Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy
What is EFT?
Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy, as the name implies, focuses on the emotional responses between partners in relationship and how underlying, unspoken emotions might be contributing to ongoing conflict.
Within sessions, the therapist focuses on the emotions which are alive within the room and with gentleness and safety, helps partners to deepen into their core emotions and needs within the relationship.
EFT is particularly helpful in providing couples a new experience of their relationship. Rather than behavioral techniques, which go out the window in the heat of the moment, couples are helped to have new emotional experiences which translate into new forms of relating outside of the room.
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The Theoretical Principles of EFT
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Attachment Theory
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At the core of EFT is the principles of Attachment Theory. Attachment Theory explains that the bond between an infant and caregiver is fundamental to survival, and that in infancy, we build expectations regarding our foundational attachment needs being met – safety and protection, emotional attunement, being valued (expressed delight), support for exploration, and comfort/soothing. When these needs are not or are inconsistently met, we develop behaviours which are our ‘best solution’ to secure our attachment needs. Some of these behaviors might include monitoring relationships at all times and adjusting to the moods of caregivers or not showing that we are emotionally upset so that our caregivers remain close and aren't rejecting. These strategies often help when we are young, but later in life may cause issues in relationship.
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In adult relationships, the attachment system also gets activated. That is why a threat to our relationship can often be one of the most stressful experiences within our lives – because on an evolutionary level, it is about survival.
Following this theory, within Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy, the reactions and behaviors each partner exhibits during conflict are understood as their ‘best solution’ to have their attachment needs met.
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Systems Theory
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EFT uses the principles of systems theory, which posits that each part, effects and co-creates the behavior of another part of the system. An EFT therapist therefore does not blame one individual in the relationship, but instead views the couple as stuck within a negative cycle within which they both have responses and behaviors which catalyse that of the other.
Your EFT therapist will help you to gain insight into your pattern of conflict, so that you begin to get a bird’s eye view of the destructive loop you are within. Most importantly, your couples therapist will help guide you through different ways of expressing and engaging with your partner, so that you have an in-session experience of what a different, and more positive, step feels like within the dance of relating.
The Stages of EFT
What can you expect in Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy in Carlton at The Spring Clinic
Stage 1 - Deescalation
Emotionally focused couple’s therapy begins by tracking the conflict cycle between a couple. We identify the typical emotional responses and protective reactions which occur between couples and maintain a negative “dance” or “cycle” within the relationship.
A couple may come already able to recite the conflict cycle they enter, or they may need the support of the therapist to begin to identify it.
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Your therapist will help you to become the expert in this negative dance, so that you can, with increasing clarity, notice when it happens, and eventually, chose to make different moves.
When you can both name and own your “moves” within the conflict “dance”, conflict begins to reduce. Instead of being within the cycle and pitted against each other, you become curious about what is happening and united together against the cycle.
Within stage 1, we also begin to deepen your understanding of the moves that you take. Your therapist will help you to articulate the emotions, thoughts, bodily sensations, and actions you take within the conflict dance. Through gaining this foundational insight, you will begin to have more comprehension and control over your responses and reactions.
Stage 2 - Restructuring
In Stage 2, the magic of EFT really begins.
Your EFT counsellor will start guiding you into a more profound reflection of yours and your partner’s experience within the relationship.
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This stage begins once safety has been established – namely, that you can both own your moves in the dance and have compassion and curiosity to your partner’s experience, rather than being reactive. With this greater space for reflection, partners will be invited to begin experimenting with vocalizing their needs and experience in a new way.
In stage 2, partners make contact with their core emotions and are supported to express their needs more clearly to each other. From a more vulnerable and softened stance towards each other, partner really get to hear each other and begin to respond to each other's needs with more compassion and care.
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In this experiential process, the change you hope for outside of therapy, will begin within the therapist's room. Couples are guided to identify, express, and respond to emotional experiences in a whole new way, which creates greater feelings of connection. These moments in couples therapy, become the practice ground and model for relating outside of the room.
Stage 2 - Consolidation
The final stage of EFT is about celebrating and consolidating the gains you have made through couples therapy. This stage usually occurs within the last few sessions of couples therapy, when partners are feeling consistent patterns of positive interactions. Within consolidation, we review the changes that have occurred, and we reflect with specific detail on what has helped support these changes.
Bringing the experiential process of EFT into explicit language helps the couples to gain clarity about what helped and why. When couples know both through experience and knowledge what helps to bring them into greater connection, they are armed with the tools they need to continue to face the trials and tribulations of life together.
Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy in Carlton
EFT is offered at The Spring Clinic by a number of our experienced and empathetic couples therapists. We have both female and male couples therapists with current availability for EFT couples therapy in our Carlton practice or online.
Our couples therapists understand the EFT process well and know the risk that each partner is taking in coming to couples therapy. Making contact with our emotions can often feel like an overwhelming task initially and our therapists understand this.
Our EFT therapists will help you get acquainted with the process and, slowly but surely, have new and rewarding experiences.
