This year's couples conference has now come and gone. Once again we enjoyed dynamic presentations from state of the art thinkers and practitioners, such as Harville Hendrix, Pat Love, Cloe Madanes, Terry Real, Dan Siegel, Stan Tatkin and Jeff Zeig. I meant to share some highlights with you sooner, but got swamped with commitments that always crop up at the end of the training year and then had a wonderful trip to France with Pete and Molly.

I especially loved the panel on “Attachment and Differentiation in Couples Therapy” that I did with Stan Tatkin. I structured this panel into the conference because I believe it is time for people our field to begin integrating the best of these two theories.  Couples therapy is most effective when the therapist knows how to use both attachment and differentiation based interventions and conceptualizations.

For so many couples attachment and connection occurs easily at the beginning of the relationship, when all the endorphins in the brain are supporting the intensity of “falling in love”. However, sustaining love is much more difficult.

Primary attachment patterns from early in life become increasingly dominant as partners hurt or disappoint each other.  For example, a woman with an avoidant childhood attachment with her mother may become increasingly avoidant in her marriage as she feels hurt by her husband's deep involvement with his work.  She may shut him out of her social involvements or withdraw into internet chatting. An aloof distance will begin to infect the couple.

Stan discussed the importance of using a modified attachment interview early in therapy to delineate one of four types of attachment: Secure, Resistant/Clinging, Anxious Avoidant or Disorganized for each partner. This interview is conducted with both partners together, so that they can deepen their experience of one another.

Stan also described his experience that using this interview helps avoidant partners become more invested in therapy for themselves.

He stressed the necessity of both therapists and married partners understanding that the adult couple relationship is a primary attachment relationship. And as such it is significantly different from all other relationships. It provides an opportunity for growth as well as a haven of care and protection.

I then discussed differentiation theory. As time passes, partners begin to define their own thoughts, feelings, and desires.  The love chemicals recede and the majority of clinical couples aren't able to maintain a strong positive connection. Instead they encounter moments of deep disappointment with one another and become increasingly self protective, using unsuccessful coping strategies such as blame, withdrawal and resentful compliance.

This propels them headlong into a developmental dilemma. Their self protective mechanisms result in undermining differentiation in one another, and they devolve into pervasive conflict avoidance or serious angry escalating, hostile-dependent patterns.

They are hurt and reeling from the effects of competition, brutal accusations, intermittent accountability, passivity, and too little time together. I described my belief that to overcome this we must be able to help partners develop resilience and manage their inevitable differences to find solutions that incorporate both partners' desires.

When we work to help partners strengthen their differentiation, we enable them to be authentic and open with one another without compromising core values and beliefs. They learn to work effectively with their conflicts and differences, and to negotiate successfully. In this way, differentiation adds to the strengthening of the couple's attachment, and a synergy develops in which the new developmental capacities support ongoing closeness and connection.

I also stressed the need to recognize that differentiation is not:

• Avoidance or avoidant attachment
• Pseudo-Autonomy as described in the Gestalt Prayer
• Individuation-unfolding of unique skills and talents which lead to increased self-esteem, capacities that are often developed away from the relationship in schools, community activities, and hobbies.

Differentiation occurs interpersonally. Sadly, unfolding differentiation frightens many partners because it signals that “we are different”. I believe this can trigger primitive anxiety – fear of being left or cast out. In their attempts to calm this anxiety, partners often try to inhibit growth in one another. They may also expect a lot from the other and little from themselves. They may deceive themselves about their own role in the problem.

One glorious part of being a couples therapist is the daily opportunity to support loving connection and individual growth at the same time, which brings me back to my opening thought: it is time for our field to begin integrating the best of Attachment and Differentiation theories.