THERAPIES
Emotion-Focused Therapy (EFT)
Emotion-focused therapy… A greater focus on emotion? Isn’t it expected that therapists will listen to their clients’ emotions?
After all, what kind of therapist ignores the client’s emotions?
Hold your horses, there’s more to EFT!
Credit: Dr. Konstantin Lukin
EFT is a form of therapy focused on adult relationships and attachment.
The therapist and clients work collaboratively, looking at patterns in their relationships. Steps are then taken to create more secure bonds and trust to move relationships towards healthier directions. EFT is based on the concept that our emotions are not only important factors in our lives, but we also form some sense of self based on our emotions and emotional responses.
Who is it for?
While Emotion-Focused Therapy started off targeting couples, it is really for anyone dealing with anger, fear, loss of trust, or sense of betrayal in their relationship. There are now Emotion-Focused Therapy for couples, individuals as well as families.
Emotion-Focused Therapy for Individuals
For those wishing to understand and manage their emotions and emotional responses, the goals of EFT for individuals is roughly similar to those for couples. Differences lie in that emotional awareness, regulation and transformation is targeted for the individual only.
Through EFT, individuals learn healthy ways to interact and express their emotions with others, especially in situations where emotions may run high.
Emotion-Focused Therapy for Couples
Sometimes, couples find themselves caught in a vicious cycle of argument, blame, and anger. When this happens, EFT may be useful in helping couples escape this never-ending trap by helping them to peer through this veil of anger and frustration to uncover the more vulnerable emotions within them, such as fear, disappointment, and hurt.
EFT is an evidence-based therapy, lasting between 8 to 20 weeks, derived from attachment theory. It attributes relationship woes to insecure attachments and helps couples improve their relationship by forging a more secure attachment bond.
Unlike problem-solving approaches to couple therapy, EFT adopts a more emotionally oriented perspective towards relationship problems and shifts the blame from both partners to the negative interaction patterns between them.
In EFT, the therapist help clients explore their present emotions, and assist them in unearthing and integrating aspects of their inner experiences that were obscured from their conscious awareness. This is done through the three stages of EFT (see below!).
EFT has proven its effectiveness when administered to couples who are facing a range of difficulties, such as for couples dealing with infidelity, or where one or both partners suffer from a mental disorder, like depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder.
Emotion-Focused Therapy for Families
For families, the target is to help family members improve connectedness and sense of belonging within the family.
The therapist assists family members in processing and reflecting about their own emotions, trying to understand other family members’ emotions, and learning how to communicate and interact effectively by expressing their emotions in a healthy way.
For families going through challenging times with issues such as those listed below, EFT will be an effective therapy:
Ψ Divorce
Ψ Children reaching adolescence or going through puberty
Ψ Newly blended family (step-parents or step-siblings joining family)
Ψ Behavioural issues in teenagers, adolescents and children
This list is not exhaustive and EFT is really for anyone who wants to improve their relationships with others!
What to expect?
As EFT looks into the interactions between clients and their partners or family members, you will be asked to reflect on these interactions and the emotions you are or were feeling. You may discover certain feelings and personal vulnerabilities you didn’t realise were shaping your behaviour and interactions with others. Through the therapy sessions, you will...
Ψ Learn to express vulnerable emotions in a way to improve emotional connectedness with the other
Ψ Learn techniques on better ways to listen, understand and react to another’s emotions
How does it work?
Welcome, to the 3 stages of EFT.
Stage 1: Negative Cycle De-Escalation
This stage promotes awareness and understanding among individuals (in a couple or family) with negative patterns of interaction. These patterns generally perpetuate insecurity and emotional distress in relationships.
At the end of the stage, withdrawn individuals become more engaged, and hostile ones become less angry. Individuals may begin to find reassurance in the therapy, which rekindles hope in the relationship.
Stage 2: Restructuring Interactions
The second stage involves forming new interaction patterns that result in a more secure connection. 2 major therapeutic events occur in this stage: withdrawer re-engagement and blamer softening. These shifts give rise to a new interactional position in the relationship that fosters secure attachment.
Ψ Withdrawer re-engagement: occurs when an individual who previously shunned engagement with another, begins to actively assert their attachment needs and sense of self in relation to the other, thus becoming more accessible and responsive to the other.
Ψ Blamer softening: occurs when the previously hostile individual, who was inclined to blaming and criticising the other, begins to reveal their vulnerability, and their partner is encouraged to listen and respond in a supportive and comforting way.
Stage 3: Consolidation & Integration
In the third stage, the therapist focuses on supporting the new and more constructive patterns of interaction by helping individuals consolidate the more secure attachment bond that they have established in therapy and integrate the behavioural changes to their everyday lives.
After EFT is successfully completed, the old and rigid interaction patterns are replaced by new and more flexible ones. This then kickstarts a self-reinforcing positive interactions cycle reinvigorating the relationship and brings about lasting changes.
You may not have heard much about EFT. But nonetheless, it is an effective evidence-based method of enhancing the client’s emotional awareness and improving their interactions with others. Reach out to us if you are keen on undergoing EFT with one of our clinicians!