Dr Sue johnson
Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT)
Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) is a distinct and highly effective therapeutic approach designed to help individuals enhance their emotional connections with themselves and others. Originating in the 1980s, EFT is founded on the idea that emotions are fundamental to our experiences and relationships. It posits that humans are inherently equipped to develop a secure sense of self, which in turn supports the formation of strong, supportive bonds with others. When these bonds are secure, individuals typically experience greater happiness and well-being.
One of EFT’s strengths lies in its adaptability. While it is well-known for its effectiveness in helping couples (referred to as Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy or EFCT) strengthen their relationships, EFT is also highly beneficial for individuals and families. For individuals, EFT (known as EFIT) can be particularly effective in addressing depression, anxiety, and the emotional impacts of traumatic experiences. For families, EFT (EFFT) aims to enhance connections and mend strained relationships, making it an ideal option for improving family dynamics.
What sets EFT apart is its emphasis on understanding and managing emotions. This focus enables individuals to better comprehend their own feelings and those of others, leading to healthier and more satisfying relationships. The goal is not merely to provide temporary solutions but to address core issues and promote lasting change.
EFT’s efficacy is supported by extensive clinical research, establishing it as a gold standard in the field. Beyond individual therapy sessions, EFT principles have been integrated into various relationship education programs. These include “Hold Me Tight® Online,” an online program for couples; “Hold Me Tight®: Conversations for Connection,” available online; and specialized programs like “Created for Connection” for Christian couples and “Healing Hearts Together” for couples facing cardiac issues. There are also programs tailored for families with teenagers or adult children.
For those seeking to deepen personal connections, navigate emotional challenges, reinforce their self-confidence, and enhance family or romantic relationships, Emotionally Focused Therapy offers a transformative solution. It focuses on building stronger connections, fostering better self-understanding and mutual comprehension, and promoting emotional well-being, all of which are essential for a happier, more fulfilling life.
Emotionally Focused Therapy for Couples (EFCT)
Emotionally Focused Therapy for Couples (EFCT) is a structured, short-term approach, typically spanning 8 to 20 sessions, that was originally developed in the 1980s based on attachment science. EFCT integrates a humanistic, experiential method to reshape emotional experiences with a systemic, structural approach to modify interactions. Extensive research on EFCT has demonstrated its significant effectiveness, with large treatment effect sizes and lasting results. EFCT is successfully utilized with various types of couples, including those in private practice, university training centers, and hospital clinics. Research supports its efficacy for couples dealing with issues such as depression, anxiety from trauma, medical illness, and forgiveness dilemmas. EFCT is applied across diverse cultural groups and educational levels in North and South America, Australia, New Zealand, Europe, Africa, and Asia, and it is effective with both traditional and non-traditional couples, including same-sex couples.
The primary goals of EFCT are to expand and reorganize key emotional responses, thereby transforming the interaction patterns between partners, to create positive shifts in their communicative messages, and to foster the development of a secure emotional bond between them.
Emotionally Focused Therapy for Individuals (EFIT)
Emotionally Focused Therapy for Individuals (EFIT) is an attachment science-based approach to individual therapy, akin to the interventions used in EFCT for couples and EFFT for families. EFIT focuses on reshaping and understanding inner experiences, as well as modifying relational patterns with significant others and the individual’s younger self. In EFIT, emotion is prioritized across treatment modalities due to its crucial role in shaping both internal experiences and motivations, as well as key interactional patterns in relationships. Emotions link and organize core experiences and interactions.
The primary goals of EFIT include providing corrective experiences that positively influence self and other models, resulting in stable, lasting change. It aims to offer transformative moments where vulnerability is met with balance and difficult moments are embraced. EFIT seeks to enable clients to achieve openness, responsiveness, and full engagement, which are characteristic of secure attachment with others. Additionally, EFIT helps clients develop a coherent sense of a competent self, capable of addressing existential life issues and becoming a fully alive human being.
Emotionally Focused Therapy for Families (EFFT)
Emotionally Focused Family Therapy (EFFT) follows the principles and practices of Emotionally Focused Therapy to restore connections and promote resilience in family relationships. The main goal of EFFT is to re-establish more secure family patterns where attachment and caregiving responses are effective, and emotional bonds are repaired. This approach creates a network of security that provides the flexibility and closeness necessary for families to support individual growth and meaningful relationships across generations.
The EFFT process of change focuses on stabilizing negative interaction patterns within the family, restructuring parent-child interactions, and consolidating the felt security gained through these new patterns of connection. Guided by principles of attachment science, the EFFT therapist helps families develop new patterns of parental availability, responsiveness, and coherent attachment communications as they navigate developmental changes and life challenges. EFFT addresses blocks in parental caregiving responses and interprets a child or adolescent’s behavior in terms of attachment needs or fears. These blocks often stem from constrained responses to misattunement and injuries in family relationships. The EFFT therapist examines generational influences impacting these blocks and works to resolve rigid patterns that disrupt attachment communication among family members. A key focus is building a coherent parenting team. EFFT often progresses quickly as family members become more responsive, accessible, and engaged with previously unacknowledged attachment-related emotions and needs.
EFFT aims to access and expand awareness of unacknowledged feelings associated with the family’s negative patterns. It reframes family distress and child problems within relational blocks that reinforce this distress. EFFT promotes awareness and access to underlying caregiving intentions and disowned attachment-related needs. Finally, it facilitates the sharing of unmet attachment needs and effective caregiving responses.