Emotionally Focused Therapy (COU550)

Emotion-Focused Therapy (EFT) course offers a comprehensive theory of the love relationship and attachment between adults, as well as a process for addressing and healing distressed relationships. The experiential/systemic therapy focuses on helping spouses/ partners restructure the emotional responses that maintain their negative interaction patterns. The trainee therapist will be introduced to a series of nine therapeutic steps in EFT, and learn basic EFT skills to lead the couple away from conflict deadlock into new bonding interactions in their relationship.

• The Field of Couple Therapy: The Place of EFT
• Basics of the EFT Model
• Adult Attachment Theory
• Overview of the Process of Change: Stages and Steps
• EFT Interventions
• EFT Stage 1: Alliance and Assessment
• EFT Stage 1: De-escalation
• EFT Stage 2: Restructure the Bond: Withdrawer Re-engagement
• EFT Stage 2: Restructure the Bond: Pursuer Softening
• EFT Stage 3 Consolidation of a Secure Base
• Becoming an EFT Therapist
• Trauma and Attachment Injuries

• Appraise the theoretical underpinnings of Emotion-Focused Therapy (EFT) for Couples
• Assess the ‘music of the dance’ between partners, and move the couple into effective loving and a relationship of interdependence
• Formulate the way EFT tenets are linked to key emotions and events in interactions between spouses/partners
• Compose interventions on accessing key elements of emotional distress and de-escalating destructive interaction patterns
• Construct positive interactions that renew trust and intimacy or reduce destructive interaction patterns
• Recommend the ways therapist is able to overcome therapeutic impasses in couple therapy in local contexts