Stan Tatkin - You Won't Get A Secure Relationship Without Secure Agreements
ManTalks Podcast
Connor Beaton
4.8 • 591 Ratings
🗓️ 7 July 2025
⏱️ 64 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Talking points: relationship, attachment, culture
I love Stan because he's able to cut through so much of the modern BS around relationships, and get straight to practical, tactical perspectives and advice. We covered a TON of ground here, from the importance of social contracts and mutual protection, to the need for shared vision and purpose in creating equitable and collaborative relationships.
This is definitely a convo that will spark some discussion, so listen in, team.
(00:00:00) - Intro and the nature of secure functioning
(00:05:52) - Human Nature and Relationship Dynamics
(00:10:01) - Impact of Technology on Relationships
(00:23:35) - Creating Secure Functioning Relationships
(00:35:06) - Predictability and Prevention in Relationships
(00:36:51) - The Importance of Quick Repair
(00:43:02) - Mutual Protection and Solidarity
(00:47:20) - Compatibility and Relationship Agreements
(00:51:59) - The Role of Attachment in Relationships
(01:00:42) - Final Thoughts and Practical Advice
Stan Tatkin, PsyD, MFT, is a renowned expert in human behaviour and couple relationships, known for developing the Psychobiological Approach to Couples Therapy® (PACT). He is a global speaker and teacher on secure-functioning relationships, with his insights reaching over 1.7 million viewers through his TEDx talk. Stan has authored six bestselling books, translated into multiple languages, and has published numerous academic articles.
In 2010, Stan co-founded the PACT Institute with his wife, Tracey Boldemann-Tatkin, PhD, to train therapists in integrating psychobiological approaches into their practices. His work has earned him the Educator of the Year award from the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapists CA in 2014.
Stan leads couples in creating healthy attachments through his clinical practice in Calabasas, California, and Wired For Love Couple Retreats. He has held academic positions at UCLA and serves on the boards of Lifespan Learning Institute and Relationships First. A former president of the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists, Ventura County chapter, Stan is trained in various psychotherapeutic techniques, including Adult Attachment, Facial Action Coding System, and Vipassana meditation.
Connect with Dr. Tatkin
-Website: https://www.thepactinstitute.com/
-Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drstantatkin/
-Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PactTrainingInstitute
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | All right, Dr. Stan Takken, welcome to the show, my friend. |
| 0:11.0 | Thank you for inviting me, Connor. |
| 0:13.1 | You bet. |
| 0:13.9 | I'm honored to get a chance to chat with you. |
| 0:16.4 | And any time that I've listened to your podcasts with other people, I think my friend, |
| 0:19.9 | Mark Groves, introduced you last year. And you guys had a great conversation. I thought that was wonderful. |
| 0:25.3 | I love Mark. Yeah, he's a funny character. He's a funny dude. Well, let's dive straight in. |
| 0:31.0 | You talk a lot about secure functioning. So secure functioning in relationships. I think that'll |
| 0:36.3 | probably be a good place for us to start of just the groundwork. |
| 0:39.3 | Can you explain what that means for folks and maybe what gets in the way of secure functioning happening? |
| 0:47.6 | Oh, that's fun. |
| 0:48.7 | Okay, well, secure functioning isn't the same as attachment, right? |
| 0:52.4 | I'm big on attachment, but here I'm not talking about |
| 0:54.9 | attachment, talking about social contract theory. So secure functioning is a set of social contracts |
| 1:04.6 | between people in a voluntary union of equals unless they decide otherwise. So basically, secure functioning is more |
| 1:14.4 | like teams, it's a team sport of interdependence. And interdependence here means that if you and I were |
| 1:21.6 | in that union, we would have to have the same things to gain and the same things to lose, which would |
| 1:27.4 | make us honest players |
| 1:28.3 | and would also lead to full collaboration and cooperation, even under stress. So secure functioning |
| 1:36.7 | is, like I said, a set of these principles or social contracts or rules or covenants or vows or whatever you want to call them, |
| 1:47.6 | that first and foremost protects us from each other. So the first part of this is governance. Do we |
| 1:55.9 | have permission to govern each other and to enforce things that we both agree on, such as things that we never |
... |
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