What Is Emotionally Focused Therapy?

What is Emotionally Focused Therapy? If you don't know, know this: it's not the same as what you may have already tried. Sometimes you hear people say, “We tried marriage counseling and it didn’t work.” Their conclusion is that all marriage counseling is the same and it doesn’t work, at least not for them. The truth is that there are many different kinds of couples therapy with varying degrees of success, but one stands out, Emotionally Focused Therapy.

As a therapist who wants to actually help couples, I searched for the best, most effective therapy model, and I found it. It is Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), and it works so well that there is no comparison. No other therapy model has been researched and proven as much as EFT. Since the mid-80’s study after study has found that a whopping 90% of couples who go through EFT significantly improve their relationship, and 70-75% of couples move out of relationship distress after finishing therapy. The closest couples therapy model only has a 35% success rate, and it goes down from there.

What Is Emotionally Focused Therapy, Or EFT?

Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) recognizes that couples tend to get stuck in what we call a “negative cycle,” a repeating pattern of conflict characterized by one partner anxiously pursuing through attacking, criticizing, blaming, and the other partner avoidantly withdrawing through shutting down, going silent, leaving. Both partners long for closeness, but in the end feel misunderstood and alone. EFT helps couples break their negative cycle and reconnect in a safe and secure bond in which they become more resilient for life’s challenges.

We know from research dating back to the 1930’s that human beings are literally hard-wired to seek attachment, especially with a primary relationship. We need that attachment like we need oxygen, so when we sense a threat to our connection, we feel a primary, vulnerable emotion like fear or sadness. But because those emotions are scary, our brain instantly replaces them with reactive secondary emotions like anger or coldness and we attack or withdraw as a coping mechanism.

Here's what happens: your partner criticizes you. Your primary emotion of fear or sadness is triggered and immediately given a meaning: “I’m not good enough; I’m not worthy of love.” That is too scary to admit or face, so your brain turns on your irritation or your coldness and you lash back at your partner or shut down and leave. This is the negative cycle at work. It happens in a nano-second and repeats itself over and over in an infinity loop that you can’t break out of on your own. If you could, you would.

This is where an EFT therapist can help. I help you to see your negative cycle and how to break it. We can literally reprogram your brain by exploring your negative cycle and the emotions at work in it. We will elicit those emotions and write a new script in which you can risk sharing your softer primary emotions in a way that your partner will receive. Vulnerability has a way of calling out compassion in your partner to respond to your deepest needs for intimacy. As we do this work, your emotional bond is repaired and your connection is reestablished. That is what EFT is.

What Difference Will EFT Make?

The reason most marriage counseling doesn’t work is because it focuses on the symptoms and not the cause. Most couple therapy approaches focus on new behaviors and better communication skills. That’s like rearranging furniture on the Titanic. When we perceive that our attachment bond is threatened and our primary emotions get wounded, the frontal cortex of our brain goes offline so that whatever behaviors and communication techniques we learned in counseling disappear and we just do whatever coping mechanisms we learned when we were growing up.

In EFT, we don’t focus on the window dressing. Your behavior and communication will fix itself when you have a safe and secure connection. So, we focus on your underlying attachment needs and the emotions that drive the negative cycle. And it’s amazing how resilient you become when the negative cycle is broken and you have a strong attachment bond with your partner.

Dr. Sue Johnson, the creator of Emotionally Focused Therapy, talks about a study in which women in an unhappy marriage were given an electric shock while holding their husbands’ hands. They reported that it was painful. Then they went through EFT couple therapy, after which they repeated the experience, but this time the women reported that it was only uncomfortable, and brain scans showed that the pain centers of their brains were, indeed, less active.

That’s the power of a secure attachment. When your relationship is a safe and secure haven, it makes the pain and stresses of life more manageable. Not only will your relationship be more satisfying, but your whole life will improve. Such is the power of love. Like the old Jerry Reed song, “A Thing Called Love,” says, “It can lift you up, it can let you down, take your world and turn it all around. Ever since time, nothing’s ever been found stronger than love.”

I encourage you to read more about Emotionally Focused Therapy, then reach out to us at SoulCare Counseling for a free thirty-minute consultation. We want to help you.