How to Read Facial Expressions
Detecting Emotional Responses in Relationships
Hosted by Dr. Diane Poole Heller…
LIVE Expert Spotlight Training
Join us for a free masterclass where you’ll learn how to interpret facial micro expressions and subtle body movements to gain insights into your clients’ unspoken feelings and experiences.
In this FREE, 90-Minute Live Training, we’ll cover…
What Are ‘Micro Expressions’ and Why Do You Overlook Them in Therapy Sessions?
We’ll define and describe micro expressions–– brief, often involuntary facial cues that provide a glimpse at a person’s true emotional state. Familiarize yourself with the top seven human facial expressions, and learn where and when to spot them.
How to Read Nonverbal Cues More Quickly and Accurately
You’ll discover which facial areas map to each of the seven universal expressions, so you can better understand what these subtle movements reveal about a person’s perspective, emotional state, and attachment history.
Refine Your Therapeutic Skills and Deepen Emotional Attunement
Learn how to train your eyes and brain to spot micro expressions as they’re happening––so you can track changes in your clients’ sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems that signal shifts in emotional arousal.
Work more effectively with clients, even when they can’t pinpoint or communicate their feelings.
Register now for this FREE 90-minute training.
Learn directly from Dr. Stan Tatkin and get your questions answered—includes LIVE teaching, micro expression exercises, and video examples, plus Q&A!
Can’t join live? Sign up now and we’ll send you a free recording of the replay.
How to Read Facial Expressions
Detecting Emotional Responses in Relationships
What if your clients’ somatic cues could give you insight into their unspoken needs and attachment history?
Because so many of our interactions with others lead to misattunement and misunderstanding, most of us need a clearer way to communicate.
That’s not surprising, since studies show that up to 60% of our communication is nonverbal, where micro expressions, body language, and tone of voice involuntarily reveal our true emotions.
So when our clients mask painful emotions, or are unaware of or unable to express them, it’s “written all over their face.” Literally.
You see, micro expressions offer remarkably rich insights into the emotional and psychological history of our clients—including their attachment patterns and deeper emotions or needs they might not even recognize themselves, let alone communicate to you or a partner.
For couples—where one or both partners has insecure attachment patterns—misreading micro expressions, body language, or tone of voice can be especially problematic. These subtle cues are often misinterpreted as threatening, which escalates emotional arousal and can intensify conflict.
The challenge is that micro expressions occur almost instantaneously—often less than half a second—so it’s easy to miss them altogether.
Dr. Tatkin points out that many people aren’t aware of when or why they shift into a threat-response (especially in relation to their partner), because it happens so quickly, and involves parts of the brain that don’t give explicit thoughts as explanations.
Unless you know how to “read” visual cues in the eyes, nostrils, mouth/lips, and skin tone, it’s hard to detect subtle shifts in moment-to-moment autonomic system arousal.
That means you don’t know whether a person is open and receptive or in a threat-response (dysregulated)––and more importantly, how to respond appropriately without further activation.
The good news is that therapists and clients alike can sharpen their ability to decode nonverbal cues, paving the way for more genuine and effective communication in therapy and their everyday relationships.
In this FREE live training, Dr. Stan Tatkin will guide you through an innovative approach that enables you to read micro expressions and respond to emotional arousal more quickly and accurately.
Who Should Join Us?
- You work with clients unable to express their needs and emotions, and you’d like a way to detect subtle shifts in emotional arousal as they’re happening––so you can respond with greater attunement and compassion.
- You work with one or both partners in a relationship who often argue and complain, and you need to be able to detect when a misinterpreted threat-response is about to escalate into conflict.
- Your clients struggle to pinpoint or share their emotions, often stemming from unresolved trauma, and you want to better understand the source of their feelings, so they’ll be better equipped to articulate their needs and learn healthier ways to manage stress and conflict.
- You’d like an additional attachment- and trauma-informed approach that strengthens your own emotional attunement and self-regulation as you work with couples and individuals.
Register now for this FREE 90-minute training.
Learn directly from Dr. Stan Tatkin and get your questions answered—includes LIVE teaching, micro expression exercises, and video examples, plus Q&A!
Can’t join live? Sign up now and we’ll send you a free recording of the replay.
How to Read Facial Expressions
Detecting Emotional Responses in Relationships
Stan Tatkin, PsyD, MFT, is a clinician, researcher, teacher and developer of a Psychological Approach to Couple Therapy® (PACT).
He has a clinical practice in Calabasas, CA––and, with his wife, Dr Tracey Tatkin, co-founded the PACT Institute for the purpose of training other psychotherapists to use this method in their clinical practice. He leads PACT programs in the US and internationally.
In addition, Dr. Tatkin teaches and supervises family medicine residents at Kaiser Permanente, Woodland Hills, CA, and was an assistant clinical professor at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine, Department of Family Medicine.
He is on the board of directors of Lifespan Learning Institute and serves as a member on Relationships First Counsel, a nonprofit organization founded by Harville Hendrix and Helen LaKelly Hunt.
He’s also a bestselling author and has written seven books (and co-authored another) about relationships, including his most recent book, In Each Other’s Care.
Diane Poole Heller PhD, is an internationally recognized speaker, author, and teaching expert in the field of adult attachment theory and trauma resolution.
Her signature approach—DARe (Dynamic Attachment Re-patterning experience)—provides therapists and individuals with relevant skills and practical exercises that facilitate healing from attachment and trauma wounds.
Her work with adult attachment has forged a path for adults with childhood attachment injuries to develop Secure Attachment Skills (SAS) that lead to more connected and fulfilling adult relationships. Through various training programs, books, lectures and her own work as a clinical therapist, Dr. Heller has helped a countless number of people in their healing journey towards experiencing greater intimacy, wholeness and more fulfilling relationships.
She believes that when we heal ourselves first, we heal our families, our communities and the world as a whole.