Emotion Focused Therapy

Do you struggle to communicate how you are feeling effectively?

• Do you find yourself struggling to feel heard by your partner?

• Do you feel as though you and your partner continue to have the same argument repeatedly?

• Do you consistently feel disconnected and hopeless about how to feel close again in your relationship?

• Do you feel like you just can’t get it right with your partner, no matter how hard you try?

• Do you sometimes feel like you are not good enough in your relationship?  Or feel like you are failing in some way when you can’t make your partner happy?

Vulnerability in relationships can feel scary

Fear of vulnerability can develop from various sources, including past negative experiences, childhood upbringing, societal expectations, and cultural influences.  Traumatic events, such as betrayal or emotional abuse can significantly impact an individual's ability to trust and be vulnerable in relationships.

When someone has been open and honest about their emotions in the past, and they have received a negative or shaming response, they tend to have fear of being open again.  This fear of vulnerability can lead to difficulty in having deep connections with others in relationships.  

The fear of being open and vulnerable is very understandable if you have been hurt in the past, and while you may want to be open with your partner, you may struggle with knowing how to do it in a way that feels good.

Many individuals struggle with vulnerable communication to create a connection

While vulnerability is something that a lot of people speak about in a positive light, actually communicating in a vulnerable way can be difficult.  Many individuals did not have role models growing up who showed vulnerability, which means that you may be struggling to know how to be vulnerable and communicate your emotions effectively.  This is very common!

You are not alone in the struggle for communication in your relationship.  Communication issues are one of the main reasons couples start going to therapy because they want to feel heard and understood by their partner, although feel stuck in getting to the goal they want to achieve.  Sometimes it can be difficult to find the words to explain what you are feeling, making it hard for your partner to understand, which leads to a negative cycle of conflict that can feel defeating.

Those negative cycles can be tough to get out of when you don’t have the tools or knowledge of what is going on at the root of the issue, and how to communicate with your partner what you need to feel a connection.

Emotion Focused Therapy can help you connect on a deep level within your relationships

Emotion Focused Therapy (EFT) helps people understand their attachments to others to improve their relationship.  It is based on the psychology of attachment bonds, which are created early in life and can affect us in adult relationships.

Emotion-focused therapy helps partners view undesirable behaviors of shutting down or anger escalations in a new way.  Couples learn to be emotionally available, empathetic, and engaged with each other, strengthening the attachment bond and creating a safe place between them.

Couples will learn to express deep, underlying emotions from a place of vulnerability and ask for their needs to be met in a new way that their partner can hear and understand.  This new positive cycle starts to change over time through Emotion-Focused Couples therapy which breaks down the barriers and blocks within arguments that couples typically have.

What to expect in a first couples therapy session

When attending your first couples therapy session using Emotion-Focused Therapy, your therapist will have both partners fill out intake paperwork identifying what each partner sees as the strengths and weaknesses of the relationship.  Your therapist will then meet with both of you to gather the history of your relationship, identifying attachment wounds that may have happened in your relationship, and the emotional hurt that each of you might be feeling.

Your therapist will also want to meet with each partner individually to gather history to assess the attachment styles of each partner and help identify why and how you might show up in your current relationship.  This will help the therapist better understand you, and also help your partner understand your emotional side of the street in the relationship.

Many couples struggle to communicate what is going on for them emotionally in a healthy way, and couples therapy using Emotional therapy is a great way to have a guide with a therapist who can assist you in speaking to each other in new ways and identifying the underlying issue that needs to be resolved to bring back connection.