EFT is best known as a proven couple intervention and the dominant focus in the training will be on couple interventions. However, it is also used to treat individual depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress; and to repair family bonds. These applications will be addressed in this training. The EFT model provides practitioners with an evidence-based model of how to use attachment theory to make sense of the complexity of individual and relationship distress, as well as a process map and experiential skills to bring about change and growth.
PARTICIPANTS LEARN:
- To see emotional disorders & relationship distress from an attachment perspective
- To help clients reprocess the emotional responses that maintain dysfunction & relationship distress
- To shape key new interactions and events that build secure connection with others
- To overcome therapeutic impasses and address existential dilemmas.
What is EFT?
EFT is a well-known humanistic approach to psychotherapy formulated in the 1980’s and developed in tandem with the science of adult attachment, a profound developmental theory of personality and intimate relationships. This science has expanded our understanding of individual dysfunction and health as well as the nature of love relationships and family bonds. Attachment views human beings as innately relational, social and wired for intimate bonding with others. The EFT model prioritizes emotion and emotional regulation as the core organizing agents in individual experience and key relationship interactions.
EFT is best known as a cutting edge, tested and proven couple intervention, but it is also used to address individual depression, anxiety and post traumatic stress (EFIT – Emotionally Focused Individual Therapy) and to repair family bonds (EFFT – Emotionally Focused Family Therapy). This model operationalizes the principles of attachment science using non-pathologizing experiential and relational systems techniques to focus on and change core organizing factors in both the self and key relationships.
The Goals of EFT – Across 3 Modalities of Therapy
- To order and re-organize key emotional responses – the music of the interactional dance – shaping emotional balance and personal agency.
- To expand both the clients’ core sense of self and how they respond to others in the dance of attachment.
- To foster emotional balance and coherence, a sense of competence and worth and the open, responsive engagement with self and others that foster the secure bonds that create resilience.
Strengths of Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT)
✓ EFT is based on clear, explicit research-based conceptualizations of individual growth, health and dysfunction and of relationship distress and adult love.
✓ EFT is collaborative and respectful of clients, combining experiential Rogerian techniques with structural systemic interventions.
✓ Change strategies and key inter- vention sequences are specified.
✓ Key moves and moments in the change process have been mapped into three stages of therapy and key change events that predict success at the end of therapy.
✓ EFT has been validated by over 30 years of empirical research. There is also research on the change processes and predictors of success.
✓ EFT has been applied to many different kinds
Visit www.iceeft.com for more information about EFT, EFT publications and training events.
