What is EFT

You can listen to a great podcast with Dr Sue Johson, Founder of EFT here: Cracking the Code of Love

One of the most important components that contribute to a happy and healthy life is the availability of loving and intimate relationships. Maintaining, healing, and deepening close relationships is a vital skill that is sure to produce positive effects on one’s quality of life. Of great importance then, is the quality of the relationship between significant others and spouses. Emotionally focused therapy, or EFT, is a therapeutic process aimed to heal disruption and disharmony within marriages. Though designed to help marriages, the techniques and wisdom within the therapy style provide great insight into how to foster healthy relationships in general throughout life.

EFT is based upon the work of Bowlby and the Attachment Theory (Byrne et al., 2004; Snyder et al., 2012). Attachment theory states that a fundamental aspect of human nature is the desire to create attachment and intimate relationships (Snyder et al., 2012). For this reason, childhood experiences characterized by healthy attachment styles, or the lack thereof, can have a dramatic influence on emotional development and relationship health later in life (Snyder et al., 2012). Therefore, EFT is based upon the theory that issues within marriage are rooted in the disruption of perceived attachment within the relationship (Byrne et al., 2004). When poor attachment health is experienced within the relationship, individuals will begin to feel fear of abandonment that consequently leads to anger (Byrne et al., 2004). This anger, which leads to verbal attacks and confrontations, end up characterizing the marital issues. However, it is the underlying fear of lack of attachment that is the root cause and must be addressed.

Therapy sessions within the EFT framework aim to address the root cause of the marital issues. Due to the root fear of abandonment being unaddressed during normal marital spouts, deeper emotions are explored in therapy sessions (Byrne et al., 2004; Greenman & Johnson, 2013). Couples are encouraged to reflect upon and express the feelings and needs that are typically ignored(Greenberg et al., 1993). Additionally, couples are helped to become aware of the patterns of interaction that lead to confrontation, so that they can be avoided and the true underlying emotions and issues discussed (Byrne et al., 2004).

This therapeutic approach typically incorporates nine steps. The following is taken directly from a paper by Nancy Beckerman and Michele Sarracco (Beckerman & Sarracco, 2011):

  1. Delineating conflict issues in core struggle
  2. Identifying negative interaction cycles
  3. Accessing the unacknowledged feeling and underlying interactional positions
  4. Reframing the problem in terms of underlying feelings and attachment needs
  5. Identifying disowned needs and aspects of self and integrating these into relationship interactions
  6. Promoting acceptance of partners experiences and new interaction patterns
  7. Facilitating experience of needs and wants and creating emotional engagement
  8. Establishing the emergence of new solutions
  9. Consolidating new emotional and therefore behavioral positions in relation to one another

Evidently, the process of EFT requires much introspection. Couples must reflect upon the roots of their emotions, while also learning to be attenuative to the emotions and needs of their significant other. For this reason, researchers are beginning to suspect that practices of mindfulness could be very useful in this endeavor. Mindfulness, as defined by Bishop et al. in 2006, is “a process of regulating attention in order to bring a quality of non-elaborative awareness to current experience and a quality of relating to one’s experience within an orientation of curiosity, experiential openness, and acceptance”(Bishop et al., 2006). This form of nonjudgmental awareness and openness of one’s thoughts and feelings often practiced through mindfulness meditation, can be very helpful in not only identifying the root cause of one’s own emotions but to be accepting of others. A randomized control trial of mindfulness-based relationship enhancement showed that those who are engaged in relationships that incorporate mindfulness result in (Carson et al., 2015):

  1. Improved couple satisfaction, autonomy, relatedness, intimacy, and acceptance of each other.
  2. Improved individual optimisms and relaxation, with decreased levels of psychological distress.
  3. Improvements that last over time.

Mindfulness practiced within a relationship can also improve coping mechanisms and prevent negative emotional reactivity in times of disagreement, that help in preventing destructive communication patterns (Beckerman & Sarracco, 2011).

Therefore, it seems very obvious that the skills practiced through mindfulness become very helpful when conducting healthy relationship habits from an EFT point of view. Mindfulness not only allows an individual to become more self-aware and accepting of their emotions, but the emotions of the other as well, fostering a relationship full of understanding, conflict resolution, appreciation, and acceptance. Surely these skills transcend usefulness beyond domestic relationships and can be applied to every relationship we create. We should all become more aware of our negative emotions, and be willing to explore ourselves and understand where they come from, so we do not lash out at others. Additionally, being open about our emotions allows for healthy dialogue with others, so that conflicts can be resolved in a peaceful manner. This will inevitably lead to deeper connections and feelings of togetherness. As stated within the attachment theory, we are all beings that crave intimacy and relationships. The deeper and safer the relationship, the more we are satisfying an essential need and desire. Therefore, to achieve this wonder and happiness, we should all learn to be mindful of the emotions of ourselves and others in order to foster healthy and loving lives, relationships, and the world.

*Image credited to FS blog 

References

Beckerman, N. L., & Sarracco, M. (2011). Enhancing emotionally focused couple therapy through the practice of mindfulness: A case analysis. Journal of Family Psychotherapy, 22(1), 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1080/08975353.2011.551082

Bishop, S. R., Lau, M., Shapiro, S., Carlson, L., Anderson, N. D., Carmody, J., Segal, Z. v., Abbey, S., Speca, M., Velting, D., & Devins, G. (2006). Mindfulness: A Proposed Operational Definition. Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice, 11(3), 230–241. https://doi.org/10.1093/clipsy.bph077

Byrne, M., Carr, A., & Clark, M. (2004). The efficacy of behavioral couples therapy and emotionally focused therapy for couple distress. In Contemporary Family Therapy (Vol. 26, Issue 4, pp. 361–387). Springer Science+Business Media, Inc. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10591-004-0642-9

Carson, K., Carson, J. W., Carson, Kimberly. M., Gil, K. M., & Baucom, D. H. (2015). Mindfulness-Based Relationship Enhancement Mindfulness-Based Relationship Enhancement. Behavior Therapy, 35(October), 471–494.

Greenberg, L. S., Ford, C. L., Alden, L. S., & Johnson, S. M. (1993). In-Session Change in Emotionally Focused Therapy. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 61(1), 78–84. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-006x.61.1.78

Greenman, P. S., & Johnson, S. M. (2013). Process Research on Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) for Couples: Linking Theory to Practice. Family Process, 52(1), 46–61. https://doi.org/10.1111/famp.12015

Snyder, R., Shapiro, S., & Treleaven, D. (2012). Attachment Theory and Mindfulness. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 21(5), 709–717. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-011-9522-8

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