Emotion Focused Couples Therapy (EFT)
What is Emotion Focused Therapy?
Emotion Focused Therapy (EFT) is an empirically-validated therapeutic approach founded in the 1980s by Dr. Sue Johnson, a pioneering psychologist and couples therapist. At its core, EFT is an attachment-based model that examines how our important relationships and emotional experiences, beginning in childhood, shape our view of self and others.
The fundamental premise of EFT is that emotional intelligence and secure attachment are vital for psychological wellbeing and healthy relationships. Emotional signals are the primary mechanism through which attachment needs get communicated and met or unmet. Emotional disconnections and unresolved attachment injuries lie at the root of many mental health issues and relationship difficulties.
How EFT Helps Individuals
Through experiential exercises and therapist attunement, individuals develop new ways of responding adaptively to their most tender emotions. They learn to have compassion for themselves, communicate attachment needs effectively, and cultivate a coherent, resilient sense of self.
Applying EFT to Families
Family members explore individual attachment histories and concerns that impact current relational patterns. They practice attuned responsiveness to de-escalate emotional disconnections, regulate emotional intensity, and foster a sense of felt security in the family. This helps create an emotionally stable home environment for optimal child development.
What is Emotion Focused Couples Therapy?
Using EFT with Couples
Specific EFT interventions restructure the couple’s cycle of hostility, withdrawal, and emotional priming for attachment insecurity. New cycles of bonding interactions, vulnerability, and responsiveness are shaped through incremental risk-taking and attuned emotional responding between partners.
The premise of EFT is that relationship problems often stem from repetitive negative patterns of interaction that leave one or both partners feeling emotionally disconnected and unheard. EFT aims to create new cycles of bonding interactions and help couples develop more secure attachment with each other.
How Does EFT for Couples Work?
In EFT, the therapist guides the couple to:
- Identify the negative cycle they get stuck in during conflicts and arguments. This includes the unspoken emotions and unmet needs.
- Understand how these patterns developed from childhood experiences and past relationships.
- Reshape these patterns by allowing deeply-held emotions to be expressed in a safe, supportive environment.
- Cultivate more compassion and responsiveness from their partner through new bonding experiences.
The goal is to help each partner become more emotionally accessible, responsive and engaged with each other. This allows them to send clearer emotional signals, have more positive interactions, and build a stronger foundation of trust and security within the relationship.
What are the Benefits of EFT for Couples?
EFT has been shown to help couples:
- Improve communication and deepen intimacy
- Resolve conflicts and heal old hurts/resentments
- Express needs for closeness in a vulnerable, authentic way
- Develop more empathy and understanding for each other
- Reshape rigid negative patterns into more flexible ones
- Strengthen the emotional bond and attachment in the relationship
Numerous studies have found EFT leads to highly successful outcomes, helping 70-75% of couples recover from distress and develop healthier, more secure bonds.
EFT is one of the most empirically-validated and effective approaches for working with couples. If you’re struggling with emotional disconnection or recurring conflicts, an EFT therapist can help you break through and rediscover the loving connection you once had.
Across individual, couple, and family applications, EFT integrates attachment theory with experiential techniques to reshape clients’ emotional experience of self and key relationships. The goal of this deeply humanistic, attachment-oriented therapy is to cultivate emotional openness, resilience, and intimacy.