| Sumario: | Relationship improvement and the treatment of mental health problems in a relational context focuses on what we can observe or is self-reported. This leads to a focus on interaction patterns between couples or partners' perceptions in relationships. Advances in assessing neurological and physiological processes have expanded observable relationship processes, but most MFT models have not yet integrated this knowledge. We propose an intervention model based on the idea that relationship interactions are influenced by pre-conscious physiologic processes around the perceived threat of situations. When a situation is perceived as threatening, partners' innate response is based on survival and self-protection, which inhibits the physiologically based social engagement system. This model describes interventions to: (1) improve navigation of pre-conscious, and conscious processes through increasing positive emotional regulation, (2) reduce the influence of negative past events on current relationships, and (3) work toward having more connecting interactions and fewer protecting interactions in relationships.
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