What is Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy?
Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy supports couples to renew feelings of love and connection. It is proven to be effective in helping couples build trust, communicate clearly, and resolve conflict. EFT focuses on helping couples develop the tools necessary to express needs and desires safely. Couples can learn to trust that their partner is available to hear what they’re feeling, and respond in a way that is constructive and loving. EFT will help you develop close emotional connections with others in your life, as well as improve how you feel about yourself.
If you have tried therapy before, chances are you’ve had some positive results. In many cases, however, those results may not be long-lasting. Many methods of therapy only give you the tools to patch a particular situation. These tools help temporarily, but they are sometimes only a quick-fix. They do not address the deeper hurts, the painful struggles, or the roots of the problem. The greatest benefit of EFT is that it gets to that root of the problem. It provides real, visible results.
When you can say, “I need you to be present. I need you to show me love. I need to believe you are really here for me,” you can allow yourself to open up to accepting your own needs. When you can hear your partner, or even yourself, ask for those deep, basic, emotional needs to be met, you can better provide them. Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy will guide you to a place where you feel safe and comfortable truly expressing and understanding these essential needs.
Does EFT Work?
EFT is extremely effective, especially in the long term. Rather than focusing on the small details of specific disagreements, EFT allows you and your partner to look at the bigger picture of how you relate to each other and where you disconnect. It goes deep down to the root of the problems, rather than just pruning the branches.
EFT depends on a solid, trusting, safe client/therapist relationship. The Center for Connection, Healing and Change in Woodbridge, VA has several therapists with experience in EFT, who will work with you to develop an honest and transparent relationship. In order to help you change, our therapists will support and encourage your emotional recognition and expression, and stand beside you when you begin to get in touch with any fears, longings and unmet needs. The deep empathy involved in EFT relies on a close, professional, client/therapist relationship.
The biggest difference between EFT and other forms of therapy is that EFT will actually help you and your partner truly care for each other again. It helps you connect in a secure and positive way that can only improve your relationship.
Feeling love for each other again is fostered by strengthening your attachment to each other. Strong attachment bonds lead you and your partner to feel safe together and know you are the most important person in each other’s lives. EFT strengthens these bonds by allowing you to open up to each other in a safe and secure environment.
In a sense, EFT is almost like rewiring the way you approach and engage in your relationship as a couple. EFT gives you the tools to recognize and then ask for what you really need in a relationship. It helps you reconstruct how you and your partner connect on an emotional level, which helps you establish deeper trust and understanding.
What does the research say?
EFT relies on a three-stage, nine-step procedure that will be tailored to your specific needs. The methods and effectiveness of EFT are widely accepted in the scientific community. Research by the original founders, Dr. Susan Johnson and Dr. Les Greenberg, has been professionally published and repeatedly explored and retested for more than 30 years. The research shows that EFT really works with family and couples counseling: approximately 90% of couples who participated in EFT research studies reported that their relationship “significantly improved”—no matter how much they had previously struggled—after undergoing Emotionally Focused Therapy.
Emotionally Focused Therapy is a tried and tested method that will provide you and your loved ones with the ability to truly connect and respond to each other at a deep emotional level.
Get in touch with our Intake Coordinator today, who can help you get started with an EFT therapist.
To find out more about EFT, please visit the following resources:
International Center for Excellence in EFT
Dr. Sue Johnson, Founder of EFT