Emotion-Focused Therapy

Do you feel like your relationship is at a standstill? Are you and your partner stuck in the same argument loop every night? Do you feel like you and your partner are drifting away? Do you desire more intimacy between you and your partner?

All things can be improved, changed, and bettered with just a little support, no matter how big or small. With couples therapy, you’ll learn how to communicate your feelings and needs, and get what you want out of your relationship.

In my couple’s therapy sessions, I utilize an attachment based approach to help people develop the necessary skills needed to maintain sustaining love.

If any of the above relate to your and your partner in your relationship, contact me today for a free consultation. I would love to speak about how I may be able to help reconnect and rekindle your love for one another.

Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy (EFT)

Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) is a type therapy that is used to improve attachment and bonding in adult relationships. This approach to couples therapy was developed by doctors Sue Johnson and Les Greenberg in the 1980s and is rooted in research on love as an attachment bond. This treatment can help couples form a more secure emotional bond, which can result in a stronger relationship and improved communication.

EFT Is Based on Attachment Theory

Attachment between people typically provides a safe haven: a retreat from the world and a way to obtain comfort, security, and a buffer against stress. Attachment also offers a secure base, allowing you to feel safe while you explore the world and learn new information. Its formation begins in childhood with a primary caretaker, such as a parent.

Those early, established patterns carry through to adulthood. An unavailable caretaker creates distress in a baby akin to an unavailable partner creating distress in an adult. Attachment theory provides the emotionally-focused therapist with a road map to the drama of distress, emotions, and needs between partners. 

How Insecure Attachment Weakens a Couple's Bond

According to an article on EFT in Social Work Today, any perceived distance or separation in our close relationships is interpreted as danger. Losing the connection to a loved one threatens our sense of security. "Primal fear" ensues and sets off an alarm in part of our brain called the amygdala, also known as the fear center.

Once the amygdala is activated, it triggers our fight or flight response. When incoming information is familiar, the amygdala is calm. However, as soon as the amygdala encounters threatening or unfamiliar information, it increases the brain’s anxiety level and focuses the mind’s attention on the immediate situation.

People go into a self-preservation mode, often doing what they did to "survive" or cope in childhood. This is the reason we are triggered as adults in our romantic relationships, in the same repeating (and unhealthy) patterns from our formative years. EFT can help to unwind these automatic, counter-productive reactions.

Emotionally Focused Therapy Creates Healthy Patterns

EFT provides a language for healthy dependency between partners and looks at key moves and moments that define an adult love relationship. The primary goal of the model is to expand and re-organize the emotional responses of the couple.

The change process has been mapped into a clearly defined process consisting of nine steps and three change events that help guide the therapist and track progress. The three steps of EFT are:

What To Expect From Emotionally Focused Therapy

During an EFT session, I observe the dynamics between a couple and then acts as a collaborator to coach and direct new ways of interacting. Unlike some other forms of therapy where the therapist is more of a passive listener, EFT therapists take an active role in guiding the conversation. It also focuses on addressing emotions and interactions within the session rather than focusing on things like worksheets and homework.

As an EFT therapist empathy is extremely important in helping couples realize that their emotions are valid. I work to help couples and individuals recognize behaviors and patterns that they may not even be aware of and see how these actions contribute to conflict in a relationship.

Source: https://www.verywellmind.com/emotionally-focused-therapy-for-distressed-couples-2303813