COUNSELING and
1-3 DAY INTENSIVES
"Getting to the Heart of the Matter..."
REGISTERED MARRIAGE AND FAMILY THERAPIST INTERN
Supervised by Dr. Sharon Morris May
Author of "Safe Haven Marriage" and "How to Argue So Your Spouse Will Listen"
What is Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy?
www.psychpage.com/family/library/eft.htm
Emotionally-focused therapy (EFT) is a well-researched and effective short-term approach to working with couples. It is an experiential and collaborative attachment-oriented approach to coaching distressed couples to develop more satisfying and secure intimate bonds. The real "heart of the matter" in EFT, according the co-developer Susan Johnson, is helping couples create the necessary safety and trust to "risk and reach" with one another, in spite of their fears, in order to better meet their core relationship needs.
What's important about attachment?
Attachment theory, developed by British psychoanalyst John Bowlby (1988), provides a theoretical framework for EFT and for understanding the complexities of adult love and the challenges of intimate relationships. By seeing and experiencing emotion as the powerful and adaptive force of the "music of the attachment dance," therapists and clients learn "new steps" for listening, modifying and responding to the unique emotions of intimate interactions. This, in turn, helps partners change and reconnect in their committed relationships and feel more securely bonded or attached.
As human beings our primary biological needs and innate motivating forces for physical contact and emotional dependability require the creation of a safe haven and secure base with our partner. Furthermore, changes or shifts occur through deep and corrective emotional experiences, and opportunities for greater confiding, caring, empathy and sexual pleasure are best facilitated within the context of strong attachment bonds or emotional ties. The goal of the sessions is to help the couples develop these bonds by facilitating emotional safety so that more attachment needs will be met.
What happens when we become distressed?
All human beings share common fears of being abandoned, alone, unaccepted, unloved, or rejected as inadequate partners. Johnson credits John Gottman's extensive research on couples and points out that "absorbing states of negative affect," such as anger or fear, take over when couples become distressed. Couples "get stuck" in repetitive negative cycles or patterns during times of unresolved conflict. These negative patterns limit communication and escalate reactive responses or withdrawal from one another. Johnson says that men tend to "sink" in their emotions, and get flooded by hurt and anger, and women tend to "swim" in their emotions which allow them to be more expressive and persistent. Both genders often become overwhelmed, defensive and distant during disagreements and have difficulty stepping out of negative habits of relating to, asking for, or receiving understanding, support and comfort. Negative methods of communicating in cycles and patterns can lead couples to feel a sense of failure that impacts the bond of their attachment and blocks the experience of closeness and connection.
What's different about EFT?
Instead of getting lost in the midst of the content or many stories about couples' communication, therapists are encouraged to be curious and to focus on "process." This means that therapists fill a role as consultants who are working to build a strong alliance with couples by supporting and validating their feelings, thoughts, concerns, and desires. It is important to explore often unseen or unheard feelings of hurt, sadness and anger while also validating differing points of view and empathizing with each side's subjective emotional experiences. This process facilitates the couples' opportunities to access, re-discover, make sense, expand and share emotions differently while face-to-face in the therapist's office. The structure, focus and attention to what is important in terms of the couples' emotions and experience helps them "process" or re-organize their experience in newer and more meaningful ways.
It is well known that positive attachment and healthy marital functioning and satisfaction serve as buffers against stress and the uncertainties of what can feel like a daunting and dangerous world. There are clear links between relationships and emotional distress, particularly depression, anxiety and trauma-related symptoms. Fostering safe, secure bonding and intimacy improves our ability to cope with pain and danger, while isolation and withdrawal from others makes us feel vulnerable and lonely. So it is certainly important to consider what you are doing in your relationship that contributes to your own "attachment dance" and what you can do to change your behavior so that you may experience the benefits of feeling closer and more connected with your partner. EFT is a short term (8-20 sessions), structured approach to couples therapy formulated in the early 80's by Drs. Sue Johnson and Les Greenberg. EFT is also used with families. A substantial body of research outlining the effectiveness of EFT now exists. Research studies find that 70-75% of couples move from distress to recovery and approximately 90% show significant improvements. The major contraindication for EFT is on-going violence in the relationship. EFT is being used with many different kinds of couples in private practice, university training centres and hospital clinics and many different cultural groups. These distressed couples include partners suffering from disorders such as depression, post traumatic stress disorders and chronic illness.
New cycles of bonding interactions occur and replace negative cycles such as pursue-withdraw or criticize-defend. These positive cycles then become self-reinforcing and create permanent change. The relationship becomes a safe haven and a healing environment for both partners.
EFT is collaborative and respectful of clients combining experimental Rogerian techniques with structural systemic interventions.
Change strategies and interventions are specified.
- Key moves and moments in the change process have been mapped into nine steps and three change events.
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EFT has been validated by 20 years of empirical research. There is also research on the change processes and predictors of success.
EFT has been applied to many different kinds of problems and populations.
- To expand and re-organize key emotional responses–the music of the attachment dance.
- To create a shift in partners' interactional positions and initiate new cycles of interaction.
“DNA of Relationships” by Dr. Gary Smalley
“Love and Respect” by Emerson E. Eggerichs
"Attachments: We we live, love and act the way we do" by Tim Clinton
“How to argue so your spouse will listen” by Dr. Sharon (Hart) Morris May
"Safe Haven Marriage: Building a relationship you want to come home to” by
Dr. Sharron (Hart) Morris May
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