Emotionally focused therapy:
The Art AND Science of
Couple AND Family Therapy
Emotionally Focused Therapy ("EFT") is a research-validated approach to couple and family therapy primarily developed by psychologist Sue Johnson, Ed.D. EFT offers to couples and families a non-blaming, validating, and highly effective therapeutic experience, which has been rigorously studied using the best available methods since the 1980s. Therapists certified and formally trained and supervised to be Emotionally Focused Therapy practitioners are reliably able to deliver this approach, and our organizing body, the International Centre for Excellence in Emotionally Focused Therapy (ICEEFT), formally certifies all therapists, supervisors, and trainers in accordance to the latest art and science on the approach.
EFT differs from other approaches to couple and family therapy in that the focus in treatment is on helping clients identify reactive negative patterns of interaction, safely and deeply experiencing the emotions and associated needs underlying each partner's position in the pattern, and restructuring interactions around these naturally occurring attachment emotions, needs and longings. We are collaborative, warm, interactive, validating, and soothing practitioners. We do not pathologize partners, teach skills, act like THE experts in the room, or take sides to mediate or referee a disagreement. We aim to be present, curious, and accompanying rather than intellectual, clever, or distant.
Our trainers have written many widely available professional and lay person texts, and we advocate that healthy relationships are the keystone to our societies and human functioning in general. We privilege secure attachment between romantic partners, and parents & their children, and we advocate for people to love and accept themselves too. EFT offers therapists and their clients a transformative experience that stands apart from its therapeutic cousins and is based in humanistic ethics and scientific evidence.
EFT differs from other approaches to couple and family therapy in that the focus in treatment is on helping clients identify reactive negative patterns of interaction, safely and deeply experiencing the emotions and associated needs underlying each partner's position in the pattern, and restructuring interactions around these naturally occurring attachment emotions, needs and longings. We are collaborative, warm, interactive, validating, and soothing practitioners. We do not pathologize partners, teach skills, act like THE experts in the room, or take sides to mediate or referee a disagreement. We aim to be present, curious, and accompanying rather than intellectual, clever, or distant.
Our trainers have written many widely available professional and lay person texts, and we advocate that healthy relationships are the keystone to our societies and human functioning in general. We privilege secure attachment between romantic partners, and parents & their children, and we advocate for people to love and accept themselves too. EFT offers therapists and their clients a transformative experience that stands apart from its therapeutic cousins and is based in humanistic ethics and scientific evidence.