What is EFT for couples?
Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) for couples is a structured, attachment-based, systemic, experiential therapy model with over forty years of research and a 70% success rate. EFT honors the fact that none of us are meant to go through life alone. Relying on others and desiring closeness is an adaptive and healthy instinct, and our spouse or partner should be our safe haven when life gets hard.
Who is EFT for?
EFT is effective with couples who are disconnected, distant, can’t seem to stop arguing, or couples recovering from an affair or other betrayals. If you feel like you’re drifting apart, struggling to trust each other, feeling constantly misunderstood, stuck in a fight you cannot resolve, or like you’ve tried everything you can to reach each other but still can’t find your way back, EFT might be for you.
EFT is also a wonderful resource for couples who may not be in crisis, but are looking to deepen their bond or become more aware of their patterns. Couples seeking premarital counseling, as well as couples who are looking for a stronger physical and sexual bond are also great candidates for EFT.
What’s the goal?
Ultimately, the goal of EFT is to help couples feel close, connected, and secure in their bond. We aim to make your relationship your safe haven. EFT gets straight to the heart of what leaves couples disconnected and dissatisfied - their negative cycle, which is a set of predictable and understandable behaviors, thoughts, and emotions that occur between partners when they’re arguing or not getting along.
What does a typical course of couples therapy look like?
The negative cycle is our common enemy, and it is our primary job in therapy to join up against it. My role as your couple therapist is to be your “process consultant,” guiding you through a series of conversations that will help you raise your awareness of yourself and your partner, and get to the core of your disconnection.
I ask each of you specific questions that are designed to help bring clarity to what happens within and between you, and why you do what you do when your cycle comes alive. I mirror back your process and learn your cycle alongside you every step of the way.
In this early stage of work, I encourage each partner to take ownership of how they contribute to the disconnection. Safety and de-escalation are our initial goals. Cycles between couples are not linear, where only one partner contributes, but a circular feedback loop that partners co-create (please note, this does not apply to abusive relationships).
Once there is a strong, clear understanding of the negative cycle and we’ve achieved enough safety, I help guide deeper, re-bonding conversations. Each partner expresses their core emotional hurts, fears, and longings to each other, and I help the other partner receive those feelings and longings with care, attunement, and openness.
This part of the work is often the most vulnerable, but most rewarding phase of couple therapy. It is what “seals the deal” and helps fully restructure your bond, so that the hard work you’ve done can really stick. It helps you learn how to share and receive your and your partner’s emotions and needs in a new and more effective way to help you both feel close, cared for, and secure.
If you’d like to learn more about EFT, feel free to check out the International Centre for Excellence in Emotional Focused Therapy (ICEEFT) website: https://iceeft.com. You can also click on the Resources tab on the top right to browse my favorite EFT books, podcasts, articles, and so on.
“From the cradle to the grave, human beings are hardwired to seek physical and emotional proximity to special others who are deemed irreplaceable. The longing for a ‘felt sense’ of connection to key others is primary in terms of the hierarchy of human goals and needs. Humans are most acutely aware of this innate need for connection at times of threat, risk, pain, or uncertainty.
Predictable physical and/or emotional connection with an attachment figure, often a parent, sibling, longtime close friend, mate, or spiritual figure, calms the nervous system and shapes a physical and mental sense of a safe haven where comfort and reassurance can be reliably obtained and emotional balance can be restored or enhanced.”