Coaching practices for Secure Functioning Relationships at Work
Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For Secure Functioning Relationships at Work, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.
Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?
- I keep everything at work behind a polished, guarded front
- My partner sided with their family over me again, or didn’t back me up in front of others, and I’m left unsure whether they’ll actually put us first when it counts
- Part of me keeps hoping the right partner will just fix all this for me, and I’m realizing that’s not how it works
- I keep waiting to feel safe enough in this relationship before I let my guard down, and it never comes
- In the heat of a fight we cross lines we’d never cross when calm
Practices that may help
- Secure-Functioning Relationships
Secure functioning, as defined by Stan Tatkin’s PACT model, means both partners operate as a team that actively manages each other’s safety and security — rather than each person managing their own needs separately. The model has a strong mechanistic basis in attachment neuroscience; formal RCT evidence for PACT specifically is limited but growing. - Lower your guard to raise the intimacy score
Sharing something real about yourself makes others feel safer sharing something real with you.
The Trust Equation, Made Practical - Create and protect the couple bubble
Agree that you each put the relationship above any third party, including family of origin.
Secure-Functioning Relationships - Choose and co-create secure relationships
Move toward partners and dynamics that reward openness, and build security together.
Attachment Theory, Made Usable - Build secure-functioning habits
Practice the behaviors of secure attachment — reliability, responsiveness, repair — on purpose.
Attachment Theory, Made Usable - Agree on relationship principles before you need them
Set explicit rules for how you will treat each other, especially under pressure.
Secure-Functioning Relationships - Establish inclusion safety — belonging without conditions
Make every team member feel valued and accepted as a human being before expecting performance.
The Four Stages of Psychological Safety - Psychological Safety in Teams
Psychological safety — the shared belief that the team is safe for interpersonal risk-taking — is built through consistent leader behavior: inviting input, responding non-punitively to mistakes, and modeling fallibility. Amy Edmondson’s research links it to learning behaviors and team performance across healthcare, tech, and manufacturing; the causal chain from safety to performance runs through candor and error reporting, not through comfort alone. - Practice being a secure base for your partner
A secure base means: be accessible, responsive, and emotionally engaged -- especially when it is hard.
Emotionally Focused Therapy: Sue Johnson's Framework for Lasting Bond Repair - Psychological Safety, Made Practical
Psychological safety, a concept defined by Harvard researcher Amy Edmondson, is the shared belief that a team is safe for interpersonal risk-taking — that you can admit a mistake, ask a question, or disagree without being punished or humiliated. It is one of the better-evidenced ideas in team research, though most of that evidence is observational rather than experimental.
Related concerns
- Building Security In Relationships
Move toward partners and dynamics that reward openness, and build security together.
Choose and co-create secure relationships
- How To Be A Secure Partner
Secure functioning, as defined by Stan Tatkin’s PACT model, means both partners operate as a team that actively manages each other’s safety and security — rather than each person managing their own needs separately. The model has a strong mechanistic basis in attachment neuroscience; formal RCT evidence for PACT specifically is limited but growing.
- How To Be More Secure As A Man In A Relationship
Security is a state you can practice moving toward, regardless of which partner moves first.
Move toward a secure baseline -- in yourself first
- How To Be More Secure In A Relationship
Secure functioning, as defined by Stan Tatkin’s PACT model, means both partners operate as a team that actively manages each other’s safety and security — rather than each person managing their own needs separately. The model has a strong mechanistic basis in attachment neuroscience; formal RCT evidence for PACT specifically is limited but growing.
- How To Build A Secure Relationship
Secure functioning, as defined by Stan Tatkin’s PACT model, means both partners operate as a team that actively manages each other’s safety and security — rather than each person managing their own needs separately. The model has a strong mechanistic basis in attachment neuroscience; formal RCT evidence for PACT specifically is limited but growing.
- Identity Safe Relationships
Agree that you each put the relationship above any third party, including family of origin.
Create and protect the couple bubble
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