Are You on Love Autopilot?

"There is actually nothing more difficult on the planet than another person." – Stan Tatkin Stan Tatkin is a clinician, researcher, teacher, and developer of A Psychobiological Approach to Couple Therapy (PACT), which draws on cutting-edge research in neuroscience, attachment theory, and biology. In his funny, eye-opening TED Talk, Relationships Are Hard, But Why?, Tatkin characterizes the two distinct brain systems at play in our automatic neurobiological reflexes: our ambassadors (smart, deliberate, slow, expensive) and our primitives (fast, automatic, cheap). Our ambassadors make the hard decision about who to craft a relationship with and once they do, our primitives take over. We begin to "think" we know our partner and after a period of time, we automate the process of connecting and relating with them. If we don't understand this automatic brain, we often get into trouble—not just in the form of fights, but by fighting in a way that threatens the safety of the relationship. Sound familiar? Watch and learn.