Emotion Focused Therapy (EFT) was originally developed as an individual psychotherapy by Les Greenberg. EFT can help you become aware of, express, process, regulate, understand and transform your emotions. Being able to access emotion is important for several reasons (read more HERE). Emotions are information – they tell you what is important to you – they inform your values, needs and wants. As such, they are used to guide your decisions, drives, and actions.
Processing emotion with a therapist can be immensely healing. Accessing your emotion with an EFT trained therapist (or any therapist trained to do deeper processing work, such as EMDR, interpersonal neurobiology,IFS, etc.) can be used to help you rewire your brain so that your emotional triggers, anxieties and/or traumas, no longer hijack your life so intensely at times. This works via a process scientists call memory reconsolidation. Basically, this rewiring is achieved by activating emotion during the therapy session – which unlocks the neural networks in the emotional region of the brain that wire it. The emotion is then processed, while simultaneously giving the brain a new/different experience than it received in the past. This forges the development of new neural networks.
As a therapist, I love EFT because it is a transformative process. EFT helps people tune into and learn to trust their inner voice, get in touch with aspects of themselves they have not been consciously aware of (or have repressed), and transform maladaptive emotions (such as fear, anxiety, shame, anger, etc) into emotions that can guide them in a healthy way. EFT helps people discriminate between emotions that they can/should trust, versus emotional reactions fueled by outdated narratives and fears. This whole process allows people to live more authentically, peacefully and joyfully.
Emotion Focused Therapy (EFT) for Couples
Les Greenberg and his student, Sue Johnson, developed an extension of Emotion Focused Therapy that is specific to couples counseling. EFT for Couples is excellent because it can help increase emotional intelligence in you and your partner, while rebuilding connection and a sense of safety in your relationship. Sue Johnson’s version of the model is based on Attachment Theory, which shows the importance of a strong relationship with at least one primary caregiver during early development. A child who forms a secure attachment early on tends to develop a sense of inner stability, confidence, and security in relationships that stays with them into adulthood. The model was then extended to adult romantic relationships, and broadly states that people are happier, and more likely to thrive, when they feel safe in their emotional connections with others.
Simply put, we, as humans, are wired to connect. For many of us, our romantic partner is an important attachment figure. As such, our partners have a significant emotional and physiological impact on us, just as we do on them. We are often assessing (usually subconsciously) the security of our emotional bond with our partner. Are they going to be there for me? Are my needs okay to have – are they going to be rejected? Am I emotionally safe? When we fail to find the connection and safety we are looking for, or when our needs go unmet, our nervous systems often become reactive. When this happens, we may behave in ways that result in greater disconnection. For example, we may act out in anger or jealousy, amp up our emotional pursuit of our partner, criticize or shame them, shut down, freeze out or stonewall them, etc. These behaviors usually produce the opposite of what we actually want – they tend to drive our partner further away instead of drawing them closer.
Needless to say, the emotional signals (spoken and unspoken) that you send to your partner are important. Sometimes, no matter how hard you try to communicate your needs, your signals come out (or are received) incorrectly, and it causes a rift. It is typical for couples to get entrenched in negative repetitive patterns of miscommunication, unmet needs, and frustration. An EFT therapist who is trained in couples therapy will examine your negative fight cycle(s) and reflect the pattern(s) back to you. It is important that you are able to see these patterns. An EFT trained couples therapist can then help you delve a bit deeper so that you can access and process the emotions and unmet needs that are underlying and driving these unhealthy patterns. This is what will help you break free of them.
An EFT therapist who is trained in couples therapy is also expert at helping couples send and receive emotional signals correctly. EFT can help you and your partner understand your basic emotions, fears and longings. Once you have a clear idea of what you need from your partner (and vice versa), an EFT therapist will teach you to regulate your emotion enough to be able to send clear messages to your partner. You will be able to articulate your needs better and effectively create more openness, responsiveness and bonding in your relationship.
One criticism of Sue Johnson’s model of EFT therapy for couples is that it seems to ignore the importance of identity, independence and affect regulation in relationships and supports a more enmeshed relationship style. Enmeshment is a common problem in relationships (I plan to write an article on this soon) and is essentially a dead end in terms of personal development. Sue Johnson counters this criticism by pointing out that the more securely attached a person is, the more autonomous they can be. Les Greenberg’s model of EFT therapy for couples actually addresses this issue and integrates the importance of both attachment and personal identity/autonomy. Les Greenberg’s model also considers attraction as a key element in relational work, and emphasizes the importance of affect regulation (self soothing) in de-escalating negative fight cycles.
