A801 Applying Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy in Your Practice

Unhappy couples are usually too defensive and caught up in their own drama to really listen to each other, much less engage in problem solving or learning communication skills. Using attachment theory as its base, Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy (EFT), an empirically validated approach, provides a frame for understanding the underlying attachment issues and emotional dynamics of the couple and a step-by-step procedure for helping them reconnect and create a satisfying mutual bond. In this consultation, through discussion of the cases presented, you’ll learn the key EFT interventions for calming couples down, interrupting their destructive interactional cycles, helping them reengage, and showing them how to integrate their therapeutic breakthroughs into their daily lives. You’ll gain practical skill in how to stay with the couple’s moment-to-moment emotional experience and facilitate the bonding events that can transform their relationship.

Meet The Instructor

Susan Johnson, Ed.D., an eminent scientist-practitioner in the field of psychotherapy, is the originator of Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy (EFT), the most empirically validated approach to couples treatment. In her case consultations, she’ll demonstrate how to deal with each case from the standpoint of the key attachment issues at the core of couples’ problems. You’ll learn how the deep needs that arise in couples’ relationships can be shaped in therapy to heal both the relationship and the individual partners in it.

Learning Objectives

1. Discuss the key features of the EFT perspective
2. Name and describe the key EFT interventions
3. Outline how the therapeutic process and specific interventions shape and build secure connections