Distressed couples and families can get locked in destructive cycles of communication, turning benign conversations into painful and defeating experiences.
Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) is a short-term, structured approach to marital and couples therapy. With EFT, negative cycles are unlocked and changed so that love, connection, and safety can be restored. EFT helps partners get to the underlying issues that drive their conflict, moving away from the content of what the fight is about and focusing more on how the conflict is occurring. It is designed to help partners interrupt the negative and stuck patterns in their communication and interactions, and learn how to express more vulnerable feelings and needs that often underlie anger, defensiveness, and withdrawn behavior.
EFT’s success is rooted in several factors, including:
Attachment needs ~ the need to feel seen, safe, valued, important ~ are fundamentally the same in all humans. In fact, recent research shows that adult attachment relationships have the same survival function as the parent-child bond — providing a safe person to turn to for comfort and reassurance to meet life’s challenges and to take the risks necessary for personal growth. However, painful relationship histories and negative interaction cycles with our partners can leave us feeling disconnected, unimportant, and unsafe in our most important relationships. And it is this sense of relationship insecurity that becomes the focus of EFT.
Attachment theory, the foundation on which EFT is built, is supported by an extensive body of research spanning several decades. The interventions used in EFT developed out of attachment theory and countless hours of observing couple conflict to precisely understand what exactly happens when partners are disconnected. Today, Dr. Sue Johnson boldly proclaims that we now understand the “science of love” and utilize this knowledge to implement effective EFT.
An extensive body of research, conducted over more than 20 years and published in leading journals, shows that Emotionally Focused Therapy works very well and that treatment results last. Also, the results of rigorous studies show that the positive effects from EFT are larger than any other couple intervention has achieved to date.
From the attachment perspective, conflicts over jealousy, sex, finances, parenting or other issues is not just about the specific content the couple or family member is arguing about. What the fights are really about, is not feeling connected, not trusting, not feeling safe or secure with each other. The growing body of research on the brain validate attachment theory’s assertion that we are born with an innate need for our parents to be consistently accessible, responsive, and emotionally engaged. In couple relationships, we year for our partners to be accessible, responsive, and emotionally engaged with us. Regardless of the content over which we fight, the deeper reality is that, what children need from their parents, and partners need from each other is the same: reassurance that they are valued and loved, and that they can rely on the person they love to be there for them when they need them.
When those most important to us are not available, or not responding to our needs to feel close and supported, we feel distressed. In our distress, we often become angry, anxious, fearful, distant or numb. Over time, such behaviors can often become habitual and rigid modes of reacting to the ones we love. Furthermore, these toxic – intimacy destroying – behaviors can take on a life of their own, creating a negative pattern of destructive, repetitive, knee-jerk responses. These cycles of repetitive negative interactions, cause distance, pain, injury and despair. EFT interventions specifically address these self-reinforcing negative cycles as the major barrier to positive connection.
EFT focuses on identifying these patterns of negative interactions and changing them in a safe and non-judgmental environment. In a relatively short time, couples begin to recognize, and eventually express their needs for love, support, protection, and comfort. Over time, partners and family members in EFT therapy begin to really hear and understand one another, and to effectively respond to each other in a safe and loving way.
The primary task of Emotionally Focused Family Therapy is to help parents become their children’s safe haven and secure base. The primary goal for Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy is for partners to become each other’s safe haven and secure base. This is accomplished as the therapy helps you understand what is getting in the way of you and your loved ones connecting, feeling close, and experiencing each other in a more loving way. EFT helps you transform the negative cycles of interaction that have prevented you from enjoying the closeness and security you desire. The result is positive patterns of interaction that build your trust in one another and help you develop the safe and loving relationship you desire.
Once this safe haven and feelings of connection are established, parents and children, and partners are better able to communicate with effectiveness and love. They are better able to manage the conflicts and painful feelings that inevitably arise in close relationships. Without so much of the past defensiveness, each of you will be better able to send the other clearer messages and to hear the other’s perspective.
Even after therapy ends, research shows that most couples remain better connected and more loving. The same is true for families when they develop secure attachment bonds. You will also be better able to collaborate, problem solve and repair relationship ruptures when they occur. You’ll develop a true partnership and enjoy the ongoing companionship, comfort, and passion of a securely attached relationship.
For almost 40 years, Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) has been used worldwide as an evidence-based approach to helping couples and families repair and reconnect their most treasured relationships. Originally developed by Sue Johnson, EFT builds upon Emotion-Focused Therapy, which was pioneered by Les Greenberg, by incorporating attachment theory to understand and transform distressed couple and family relationships. Today, EFT is widely practiced with diverse couples from various cultures in private practices, university training centers, and hospital clinics across the globe.
AZEFT is an affiliated Center of the International Centre for Excellence in Emotionally Focused Therapy (ICEEFT)
