Understanding EFT (Emotionally-Focused Therapy) for Couples

Hello everyone, thank you again for joining the Psycho

therapy

Center YouTube channel today. I'm so excited because we're starting our new series on

emotionally

focused

therapy

. It is a very exciting time because EFT has been touted as the gold standard of marriage treatment. counseling i have also demonstrated an incredible success rate of 80, which means that eight out of ten

couples

who do this type of treatment actually get significant improvement, so today i have here with me ami patel kang who is an eft specialist and what, uh, we. What I'd like to do today is just tell you a little bit more about what EFT is like and really get into the nitty-gritty of what makes EFT so effective, so welcome mom, thank you very much, so let's try to dig into that. this. a little bit, yeah, tell us a little bit about what eft is and, um, maybe we can get into the details of why people in relationships really benefit specifically from this type of treatment, uh, yeah, absolutely, as eft as you said.

It's

emotionally

focused

therapy, um, it was. developed by sue johnson at um in an effort to try to understand a better way to deal with the conflicts that

couples

engage in and what a lot of research has shown empirically is that couples actually enter into fairly predictable patterns of interaction that lead into the distance. in relationships is okay and what are some of the distances that can occur between couples? Yeah, I mean, distance usually comes from the difference between what's shown on the outside and what's happening on the inside, so on the outside I might be showing you that I'm angry because the dishes aren't washed.

I'm critical because I'm saying what's wrong with you. You are the one whose dishes are never washed and you don't care. that I'm talking to you about this every day, the same conflict over and over again um and that's another pattern that comes up often, right? You get frustrated because you're talking about the same thing over and over again and these conflicts don't get resolved and you get stuck, so it's interesting that you say that, so it seems to me that, at least what I'm hearing, is that on the surface communication or the discussion could be about something you know. relatively trivial, but it sounds like it might be triggering some kind of emotional need that isn't actually being met exactly, okay exactly, we all have attachment needs that, universally, need to be met correctly in order to feel safe and secure.

In the world we need to feel heard, understood, cared for, accepted, truly valued, valued by the people closest to us and that really starts with our parents or caregivers in our early childhood and, that's what you do. I know it can affect other close relationships like friendships, our first romantic partners, and eventually it will translate to your life partner, right?, and you're bringing all of these attachment wounds that build up over the years in any relationship you have. you get into that, I mean, I really like hearing it and as you know, I'm a big proponent of Eft, it's just a thing that I often say to some of the clients that I work with just to, you know, maybe. bringing emotional needs to the surface, which I always say, I think most of us can relate to the idea that we have physical needs like, for example, eating, sleeping, being intimate, yes, but some people miss this idea of emotional needs because It's not like it's not out there, you can't like to consume them physically, so the idea that we are a social animal that we really need to feel close to and I really try to highlight the word I don't need to want because it's something that makes us human and bringing that to the surface, especially between two people in a relationship, is really what eft is all about, yes, absolutely, it's an emotional need and um, and we're not used to talking about that, right?

We want to talk about communication skills. we want to talk about the things that are being done we want to talk about what's going on in our lives and honestly that's probably what frustrates most couples when they start eft therapy because they want tangible goals and they want goals. tangible. skills that they can come away feeling good, stop doing this and I'll stop doing this and we'll be fine and that's where, honestly, I personally think that EFT is much better than other types of couples therapy because we go deeper than that when we talk about um behaviors and um and actions um where we're not figuring out what's causing those behaviors correctly and what's happening within that um that leads to yelling or withdrawal which leads to that distance that that develops between couples so it's interesting. because it really highlights that the name focuses on emotions.

I always joke with people and say that it's a kind of therapy that's like emotions on steroids because everything we do is kind of an amplifier. we eliminate the feeling, we empty the emotional need, we talk about what that might look like, we talk about why an individual would communicate in a particular way and what it triggers in the other person and why the other person would say something like emotionally informed um And I guess I'm wondering, so once we get on with this idea, we'll look at the content, meaning what the plot is about, yeah, and then what kind of you know what happens next?

Well, that's really the key that we don't know. I don't want to look at the content at least to us as therapists, right, a couple could come in talking about the content of whatever conflict they've been having over and over and over again and they feel stuck and they feel frustrated um and on the outside that's how. shows up um our goal is to help couples and sometimes even like you individually I might be yelling on the outside about something that I feel like my husband needs to do and if he does this I'll just feel better and it's not about that so like EFT therapist, our goal is to try to figure out what the internal trigger is, what is the message that I get when my husband is not doing what I need him to do and what attachment do I need what, um, what is the basics, what feeling is happening, a secondary emotion can be anger or frustration, which is always accompanied by a primary emotion and that is probably pain, fear, loneliness, disappointment, so the way I listen is so secondary something that we feel maybe on the surface something something comes up that maybe other people can see so if I'm yelling about the dishes you can really tell I'm angry because of that the main thing seems like something a little bit more that's closer, almost like my heart, maybe I feel hurt or maybe I'm feeling sad or anxious, so that's really something a little more primal that potentially requires the individual's partner to look a little closer, yeah. what's happening and then, of course, even deeper, we really want to get into this idea of, well, what is the emotional need, what is the emotional wound that has really been a pattern in one's life and, in fact, is is developing in a particular relationship, yes, exactly as you said, deeper. closer more vulnerable true true is that vulnerable emotion and because it is vulnerable when relationships have not been historically secure and now we can't get there and often we don't even go there with ourselves true we don't allow ourselves to think about what I Why was I so angry about what was going on inside? um and that's half the job there, just starting to track that cycle of conflict and track what's happening on the inside when on the outside we're presented with certain behaviors that I could totally see.

That's because if a couple comes in and you know that one of the people in the couple is presenting, let's say in an angry way, I imagine it takes a little bit of work to get that person to present. your real emotional need and even go further so that your partner, who is listening to the loud screams, stops reflecting and also presents, hey, listen, this is what is really happening to me when you scream, what is the need? What is really happening to me? it's not really fulfilled in that moment there's a lot there and that's why, at least for me, it seems like the emotional focus is really slowing everything down because you can't have a quick conversation about vulnerability, there's a lot of pauses there's a lot of time to introspection just to bring that vulnerability to light.

I really need to feel heard by you, yes, and there is something powerful happening there, yes, yes, if any of my partners are watching this, I say the words, leave it. I slow you down 150 times during a session let me slow you down because that's exactly what we need, right, we need to slow down so that we can, we can slow down our nervous system when we're fighting for a relationship, the only relationship. that matters more than anything else in the world we go into a primal panic, something like the dish is not preparing and I keep mentioning that because every couple has done it, but something like the dish is not preparing brings me a uh, you're sending me a message that I'm not aware of, not that we can literally talk, okay, five o'clock, wash the dishes and then everything will be fine, that will make me feel closer to you, well, perhaps, if my need for attachment is being satisfied. but if I am not aware that that is my need for attachment, it will not do anything.

That's a really good point because there's also a sense of openness to even receiving it, because if you're just focused on the behavior, but emotionally you're not in tune with that emotional need, it's not even going to satiate that need at all, yeah, like that. that you just mentioned two really important points, um, there are two main blocks to vulnerability, there is the internal block, for me, for you, right, um. which comes when you try to sit with your own raw, soft, vulnerable emotion that is incredibly uncomfortable for a lot of people, for most of us actually, and then, as you just said, once you get to that raw, vulnerable emotion, being able to change your partner and express it in a way that your partner can hear you, is incredibly difficult and that's why slowing everything down and validating and being able to meet our clients where they are allows us to model that validation of support and empathy that maybe they still they can't show up for each other um and I say yes because I absolutely believe that they get there amazingly, but that's what I'm here for, so it's like a process for one individual in the couple to tune into their own emotional need, being able to sit down with her, which could create a lot of things for themselves, and then in a vulnerable, emotionally focused way, turn to their partner and say this is what I really need from you.

That is very vulnerable because the other person has that power. That seems like a tremendous amount of power to think about in terms of are they going to hear it right, are they going to say something bad, and honestly, exactly, then what if I do? This work is about touching my knee to feel love and then turning to my partner and saying something like that. What if the other person is not ready to listen? Can not hear. He had a bad day. He doesn't want to listen. is what happens so that's where we step in and validate for them that that makes sense makes sense that they're protecting themselves oh the secondary emotions these secondary behaviors that we talk about on the outside um I'm making a distinction between outside and inside because I think It's a big part of feeling like the outside makes sense because the outside is how we protect ourselves from being hurt by the person we love most in the world, so it's okay if your partner is.

I can't validate you and listen to you the first time you are able to be vulnerable, it's a process and that's why EFT is an experiential therapy, right? Isn't it called catching the bullet? If I'm not wrong, yeah, someone is like throwing something can't take it in, then we step in and try to catch it just to smooth out the conversation, yeah, exactly smooth out the conversation and like I said before, model validation and empathy that they're not able. to provide for your partner is still okay, so maybe we'll do this before concluding this interesting conversation.

What would you say would be the takeaways for some of our viewers in terms of us starting this conversation since you and I are big believers and that really? Eft is the way to go if you are looking for any type of marriage counseling, relationship counseling, as you know it extends to family or now even individual counseling, what would you like viewers to take away? What are some of the main points that the viewer can say: Okay, this makes sense. I could see why Eft is so effective. I think the three main things you can expect when doing Eft work are the right emotion, the vulnerable emotion, so vulnerability is okay for blocks to appear. up because that is our protection from ourselves and that is that fight or flight mode that we are working with and that is us actually fighting for our relationship not necessarilyyou don't know that you don't care or that you want to leave and um and what did we say vulnerability blocks the blocks oh and and um attachment needs well, our attachment needs go back to our initial attachment relationships, which are our parents.or our caregivers um and adulthood to our first romantic relationships and those are all the things that we're bringing to the table when we work with eft wow, okay, so it really seems to me that the counseling really focuses on first being able to identify that the The couple is talking, at least on the surface, about some behavioral disagreements, by first identifying that kind of cycle of how the behavioral interaction goes, slowing it down, allowing individuals to tap into their emotional needs much more, identifying what those emotional needs are. and taking all of that and turning to your partner and, like you said, having this vulnerability in bringing it up, which invariably starts to create some blocks for both the individual presenting and the person listening, so those Big Three elements are , to your point, which I think you and I believe makes Eft really one of the most effective treatments out there, so thank you very much for joining us today.

I hope you learned a little more about what Eft is. it's like and as I mentioned at the beginning, this is just one of the first videos in the series, next time we'll try to go even deeper into what eft is like, what the cycles are like and how to actually put it. practice and then obviously the most exciting part of all of this is at the end and the third video actually demonstrates. Thank you very much to the guys for watching and I hope we see each other again soon. Thank you so much. Bye bye.

Hi guys. If you like what you just saw, feel free to check out our videos in our library and also hit the subscribe button so you can watch our future videos.