WHAT is emotionally focused therapy - eft?
EFT honours close relationships and supports healthy needs for connection with significant others.
You may be experiencing distress in your relationships with others (partners, offspring, family members) or within yourself. Research in EFT for Couples has identified that severity of relationship distress at presentation for therapy does not predict the outcome. This means that highly distressed couples can be helped with EFT if they both want to give their relationship a chance to improve and are willing to engage in the therapeutic process. Relationship distress can impact mental health, and mental health can impact relationships. Individuals with severe mental health problems (such as severe OCD, suicidality or psychosis) will likely benefit from assistance from a GP, psychiatrist or clinical psychologist to help them stabilise before or during the process of EFT treatment.
EFT is informed by attachment theory, developed by psychiatrist Dr John Bowlby.
Dr Bowlby drew attention to the inborn need in all of us to seek contact with other humans, especially when we are lonely, frightened, sick or sad.
Having confidence that our needs will be met builds emotional security. In being available and responsive to the needs of their infants and children, Bowlby observed that parents can provide a “safe haven” of comfort and support, and over time become “a secure base” from which the growing child ventures out into the world to explore and develop his or her potential. Bowlby’s clinical work with grieving widows has also expanded our understanding of grief as attachment protest. Social psychologists in North America, Cindy Hazan and Phil Shaver furthered the research with couples, drawing attention to romantic love in adults meeting lifelong needs for a safe haven and a secure base.
Distressing conflict or alienation in close relationships can create high levels of negative emotions in anyone, which typically drive negative interactions between partners or family members, resulting in an insecure attachment bond.
The more insecure the emotional bond, the more negative emotions are experienced, triggering more negative interactions, thus creating self-perpetuating loops of distress.
EFT for Couples supports partners to interrupt negative patterns of interaction and discover new ways of sharing more primary emotions and needs that draws the other partner close, thereby creating more emotional security in the relationship. With greater security, partners can become a safe haven and secure base for each other, which benefits not only them but also any offspring they may have.
relationship
warning signs...
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Feeling unheard, dismissed or understood
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One or both partners avoiding open communication
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Manipulation and control take over in the relationship
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Having the same arguments with no resolution
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Resentment is building over unresolved issues
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Feeling more than roommates than partners
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Lack of emotional and sexual intimacy
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Infidelity or broken trust
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Felling judged, belitteled or disrespected
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Cultural, family, or lifestyle differences become difficult
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Feeling unsure whether the relationship can improve
You are safe here... let's explore healing for your relationship
