars while driving.  You can read a story about how one partner used this method in an article written by a Couples Clinic therapist for the Oprah Magazine (Click here to read this article).

Couples therapy at the Couples Clinic usually begins with an assessment process that spans three hour-long sessions.  Typically, the therapist meets with both spouses together in the first assessment interview, then schedules separate hour-long appointments with each partner. Partners are also asked to complete some well-researched and established relationship assessment instruments that they can take home and fill out.  In the assessment sessions, your therapist will be looking at the extent to which communication processes are happening which research studies show are predictive of marital success or failure. Using this information, your therapist will suggest a plan for building upon your relationship strengths and changing unhelpful communication patterns.   The length of therapy varies according to each couple’s needs.  However, effective couples therapy generally involves weekly sessions (1 hour or 1 ½ hours per session) for a minimum of three months. At three months, couples are encouraged to re-evaluate to see if further therapy is needed.

If you live some distance from the clinic or want to do some intensive relationship counseling in a short period of time, we offer accelerated counseling experiences in which you can work with a counselor up to  five hours per day, two or three consecutive days.  Click here for more information about intensive couples therapy.

At the Couples Clinic, you can expect your that your therapist will

…understand and care about the things that are most important to you.

…expertly guide you (and/or your partner) through the stages needed for healing and change to occur.

…provide clear leadership and direction during therapy sessions and give step-by-step guidance about how to do things differently.

…operate on the basis of established scientific evidence about relationships, rather than personal opinion.

… challenge you and/or your partner when needed in a direct, yet non-threatening, supportive way.