Psychotherapy Musings: A Self-Help Version of EFT for Couples

 

I have a secret. And please don’t tell my husband. You see, when I am learning techniques in my counseling psychology classes, I sometimes (read very often) use them on him, or in our relationship. Don’t feel bad for him. He already believes I, and anyone else that has a degree in psychology “shrinks” him, so I reason that I might as well do what he expects.

In this case, when I learned about something called Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy, I saw immediately how it could benefit our relationship, so I was eager to try it out, in a self-help kind of way.

How Can EFT Help You and Your Boo?

Good question! In truth EFT for couples is actually a type of therapy that you (and your partner) would go in and have about 8-20 sessions with a therapist. It’s a therapy framework that is designed to help you and your partner have a deeper more secure bond. In other words, this type of therapy will not give you scripts to improve your “communication skills,” or help you “fight better” with one another. The entire goal here is to make you and your boo feel more attached, safe, and loving towards each other. Sweet deal if you ask me. I don’t know too many couples that don’t want to dig their partner a little bit more.

So, you should just go find yourself an EFT therapist, right? Well, maybe. I’m writing this post because sometimes for lots of reasons (money, time, partner not into it) going to see a couples therapist is just not feasible. In my case, one of my husband’s LEAST favorite pastimes is talking about his feelings (especially to a stranger). So, I can only convince this guy to go to therapy if we are having some real challenges in our relationship. The good news is this self-help version of EFT can be beneficial for when you are experiencing some relationship struggles AND when things are going pretty well but you just want to – you know – dig your partner a bit more!

What is Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy?

This therapy was developed by Sue Johnson and Les Greenberg in 1985, when the two began observing the interactions of couples in therapy. By peering into the interactive processes of these folks, they hoped to identify the elements of the interactions that led to positive change. There is a whole host of psychological theory that underlies EFT for couples, and trust me, if you’re not a psych nerd like me, reading about it may bore you to tears. I will spare you the nerd-speak and tell you a few key terms to remember. Feel free to checkout this link from the Society of Clinical Psychology to learn more.

Term # 1- Attachment Theory: EFT is based on the assumption that discord in a couple’s relationship stems from emotional disconnection and insecure attachment. From this perspective change happens when a couple formulates and expresses a new emotional experience that addresses the primary emotion.

Term #2 – Person-Centered Therapy: This type of therapy is an experiential approach and EFT is highly experiential! Think role-plays and enactments. These strategies are the secret sauce that EFT uses to create change.

Term #3- Structural Family Therapy: While you and your partner are only two people EFT still uses a “family” approach in that it focuses on how the two of you relate to one another.

How Did I Use This in My Relationship?

Now that you have a little background, lets get into the details of how you can use this with your partner. There are just three stages I’m going to walk you through, and I’ll give you some examples for how this worked out in my relationship. Here we go!

Stage #1: De-Escalation

I know that you may not have much to de-escalate if things are going pretty well in your romance BUT stay with me. This stage is all about seeing the patterns that are driving your distress. By “distress” that could mean a fight/argument, or it could simply be a pattern that makes you feel sad, alone or put out.

One really common pattern is the pursuer/distancer pattern. In my marriage I am surely the pursuer. When I feel less than close to my husband, I tend start to nit-pick. Poking and prodding about why he left his slippers in the floor. Is he trying to make me break my neck? Why he didn’t turn on the dishwasher last night. Doesn’t he know we need dishes in the morning for breakfast? You get the point. When I do this, he basically wants to run away (and rightfully so). This is what the distancer does. As soon as my husband hears my nit-picking beginning, something in his mind says, “here we go again” and he begins to shut down. He ignores me. He goes to play basketball a few more times that week just to get out of my way and not be bothered with my poking. Does any of this sound familiar to you?

What does EFT say about this behavior?

Well, what I have come to realize in learning about EFT, is that my nit-picking is really my way of trying to connect with my husband. Deep down (EFT therapists call these deep-down feelings, primary emotions), I feel scared that we are not as close as I think we should be in those moments. Maybe I feel distant from him, and this is not a comfortable feeling to have. So, to feel closer I start to “reach out” with my nit-picking.

He on the other hand feels attacked when I do this, which makes him feel emotionally distant from me as well. When he feels distant, he leaves (literally and figuratively) so that he does not create any additional harm or negativity in the relationship.

In essence, both of our behaviors are saying “I want to feel closer to you” but we express it in such a way that the intention gets lost.

So, in this stage of EFT for couples you and your partner are to observe what’s really going on in your interactions with one another and recognize the patterns.

Stage #2: Restructuring Interactions

This is the fun, but scary part of the EFT self-help model. In this stage you want to change you all’s automatic responses to each other. Now that you are aware of your patterns and the primary emotions that lie beneath them, you can now express those primary emotions to each other and hopefully, gain some empathy and understanding in the process.

In EFT with a therapist, they will guide you through this. But with this self-help model, one of you need to be brave enough to recognize when one of those patterns you identified in the previous stage is rearing its ugly head.

Since I was running this little experiment in my relationship, I committed to this responsibility. When I noticed myself want to nit-pick for example, I recognized the fear and disconnection that lied beneath and did one of two things:

v  I told my husband. I would say something like, “I’m feeling really disconnected from you right now and I don’t want you to feel like I’m interrogating you, but I just really want to be closer to you.” He often (but not always) got the point and put down his phone or whatever he was doing and gave me a few minutes of eye contact and attention. Keep in mind that this strategy requires that you know what you are feeling AND that you express it (without blaming your partner) and ask for what you need.

 

v  I did the opposite. This is not really an EFT technique, but its one that worked for us. Once we could identify the primary emotion and recognize the behavior it led us to do, we could switch it around and do the “more loving” thing. For example, if I was feeling the need to pick at my husband, instead, I’d go sit on his lap, give him a smooch and tell him I missed him. He usually responded in kind and my desire to pick would subside, because I’d soothed my distress by getting my emotional need met.

NOTE: If you’re working with a therapist, they will set up what are called enactments, to help you and your partner work through this process.

One of the things that I love most about this process is the emotional expression. Did I mention that my husband’s least favorite activity is to talk about his feelings? Well, for us, we unintentionally developed some simple language that made expressing our primary emotion less daunting. AND because we engaged in these feelings talks in a casual way, it felt, for my husband, less like a chore.

For instance, just saying “I miss you,” even if we’d been in the same house together all week, was code for “I’m feeling disconnected.”  Even my husband has began to say things like “I’m petrified to tell you this…” as he proceeded to tell me the thing, he needed to tell me. 

Stage #3: Consolidation

The third and final stage of EFT for couples is called consolidation. If you were in session with a therapist, this is where they would start to support you two in taking what you learned in therapy out into the real world. In doing so, the therapist would facilitate the emergence of new solutions to old issues and consolidate a new narrative for you.

Since you’re doing the self-help version of EFT, you are constantly consolidating. In other words, your enactments are in real time with your partner. You’re learning and applying the skills at home already.

The Dance: The EFT Tango

All three of these stages are held together by a dance. Something EFT therapists call the tango. It’s basically, five “moves” that are done over and over again in therapy, but you will also do them in your self-help model, although they will look a bit different. The moves are:

1.  Mirror and Reflect the Process: Usually a therapist would say something like “so what I hear you saying Keya is that when he doesn’t respond to your request, something goes off inside of you -right.” In the self-help model, however, you must be self-reflective enough to recognize that something has “gone off” inside of you. Doing this is what I like to call real world applications of mindfulness and requires your willingness to pause and notice your own thoughts and feelings before you respond.

 

2.  Affect Assembly and Deepening: In this move the therapist might say “Talk more about what comes up for you when he doesn’t respond to your request. What’s that like for you.” Really good therapist speak here. But in the self-help version YOU will have to recognize what its “like” for you when your partner doesn’t respond to your request. To do this, you can write it down in a journal, or talk to yourself out loud, as I may or may not do.

Set Up an Enactment: In this move the therapist might say something like “Okay Keya I hear you saying you feel lonely and isolated when he doesn’t respond to your requests. Could you turn to George and tell him what it’s like for you when he does this? Could you tell him about your experience of loneliness and isolation?” For you self-helpers, after your have journaled about your experience, or spoken it out loud to yourself (or a friend) this may be a good time for you to actually communicate your primary emotions to your partner. Be sure to use “I” statements like, “George when you don’t respond to my request, I feel lonely and isolated.”

Process the Enactment: The fourth step is processing the encounter. First the therapist might say to Keya “What was that like to tell George about your feelings of isolation.” And then the therapist would ask George “What was it like for you to hear Keya tell you about her feelings of isolation.” This process applies to the self-help version of EFT as well. In my relationship this processing often sounded like my disclosing that “wow that was a lot easier to say than I thought” or “I’m glad I got that off my chest.” If you are playing the role of the sneaky little shrink in your relationship, like I am, you might directly ask your partner what it was like to tell you their feelings. I’ve done this with my husband saying something like “how do you feel about telling me that?” Unfortunately, his typical response is “it was alright!” Not quite the deep bonding conversation I was looking for, but hey….

Integrating and Validating: The final step is integrating and validating. In this step the therapist might affirm the couple by saying something like “thank you for sharing this with each other. I know this took a lot of courage to share this part of yourself. Did you see what you two just did? You two just saw this pattern in a different way and saw your partner’s experiences of this pattern a different way. Great work.” As a self-helper, you could totally pat yourself on the back and “say” this stuff to yourself. ALSO, if you are playing the role of self-help therapist, you could also explicitly point out how you are navigating these processes with your partner. In my house, I’ve said things to my husband like “You didn’t use to tell me about your feelings like that. Thanks for letting me know. I understand you so much more and feel so much less anxious about what was going on.”

That’s it! That’s the processes that my husband and I have be playing around with for the last month or so. Would I prefer to go see an EFT therapist? For sure! But we do what we can do. If you want to learn more about Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy, check out Sue Johnson’s resources from her website, The International Centre for Excellence in Emotionally Focused Therapy. She has several books, that I’m sure you can buy from that site.

Much love until next time!

Keya

 

NOTE: I am not a licensed mental health provider or counseling psychologist (yet). I am a graduate student, and as such the information offered on my website and social media platforms are informed by research, personal and professional experience, and education, however, are not designed to provide advice (be it treatment advice or educational advice). All content is for informational and educational purposes only.