Overview of Emotionally-Focused COUPLE THERAPY(EFT)
Are you and your partner finding yourself in the same stuck patterns of bickering and arguing about the “small” stuff (“small” in quotes because it is never actually small when we get to the bottom of it!), wondering how you can get so disconnected over something seemingly so trivial? Or are you feeling emotionally disconnected, like two roommates living under the same roof with a growing chasm of silence that threatens to slowly tear you apart? Or have you faced an injury to your attachment bond, like an affair or infidelity, addiction, or emotionally abusive dynamics, that you do not know how to heal from?
Emotionally-focused couple therapy (EFT) is a powerful, evidence-based approach designed to help couples create and nurture a strong emotional connection. Built upon the foundation of attachment theory, EFT recognizes that we all have an inherent need for emotional security and closeness in our relationships. Whether you are facing communication challenges, trying to heal from an attachment injury like an affair, or simply seeking to strengthen your bond, EFT provides a roadmap for sustainable change.
How Does EFT Work?
Understanding Patterns: EFT helps you and your partner identify the negative patterns that may be causing distance or conflict in your relationship. No matter the content, couples often get caught in a familiar process of disconnection over and over again that leave both partners in a painful place.
Accessing Emotions: EFT guides you in expressing and understanding the underlying feelings that may be driving the very behaviors that create disconnection in your relationship.
Creating New Bonds: By uncovering underlying emotions and learning to share them with our loved ones in ways that draw the other in close, EFT supports the creation of new, positive interaction patterns that foster emotional closeness.
In EFT, we mine your surface-level conflicts for their deeper attachment meaning. Very often, your conflict may actually be about about deeper attachment-related fears, needs, and longings, such as:
“Are you there for me?”
“Do I matter to you? Does my pain matter to you?”
“Do you have my back?”
“Will you turn towards me and respond with care for my heart when I call out to you?”
“Can I count on you to hold my pain with me?”
When we are not sure of the answers to these questions, that our partner is accessible, responsive, and engaged with us, our primal alarm bells start to go off and we try our best to cope with the pain of this uncertainty, often in ways that push our partner even farther away from us. Sometimes, the behaviors we engage in to try to find safety turn into the very negative cycles that keep us so stuck.
Through a series of steps and stages, we will help you access your longings for love, reassurance, acceptance, and understanding that get “fuzzied” by these negative interactional patterns. By creating specific bonding events in sessions, EFT restructures your negative cycle and your attachment bond to one other.
If you would like to get started on your couple therapy journey or have any questions about couple therapy, please do not hesitate to contact us by clicking the link below. We look forward to working with you!