Outline

• Couples often fail to maintain the skills they learn in therapy.
• Under stress, they retreat to entrenched habits of emotion regulation.
• Under stress they invoke childhood coping mechanisms of blame, denial, and avoidance.
• Teach clients to switch from “toddler brain” to “adult brain” coping mechanisms.
• Convert blame, denial, avoidance into improve, appreciate, connect, protect.
• Show clients how to act on their deeper values rather than temporary feelings
• Show clients how to use guilt and shame as motivations to stay true to deeper values, i.e., showing compassion and kindness to loved ones.
• Create positive emotional habits to replace dysfunctional ones.
• Help clients build routine micro-moments of connection, e.g., eye contact, brief touch, smiles.
• Help clients use cognitive dissonance to improve their connection.