Emotionally focused therapy

What is emotionally focused therapy?

Emotionally focused therapy, abbreviated EFT, is a short-term form of psychotherapy that repairs emotional bonds for individuals, couples and families. The approach rests on attachment theory: it reads a fight as a cry for connection, not as a communication problem. Psychologist Sue Johnson and Les Greenberg developed the method in 1985.

How emotionally focused therapy looks in practice

In EFT it is not about who is right, but about the fixed fight underneath. The therapist helps a couple see the loop they keep landing in, and slow it down so something else can happen.

A recognizable pattern is the pursuer-distancer: one complains harder as the other withdraws further, and that withdrawing feeds the complaining again. EFT takes such a dance apart. Under one partner’s reproach usually sits the fear of not mattering, under the other’s silence the fear of failing. Once those two fears are out loud, people start to look at each other differently. The humanistic character of the approach, per the encyclopedia, sits exactly here: the feeling of this moment is the material, not a list of conversation techniques for home.

How emotionally focused therapy works

EFT works because it addresses the bond itself, not the symptoms. The encyclopedia describes how Sue Johnson developed the couples approach further by weaving attachment theory together with systemic and humanistic influences. A run of sessions moves through three phases.

1. De-escalation. The couple learns to recognize and name the negative cycle, so the fight is no longer the enemy but something that happens to them together.
2. Rebuilding the bond. Each of them learns to voice their own attachment need and take in the other’s, so new, safer moments arise.
3. Consolidation. The new way of connecting is locked in, so the couple can fall back on it themselves when things chafe again later.

Why people choose emotionally focused therapy

The appeal is that EFT starts at the core. Someone who feels they are living next to each other instead of with each other recognizes themselves sooner in “we are losing each other” than in “we communicate badly”, and that is exactly what this therapy targets.

What it delivers has been measured. In a systematic review of nineteen years of research, Beasley and Ager found that EFCT clearly improved relationship satisfaction and that the improvement held up at follow-up. A meta-analysis by Rathgeber and colleagues saw an effect of g = 0.73 for emotionally focused couples therapy right after treatment. For the couple that means more often the feeling of being a team again; for the partner who felt unheard, that the reproach finally lands without a fight.

Do not expect a miracle cure from it. EFT is not a quick fix and not a trick: where violence or a lack of safety is at play, that belongs addressed first, and the guidance belongs with a trained therapist, not with an evening together.

Misconceptions about emotionally focused therapy

“EFT is that tapping technique where you tap on points of your body.” No. That is Emotional Freedom Techniques, a different method that happens to carry the same abbreviation. Sue Johnson’s emotionally focused therapy is about the emotional bond, not about tapping.

“EFT just teaches you to communicate better.” Not quite. Better conversations are the result, not the goal. EFT works on the attachment fear underneath, and the same encyclopedia therefore places the approach in attachment theory, not in communication training.

“A therapy like that takes years.” Usually not. EFT is set up as a short-term treatment of eight to twenty sessions.

What I see of it myself

I am Victor, a gigolo, over twenty-five years into BDSM and with a background as a psychotherapist. EFT itself I do not do: that is couples therapy and it belongs with a trained practitioner, not with me.

What I do see is how often sex gets stuck on exactly the things EFT looks at. Someone who does not feel safe does not really land in her body, however much she wants to. Desire needs calm, and calm comes from the feeling that you are allowed to be there without performing. That is not therapy I offer, but it is the reason I listen first and only then touch.

Read more about emotionally focused therapy

On this site, attachment style explains the theory EFT leans on, pursuer-distancer covers the fight pattern the therapy unravels first, and co-regulation describes how calm from one person helps settle the other’s nervous system.

Off this site, the encyclopedia article on emotionally focused therapy gives the shortest way into the method and its phases, and the review by Beasley and Ager measures what the approach actually delivers for couples.

Sources

• Emotionally focused therapy. Wikipedia. Provides the definition as humanistic psychotherapy for individuals, couples and families, the origin with Sue Johnson and Les Greenberg in 1985, the grounding in attachment theory and the duration of eight to twenty sessions.
• Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy: A Systematic Review of Its Effectiveness over the past 19 Years. Candice C. Beasley & Richard Ager, Journal of Evidence-Based Social Work 16(2), 2019. Provides the finding that EFCT improved relationship satisfaction (Hedge’s g = 2.09) and that this gain was retained at follow-up.
• The Efficacy of Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy and Behavioral Couples Therapy: A Meta-Analysis. Rathgeber, Bürkner, Schiller & Holling, Journal of Marital and Family Therapy 45(3), 447-463, 2019. Provides the effect of g = 0.73 for EFCT right after treatment.

Related terms

• Attachment style. The attachment theory emotionally focused therapy is built directly on.
• Pursuer-distancer. The fight pattern EFT makes visible and slows down first.
• Co-regulation. How partners calm each other’s nervous system, exactly the safety EFT tries to restore.
• Anxious attachment. The attachment style often behind the pursuing, and which gets room in EFT.
• Emotional affair. What sometimes happens when the bond at home falls away and someone looks for connection outside the relationship.