Yael and Charley: Consultation with Patricia Hart, PhD

Hi there. Welcome to Human Nurture. I'm your host Jason Brand a practicing couples therapist in Berkeley, California. 

This season of the podcast, what I've been doing is answering the question-- "How does a couples therapists learn to do that?" And I'm answering that question through actual couple interviews and then follow up interviews with consultants who help me to think through what happened in the room between me and that couple.

Today, we've got a consultation session with my colleague and mentor Patricia Hart.   

"We say in PACT, we're working on the relationship, right? Our job is the relationship, but of course, in order to have a couple of relationship there's important individual growth that goes with it. 

I have to be able to manage myself so that I can manage you and I have to be able to know what it is that I need from you and then I have to be able to ask for what I want. [So] I can be the person who can go after what I want, including in a relationship. And then also know about that well enough, so I can put [it] aside and deal with you.

So you know this developmental step of a two person psychology, which is necessary for a relationship? [It] requires a lot of individual growth. It seemed to me that's a lot of what you were doing with [Charley and Yael in this session]"

That is a quote from the interview that you're about to hear. It captures, the support that she gave me, the overall framework and an understanding of what I was up to in the session. So helpful. 

So who was Patricia Hart? Patricia's a long time Berkeley therapist with 40 years of experience. She's a PACT instructor, she's just wonderful with couples and she's a wonderful consultant. So, take a listen. Patricia Hart PhD and me talking about Charley and Yael. Thanks so much for tuning in