Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy
Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) is a powerful attachment-based method that can help couples work through feelings of disconnection, recurring arguments, deep wounds in the relationship, and even help reduce individual symptoms of depression and trauma. It is a rigorously tested model that has become the gold for treating couples. Not only do we know that emotionally focused couples therapy works, we know that it lasts.
While many couples begin to notice a difference in their relationship rather quickly, EFT doesn’t focus on tools or short-term strategies for managing disagreements. Instead, EFT actually helps couples build safety in the relationship, allowing partners to turn towards one another when there are challenges or disagreements, rather than feeling more distant. When this happens, couples report more closeness, intimacy in the relationship, and the ability to solve conflicts effectively and without winding up in the same negative cycle again and again. While this can lead to significant changes in the relationship, this type of work also has the power to move insecurely attached partners towards security. This last piece is powerful, transformative, and impacts areas outside of the relationship in healthy ways. The relationship becomes a “secure base” helping us feel more able to go out into the world and take healthy risks, more self-confident, and better able to regulate our own emotions.
What happens in EFT?
A large part of EFT is focused on tracking the cycle. The cycle is the negative dance that we get into with our partners that drives disconnection. For some, this means having the same type of argument over and over without finding resolution. For others, this is about the challenges in the relationship that go unspoken and result in turning away from one another and feeling distance. It can feel deeply connected to the ruptures or breaches of trust that have happened in the past that have never been resolved but still impact the feelings of safety and closeness in the relationship.
One of the initial goals in EFT is to track the cycle, getting clear not just about what each partner does when there’s disconnection, but understanding the underlying, deeper and more meaningful emotion, and automatic assumptions about ourselves and our partners that drive our reactive behaviors. EFT therapy is not an exercise in “find the bad guy,” it’s about partners coming together to identify the negative cycle that gets between from a place of alignment.
What are the three phases of Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT)
In the first session together, we’ll begin to identify your unique cycle. We’ll start to understand what happens when there’s conflict or disconnection in the relationship and dive a little deeper to better understand what is happening underneath for each of you. As the name suggests, Emotionally Focused Therapy explores the deeper emotions underneath the behaviors that can cause couples to argue or feel disconnection. You’ll begin to communicate to each other differently, sharing these deeper emotions in ways that help facilitate connection rather than leading to disconnection and argument. You’ll learn to receive this vulnerable emotion from your partner in a supportive and loving way, shifting away from your negative cycle and creating a way of communicating that fosters connection and support. What this does is deescalate the cycle, slowing it down, and removing some of the heat. Many couples begin to report the ability to notice their cycle as it’s arising and describe feeling easier to reconnect, and it less intense.
The second phase of EFT is about accessing the deeper fears and attachment longings that typically go unnamed in the relationship and often with ourselves. This is a powerful part of therapy, where the focus is no longer exclusively on deescalating conflict, but understanding and repairing the wounds that have been present in our earliest relationships, that often (subconsciously) seep into our adult relationships. This is an incredible place where we can actually begin to restructure your bond, creating deeper intimacy and connection, and heal attachment trauma from the past.
The third phase of EFT integrates all of the cycle and deeper attachment work from the previous two phases. We’ll explore how to approach challenges from a place of secure attachment and you’ll create a new, healthy cycle, rooted in connection and closeness. I like to think of this final phase as solidifying the emotional foundation of your relationship - when the ground is solid, it doesn’t matter what is put on top of it, the safety and security is there.
Who is Right for EFT?
EFT can be done with couples in all phases of their relationship and in many relationship structures including consensual non-monogamy. A great time to begin couples work is when considering a new relationship milestone (such as moving in together or engagement), premarital therapy, or when beginning to notice recurrent disagreements or feelings of disconnection in the relationship. Getting ahead of the cycle and working on the relationship in earlier phases is a great way to strengthen the emotional foundation of the relationship. EFT therapy is also appropriate for couples who are ending their relationship but want to do so amicably, maintaining a healthy relationship either for themselves or for their children.
EFT therapy is not appropriate for couples when there is active domestic violence, physical or emotional, or if one person feels unsafe in the relationship. EFT therapy is also not recommended in the short-term for couples when one or both partners experiences an impulse control disorder or panic disorder.
How to Get Started
Are you interested in learning more about Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy? The best next step is to schedule a consultation call. I offer a free 20-minute consultation call for you and your partner so that I can answer any questions you may have and so that we can get to know each other a bit better and see if there’s a good fit for EFT therapy together. Schedule your consultation call now and learn more about my work with couples here.
Wondering how to date smarter? Check out my blog post here.