Course content

    1. Paper Download

    2. Understanding and Treating Pseudosecure Couples

    3. Pseudosecure Quiz

Pseudosecure Couples

Pseudosecure couples present as stable, high-functioning partnerships but are organized around avoidance, image maintenance, and mutual reinforcement of defensive self-structures rather than genuine relational transparency. They operate through a “don’t ask, don’t tell” dynamic, often underpinned by narcissistic adaptations and false-self functioning, which limits authentic intimacy and mutual understanding. Treatment using PACT (Psychobiological Approach to Couple Therapy) focuses on uncovering these defensive structures, fostering co-regulation, and shifting the couple from a one-person to a two-person psychological system grounded in secure functioning, mutual care, and collaborative problem-solving.

  • Identify the defining characteristics and clinical presentation of pseudosecure couples, including their reliance on image preservation and avoidance.

  • Differentiate pseudosecure functioning from secure-functioning relationships, particularly in terms of transparency, co-regulation, and mutuality.

  • Understand the role of narcissistic adaptations and false-self development within pseudosecure dyadic systems.

  • Recognize common defense mechanisms (e.g., splitting, idealization, denial, projective identification) that maintain pseudosecure equilibrium.

  • Apply key PACT interventions (e.g., cross-questioning, staging, “going down the middle”) to assess and treat pseudosecure couples.

  • Explain the neurobiological and regulatory processes (e.g., window of tolerance, co-regulation, executive function) that support movement toward secure functioning.

Author

Stan Tatkin

Stan Tatkin, PsyD, MFT, is a clinician, researcher, teacher, and developer of A Psychobiological Approach to Couple Therapy. Stan’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. He 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. Stan 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.

Beth O'Brien

Beth O’Brien, PhD, is a licensed psychologist in private practice, a published author and researcher, consultant, and faculty instructor for PACT Level 1 training. She received her doctoral degree in counselling psychology from the highly ranked University of Maryland, which became the first counselling psychology program in the country. She completed her full-time doctoral internship at the counselling centre at George Washington University.

Become a Member

Subcribe to access this and all our course material