The Process of Emotionally Focused Therapy
In our first session, we’ll create a safe space for you and your partner to begin to share how each of you sees your relationship. After an initial session with you and your partner together, your therapist will meet with each of you individually to learn about how your identity, context, and history impact the way you show up in your current relationship.
We’ll explore together what happens when you and your partner get caught up in your “negative cycle.” – who typically says what, and who typically does what. We’ll explore the more vulnerable emotions that each partner is experiencing and the stories you’re telling yourself about what’s happening between you and your partner.
Learning to Reach Directly and Effectively
You’ll practice noticing and communicating the vulnerable emotions that bubble just below the surface in conflict. We’ll help you notice the protections you’ve developed and perhaps the walls you’ve built to avoid being hurt in the negative cycle, and we’ll help you and your partner develop the safety to take these walls down and reach for each other in direct ways that bring each other closer.
The goal of EFT is to create a secure attachment bond with you and your partner.
While in a fight with our partner our attachment system signals that we may not be emotionally safe. In adult romantic relationships, a negative interactional pattern can interfere with this secure connection. We end up sending and receiving signals that threaten rather than soothe our partner’s attachment system. Over time, this can create an insecure attachment with our partner, the person we are most wanting to feel securely connected to!
If my partner or I aren’t really emotional people, can EFT still work for us?
Yes. Our skilled EFT therapists are trained to recognize negative patterns and the attachment needs and longings that drive them, even in people who don’t consider themselves particularly emotional. We understand that there are many ways people express emotion, and that these are impacted by lots of factors including culture, trauma, socialization, etc. We don’t expect every client to sob in our office – we’ll get to know you as individuals and together come to an understanding of your unique relationship challenges.