Emotionally Focused Therapy

What is Emotionally Focused Therapy is Best Known For?

 

“EFT is best known as a cutting edge, tested and proven couple intervention, but it is also used to address individual depression, anxiety and post traumatic stress (EFIT – Emotionally Focused Individual Therapy) and to repair family bonds (EFFT – Emotionally Focused Family Therapy).”

– as described by the International Centre of Excellence for Emotionally Focused Therapy

 

During Emotionally Focused Therapy

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During Emotionally Focused Therapy you will experience your therapist seeking to truly understand how you are experiencing life and how your challenges impact you in the present moment. This is done in three primary ways.

 

1. Your EFT therapist will work with you to create an environment where your authentic self can be expressed.

 

This can enable an experience of feeling accepted and safe for who you are as a whole person and not just for your challenge that brought you into therapy. By understanding who you are as a whole person your therapist will direct the focus toward how you are currently experiencing your struggle by creating an environment where you can express, share, and encounter what is it like to authentically feel heard and understood.

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2. Your EFT therapist will use this process to explore the patterns in your most important relationships.

 

These patterns may create the challenge that brought you into therapy. Together, you will begin to understand the pattern that sustains the struggle you are dealing with. This pattern is fueled by our attachment style or strategy when we feel disconnected from our partner. We all tend toward more anxious attachment or avoidant attachment. When these are combined in a relationship they can create misunderstanding, disconnection, and feelings of aloneness. Once you both reach this understanding your EFT therapist will then encourage you to take valiant steps toward renewal. This happens through creating new patterns that create renewal, freedom, and connectedness in life.

 

3. Your EFT therapist will explore the ways you manage and respond to tough moments in your most important relationships.

 

We all have a strategy to manage these moments. We begin to develop this strategy early in life and tend to refine it over the years. You can expect your EFT therapist to honor the strengths this strategy brings to your life while at the same time helping you explore the times when it creates momentum in the patterns that are sustaining your struggles in life. 

 

Each session of Emotionally Focused Therapy will look and feel very similar to these three primary ways your EFT therapist will seek to truly understand how you are experiencing life through the challenge that brought you to therapy. More often than not, this journey brings healing to past hurts, true connection in present relationships, and hope for the future. 

 

Geeking Out About Emotionally Focused Therapy

 

If we geek out for a moment, the academic research on Emotionally Focused Therapy spans over 30 years and is described as the “gold standard” by the American Psychological Association for psychotherapy research. Research studies consistently show how Emotionally Focused Therapy not only creates long-term change, but also kickstarts a natural growth process that continues after therapy.

 

Our deep desire is to honor your valiant steps toward renewal in your life and in your most important relationships. We are confident Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) may provide a great opportunity for you to experience your life and your relationships in the way you are longing for. Learn more about how Emotionally Focused Therapy can help and 4 ways Emotionally Focused Therapy improves marriages in our Thoughts & Valuable Information section.

 

Are you ready to begin Emotionally Focused Therapy?