Repairing Betrayal: A Neurobiological and Attachment-Based Approach for Couples
A 7-hour self-study course taught by Dr. Stan Tatkin, founder of the well-known Psychobiological Approach to Couples Therapy® (PACT).
The Wounds of Betrayal Trauma Are Deep and Complex. Therapy Requires a Proven and Structured Path to Repair
Here’s why it’s essential to understand the full impact of betrayal and what’s necessary for therapy to be effective:
1. Betrayal Takes Many Forms
It’s not just affairs – it’s secrecy, lies, addictions, and broken trust that show up in many ways that profoundly affect clients.
2. Betrayal Trauma Impacts the Nervous System, Causing PTSD-Like Symptoms
Betrayal triggers trauma responses that affect regulation, attachment, identity, and a client’s ability to feel safe in the relationship.
3. Therapy Mistakes Can Worsen the Pain
Without proper training, therapists may unknowingly rush the process and minimize the depth of injury, and fail to understand what it takes for these relationships to heal.
4. Betrayal Reshapes the Relationship at Its Core
Unhealed betrayal impacts every part of the couple’s connection, from safety and intimacy to communication.
5. Digital Betrayals Are on the Rise
Online affairs, sexting, and secret digital lives are now more common in therapy rooms, and therapists need to know how to navigate these often hidden but deeply damaging ruptures.
6. Repair Demands a Precise and Structured Roadmap
Betrayal work demands a slow, deliberate pace, a clear structure, and specific interventions that honor the depth of the wound and offer deep healing.
7. Ethical, Effective Care Requires Specialized Skills
Healing demands the ability to hold both partners with clarity, containment, and care while guiding them through the complexity of repair.
This training offers the structure, insight, and tools you need to work with betrayal trauma confidently and effectively.
"I Can Now Guide Couples Through the Long Road of Betrayal Recovery."
What I love about the Psychobiological Approach to Couples Therapy (PACT) model is how it brings together three critical areas: neuroscience, attachment theory, and arousal regulation.
Before studying with Stan, I felt stuck in my couples work, especially when working with a betrayal. Therapy felt mostly cognitive and top-down. PACT offered something profoundly different: a bottom-up, body-based, and relational approach that targets the real issues between partners in real time.
Stan’s model has been invaluable in helping couples navigate betrayal. It has taught me to recognize the profound impact betrayal has on the betrayed partner’s nervous system, and to support couples in repairing trust through fairness, justice, accountability, and co-regulation. Rather than rushing to “move on,” it’s about genuinely rebuilding a new, securely functioning relationship.
Stan is an exceptional educator. He makes complex concepts, such as brain science and attachment theory, accessible, practical, and deeply relevant to betrayal in couples therapy. His approach has transformed how I work. It has made a profound difference for the couples I work with.
I’m incredibly grateful to have found PACT and to have trained under Stan.
Melissa Ferrari
Registered Clinical Psychotherapist and Supervisor, PACT Certified Couples Therapist, Sydney, Australia
Meet Dr. Stan Tatkin, PsyD, MFT, Teacher, clinician, researcher, and developer of the Psychobiological Approach to Couples Therapy® (PACT)
Dr. Tatkin is best known for developing the Psychobiological Approach to Couples Therapy® (PACT). He’s recognized globally for his work on secure-functioning relationships and is a sought-after speaker and educator. His work emphasizes fairness, justice, and sensitivity as key elements of secure attachment and healthy partnerships.
He has written dozens of academic articles and six bestselling books,
translated into several languages. His TEDx talk has been viewed by over 1.7
million people. Stan also works directly with couples through his clinical practice in Calabasas, California, and co-leads Wired for Love retreats across the U.S. and Europe.
In addition to his clinical and teaching roles, Stan has contributed to the
field through positions such as assistant clinical professor at UCLA and
board member of the Lifespan Learning Institute.
Here’s What You’ll Gain By Taking This Course:
Understand the Neurobiological Architecture of Betrayal – Learn how betrayal trauma activates the brain’s threat systems, so you can intervene effectively when clients are overwhelmed or dysregulated.
Identify and Work With All Forms of Betrayal, Not Just Affairs – Recognize betrayal’s many forms, including gaslighting, secrecy, financial deception, and emotional affairs, so you don’t overlook the hidden dynamics that shape your clients’ distress.
Structure the Early Phase of Treatment with Clarity and Safety – Learn exactly how to conduct initial interviews, gather essential facts, and create structure amid the chaos of betrayal, helping both partners feel contained, protected, and ready to do the work.
Apply the DICE Therapeutic Architecture for Betrayal Repair – Use Stan Tatkin’s DICE model (Discovery of Information that Changes Everything) to guide the pacing of disclosure, containment of reactivity, and movement toward safe and effective repair.
Intervene Effectively in States of High Arousal and Threat – Develop moment-to-moment tracking and co-regulation skills to manage sessions when emotions run high, allowing you to stay grounded and help clients stay engaged in difficult conversations.
Hold the Couple System as the Client, Without Losing Neutrality or Empathy – Stay attuned to both partners, even when the injuries are severe. Understand PACT’s core principle that the couple, not the individual, is the client.
- Support Secure Functioning Roles Within the Couple System – Help the betrayed partner regain agency and safety while guiding the betrayer toward accountability, transparency, and trustworthiness so both partners move toward a healthier relational system.
“Since 2008, None of My Couples Have Returned Presenting with Another Betrayal.”
I used to avoid working with couples, but once I studied the PACT model with Stan, everything changed…
Now, couples work is my favorite type of therapy.
Stan’s integration of interpersonal neurobiology, attachment theory, and arousal regulation gets to the root of what’s really going on when a betrayal occurs, in a way no other model I’ve encountered has.
What I love most is how PACT holds complexity. Whether I’m working with a cisgender, hetero couple or a queer couple in their 20s or their 80s, I don’t have to switch gears or find a new framework; the model just works.
PACT is absolutely uncompromising in its approach to betrayal, and that’s what makes it effective. The model teaches therapists how to hold the betraying partner accountable in an honest, humbling, and essential way for healing. That kind of boldness is rare and so necessary.
If you’re a couples therapist, learning Stan’s approach to betrayal trauma will be one of the best investments you ever make.
The model gives you the clarity, structure, and depth to not only repair the rupture of the affair but also offers complete healing and rebuilds the relationship towards secure functioning.
Dr. Krista Jordan
Psychologist, Austin, Texas
The course details are below, but if you're ready to sign-up, here you Go...
Topics in the 4 Modules
Module 1:Understanding the Landscape of Betrayal trauma (90 minutes)
Module 1: Understanding the Landscape of Betrayal Trauma (90 minutes)
- Introduction to betrayal trauma in couples therapy
- Types of betrayal beyond affairs (e.g., financial, emotional, gaslighting, etc.)
- The “DICE” effect: Discovery of Information that Changes Everything
- PTSD-like symptoms in the betrayed partner
- Attachment styles and betrayal patterns (avoidant, anxious, disorganized)
- Overview of the neurobiological impact on the amygdala, prefrontal cortex, hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, and hippocampus
Module 2: First Steps in Therapy - Investigation and Structure
(90 minutes)
- Gathering facts: timeline, client behaviors, and deception patterns
- Detecting defensiveness, gaslighting, and withholding
- Establishing a temporary power imbalance to protect the betrayed partner
- Recognizing red flags in early treatment
- Grounding techniques for the therapist during intense sessions
Module 2: First Steps in Therapy - Investigation and Structure
(90 minutes)
Module 3: DICE Architecture and Therapeutic Sequencing(90 minutes)
Module 3: DICE Architecture and Therapeutic Sequencing (90 minutes)
- Therapeutic roles: Discovery Partner (DP) as empowered; Secret Keeper (SK) as transparent and contrite
- Session frequency and pacing
- Full disclosure vs. formal disclosure
- Facilitating questions from the DP
- Tracking SK’s remorse vs. self-protection
- When to allow mutual complaint vs. block moral equivalency
- Therapist as reality anchor – Don’t shortcut the pain
Module 4: Repair, Regret, and Reconnection (90 minutes)
- Role of regret and accountability in healing
- Supporting the SK’s growth into a “villain-turned-hero”
- Reinforcing the DP’s right to transparency and re-agency
- Reestablishing shared purpose, mutual governance, and safety
- Preventing “upside-down” dynamics
- When therapy becomes maintenance vs. resolution
- Case review: What secure functioning looks like after healing betrayal
Module 4: Repair, Regret, and Reconnection (90 minutes)
You Also Get 3 Bonuses With This Course
Bonus 1: Resource List For Betrayal Trauma
Bonus 1:
Resource List for Betrayal Trauma
This Resource List includes resources and tools to support your ongoing learning and application of the PACT model in working with betrayal trauma. Whether you’re looking to expand your knowledge, share resources with clients, or explore related topics, this list helps you go further.
Bonus 2: Therapist Integration and Action Guide: Applying Betrayal Trauma Insights in Clinical Practice
Bonus 2
Therapist Integration and Action Guide: Applying Betrayal Trauma Insights in Clinical Practice
This guide is designed to help you integrate key insights from the course into your clinical work using the PACT model. It offers a structured way to reflect on what you’ve learned, apply core concepts to real cases, and confidently take action.
Bonus 3: Summary Notes and Key Takeaways For All 4 Modules
Bonus 3
Summary Notes and Key Takeaways for all 4 Modules
These documents distill the essential insights from each of the 4 modules. With concise summaries, they’re designed to help you review key concepts, reinforce your learning, and bring the strategies from the course into your clinical work without rewatching hours of content. Perfect for busy therapists who want to integrate the PACT model for betrayal trauma with clarity and confidence.
"PACT Has Fundamentally Changed How I Work."
PACT is a comprehensive model that weaves together neurobiology, attachment theory, arousal regulation, and what Stan calls “shared principles of governance” for couples.
Whether it’s an affair, a secret bank account, or undisclosed information, PACT helped me understand that betrayal is not just a moral injury, but a psycho-biological rupture that causes acute distress for the betrayed partner and creates a massive power imbalance.
With Stan’s model, I learned how to help the overly entitled partner let go of that entitlement and genuinely work to restore justice, while also supporting the betrayed partner in reclaiming their sense of agency and safety.
When both partners are willing to stay the course, I’ve seen transformations that go beyond just relationship repair. I’ve witnessed real character development and personal growth on both sides.
PACT has fundamentally changed how I work. It’s practical, deeply humane, and grounded in the reality of how relationships actually function under stress.
PACT is not just about saving relationships; it’s about helping people become better partners and, ultimately, better humans.
Allison Howe
Certified PACT Therapist, Certified PACT Therapist, PACT Institute Faculty, Leesburg, Virginia
Not Sure This Course is for You?
Perhaps you’re on the fence about taking this course because you’re thinking:
- I don’t work with couples.
The trauma of betrayal often surfaces in individual therapy. This course gives you concrete strategies to help betrayed clients overcome and heal shock, rage, and grief, and to support clients who’ve cheated in exploring what led to the rupture and how to grow from it.
2. I’m already overwhelmed with other courses and responsibilities. I don’t have time for another course.
This is totally understandable. Your life as a therapist is likely very full. Fortunately, you can consume the material when your schedule allows. You have 6 months of access to our learning center, and you can download the materials and keep them forever.
3. I already have a solid foundation in relationship therapy.
You might already address betrayal within the broader context of relationship distress, but betrayal trauma has unique neurological, psychological, and relational effects that often go unrecognized. This course helps you work more precisely and effectively with the hidden wounds that standard couples therapy may overlook.
4. I already use trauma-informed approaches. What more would I gain from this course?
Trauma-informed care is essential, but betrayal trauma brings a distinct set of challenges, including identity fragmentation, hypervigilance in intimate relationships, and a collapse in trust. This course gives you the tools to address these complex layers directly with a clear roadmap.
5. I’m not trained in PACT. I’m worried I won’t understand the material.
Dr. Tatkin explains the essential PACT concepts clearly and shows you how to apply them specifically to betrayal trauma. Whether you’re familiar with PACT or completely new to it, you’ll come away with practical tools you can immediately use with clients.
Perhaps you’re on the fence about taking this course because you’re thinking:
The bottom line is…
This course will equip you to understand the complexity of betrayal trauma and how to help couples heal and move on with their lives with a deeper connection than they had previously.
"After 2 decades working as a couples therapist, this course cemented concepts I'd been using and gave me clearer ways to apply them in betrayal work."
I’ve worked a lot with couples where infidelity has occurred, but when Stan described betrayal as “the discovery of information that changes everything (DICE), it grabbed me. I knew right then he was offering angles and insights I hadn’t encountered before, and I was all in.
I now use language that portrays the betrayer as both the villain and the hero, and couples get it. It helps me validate the betrayed partner more than I was already doing and makes it easier to hold the betrayer accountable for the pain caused and to take responsibility for change.
The course reinforced the direct way I already work. Stan’s directness gave me even more confidence to hold the betrayer’s feet to the fire with compassion, but without compromise.
Whether you practice Stan’s PACT model of couples therapy or not, absolutely take this course. You’ll get a framework for treating betrayal trauma that expands your knowledge, sharpens your language, and gives you strategies to work confidently with betrayal.
Sue Diamond
Relationship and Couples Therapist, Vancouver, BC, Canada
Ready to join us?
The course includes 7 hours of high-value content you can download and keep for life.
Why not give it a go?
If you don’t find the course valuable, you can request a refund within 7 days of registering.
Summary of What You Get in ThiS CoursE
- 4, 90-minute modules focused on helping clients through the impact of betrayal
- Downloadable videos, audios, and transcripts of the 4 modules
- Worksheets for each module to help integrate your learning
- Summary Notes and Key Takeaways for all 4 modules
Therapist Integration and Action Guide: Applying Betrayal Trauma Insights in Clinical Practice
- A Resource List on Betrayal Trauma
- The ability to download all materials and keep them forever (Yay!)
- Certificate of completion for 7 hours of instruction
- Submit our certificate in Canada to CCPA for CECs and CRPO for PD credits
- PD points for PACFA and ACA in Australia
- Money-back guarantee. If you decide the course isn’t for you, you can request a refund within 7 days of registering.
This course is packed with value. It brings together cutting-edge insights, real-world strategies, and expert guidance...
Frequently Asked Questions
This course is designed primarily for couples therapists and counselors, but it’s also highly relevant for individual psychotherapists, psychologists, psychiatrists, and other helping professionals who want to deepen their skills in working with clients impacted by betrayal trauma.
Developed by Dr. Stan Tatkin, The Psychobiological Approach to Couples Therapy ® (PACT) is a fusion of attachment theory, developmental neuroscience, and arousal regulation. PACT, and Dr. Tatkin have a reputation for effectively treating the most challenging couples. You do NOT have to know the PACT approach to take this course.
Yes.
The PACT (Psychobiological Approach to Couple Therapy) model developed by Dr. Stan Tatkin is an integrative approach that draws on several well-established areas of research. It’s a neuroscience-informed, attachment-based, and somatically attuned method.
Yes! The course includes numerous examples to help you apply the concepts in real clinical situations.
Yes! You can easily incorporate the principles of PACT into other models of therapy.
This self-study course includes 7 hours of content.
1 PAYMENT OPTION: $297 (Reduced from $447)
$297 CAD for Canadian residents (No GST)
$297 AUD for Australian and New Zealand residents (Australians add GST)
$297 USD for Americans and all other residents.
2 PAYMENT OPTION:
2 monthly payments of $157 (Reduced from 2x $227)
2 payments of $157 CAD spaced 30 days apart (for Canadian residents – No GST)
2 payments of $157 AUD spaced 30 days apart (Australian residents add GST)
2 payments of $157 USD for USA and all other residents
If you don’t see value in the course, you can request a refund within 7 days of registering.
You can download your certificate for 7 hours of course content once you pass the short course quiz.
USA
CEUs – We are not officially approved for most CEU’s. We will give you a certificate of completion for the course. You’ll have to check with your professional association or licensing board to see if they’ll provide you with CEUs.
Canada
CEC’s – CCPA (Canadian Counselling Association). CCPA will give CECs if you submit your certificate to them.
PD credits – CRPO (College of Registered Psychotherapists of Ontario) will give PD credits when you submit your certificate to them.
If you belong to another professional association in Canada, you’ll have to check with them to see if they will give you credit for the course with your certificate.
Australia
OPDs – ACA (Australian Counselling Association)
10 OPD (Ongoing Professional Development) points
CPDs – PACFA (Psychotherapists and Counsellors Federation of Australia)
7 hours of category A CPD
6
You will have access to the materials in the learning center for 180 days (6 months) from the date you signed up for the course.
However, you can download all materials and save them forever.
Get started
It’s rare to get 7 hours of teaching from Dr. Stan Tatkin for $297. If you need to up your skills to better help clients who have experienced betrayal, sign up now.
"Since training with Stan, I can’t imagine working with betrayal trauma any other way."
Before training in the PACT model 10 years ago, my couples therapy sessions often felt like a “talk fest.” While some clients made progress, I frequently felt something was missing, especially when helping couples shift the deep pain of betrayal trauma.
Sessions could easily spiral into blame, emotional shutdowns, or endless rehashing of past hurts without significant progress toward healing.
Integrating the core principles of PACT, which include neuroscience, attachment theory, and arousal regulation, was a game-changer. I finally had a framework that matched the complexity of relationships, and a roadmap for navigating the deep injuries of betrayal.
I learned how to stabilize couples quickly, anchor interventions in secure functioning and safety, and guide them through the emotional chaos of betrayal with greater effectiveness. My clients began to experience real, sustainable repair. Healing became something they could feel in the room, not just talk about.
Stan is a brilliant clinician and a gifted educator. He brings clarity, humor, and depth to every teaching moment, making complex ideas practical and accessible.
His approach is powerful and effective, cutting right to the heart of what matters most. I’m deeply grateful for everything I’ve learned from Stan. His influence has made me a better therapist, and my clients have reaped the rewards.
Clinton Power
Relationship Therapist, NSW, Australia
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If you don’t see value in the course, you can request a refund within 7 days of registering.
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