Mending the Attachment and Couples Therapy African Americans experienced an attachment rupture through the implementation of slavery that continues to impact the contemporary relationship. Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) also known as Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy (EFCT) can be used to rebuild the attachment within couples and address the historical attachment issues they experience.
“The goal of EFT is to reprocess experience and reorganize interactions to create a secure bond between the partners, a sense of secure connectedness. The focus here is always on attachment concerns; on safety, and contact; and on the obstacles to the above.” (Johnson, 2004, p. 12) EFCT focuses on the process; the need for a safe, collaborative therapeutic
…show more content…
Johnson was a clinical psychologist from Owatta, Canada, director of International Centre for Excellence in Emotionally Focused Therapy, director of the Ottawa Couple and Family Institute, and professor at the University of Ottawa and Alliant University in San Diego, California. Johnson and Greenberg believed people hid their “primary emotions” such as fear, loneliness, love or powerlessness etc. and instead communicated their “secondary emotions” defensiveness, disappointment and frustration etc. Communicating from the secondary emotions creates a self-perpetuating interactions that does not bring the couple closer and build more connectedness. The therapist attempts to create a safe atmosphere of protection so that the couples can be more vulnerable and comfortable to share their primary emotions. Secondary emotions are more reactive and create a negative interactional pattern. When couples communicate from their secondary emotions result in an insecure bond in the couple. Change occurs when the couple communicates with one another from their primary emotions, identify their primary emotional needs and create new patterns of interaction, thus creating a secure …show more content…
Primary emotions are the raw emotions that individuals feel based on the situation at hand (Greenberg, 2004; Greenberg & Goldman, 2008). The emotions can be but are not limited to happiness, sadness, anger, disappointment, and excitement. Secondary emotions are the emotions that individuals feel in response to their primary emotions (Greenberg, 2004; Greenberg & Goldman, 2008). For example, if an individual feels guilty or ashamed of himself and cannot create meaning for the emotion, an individual can become angry to mask the guilt or shame. Instrumental emotions are the emotions the person uses to influence or manipulate another person’s thoughts and actions and can either be conscious or unconscious (Greenberg, 2004; Greenberg & Goldman, 2008). For instance, if a wife wants her husband to be more affectionate toward her but he does not make an effort to meet that need, then she may become angry to see if it can move him to be more affectionate. Maladaptive emotions are the emotions tied to trauma from the past that continue to surface, even though the individual is no longer in the traumatic setting (Greenberg, 2004; Greenberg & Goldman, 2008). The resurfacing is due to the unresolved trauma the person still carries. These emotions can include
Experiential Family Therapy is a therapy that encourages patients to address subconscious issues through actions, and role playing. It is a treatment that is used for a group of people in order to determine the source of problem in the family (Gurman and Kniskern, 2014). Experiential Family Therapy has its strengths and weaknesses. One of the strengths of this therapy is that, it focuses on the present and patients are able to express their emotions on what is happening to them presently. The client will have time to share everything about his/her life experiences one on one without any fears. As a result, it helps the client in the healing process because, he/she is able to express their feelings freely and come out of the problem. Therefore, in this type of therapy, the clients are deeply involved in solving their issues. It helps clients to scrutinize their individual connections and to initiate a self-discovery through therapy, on how their relationships influence their current behaviors (Gurman and Kniskern, 2014). By examining their personal relationships through experiential family therapy, family members are able to
Ripley, J. S., & Worthington Jr., E. L. (2014). Couple therapy: A new hope-focused approach. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press. ISBN:
Emotionally focused therapy is designed to be short-term in structure. Developed principally by Dr. Susan Johnson, the main target of this type of therapy is couples and is focused on expressing emotions. The primary goal of emotionally focused therapy is to create a safe and long-lasting bond between romantic partners and family members while expanding and restructuring significant emotional responses. Partakers in emotionally focused therapy are emboldened to express their thoughts and emotions in a safe environment without fear of judgment. In this paper, we will discuss a therapy session between Sue Johnson and a couple, Leslie and Scott.
Gurman, A. S., & Kniskern, D. P. Research on marital and family therapy: Progress, perspective and
While many counselors may draw upon more cognitive-behavioral models, helping shift patterns in thinking and doing, they may not acknowledge underlying client emotions that, if unchanged, may revert their patterns of thinking and acting back to pre-counseling patterns. It is said that emotional insight leads to change, not intellectual insight. I wholeheartedly agree, and acknowledge that of course bringing more awareness to thoughts and behaviors can be valuable, but bringing awareness to feelings can be even more profound for ultimately shifting limiting beliefs and unhealthy behaviors. While EFT may seem focused on the individual, allowing each member of a system (in a family session for example) to authentically and honestly share their feelings in a way that they haven’t had the courage or opportunity to do so, may help reduce emotional suppression which may result in children acting out, for example. Internal Family Systems Therapy notes that people may have conflicting inner drives or parts, and allowing individuals in a system to give voice to these parts, may reduce polarized behavior within the system, allowing for greater acceptance and appreciation of different feelings. While all of the above is helpful, I believe that exploration of here and now feelings without a compass may leave things
Acknowledging, the importance of attachment has been in helpful development of couples therapy, in particular to Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy (EFT), “where it helps explain how even healthy adults need to depend on each other,” (Nichols, 2013, p. 62). EFT is an empirically validated experiential therapy model that works with emotion to create change. EFT therapists use “attachment theory to deconstruct the familiar dynamic in which one partner criticizes and complains while the other gets defensive and withdraws,” (Nichols, 2013, p.63). Research has demonstrated the importance of attachment in individuals. It is not solely a childhood trait attachment is a trait that individuals carry for the rest of their lives. Nonetheless, it is important to work on the attachments with families and couples in order to alleviate some of the negative interactions that arise from feeling a fear of losing the attachment with
Cassidy, J., & Shaver, P.R. (1999). Handbook of attachment: Theory, research, and clinical applications. New York: The Guilford Press.
Hazan, C., Gur-Yaish, N., & Campa, M. (2003). What does it mean to be attached? In W. S. Rholes & J. A. Simpson (Eds.) Adult Attachment: Theory, Research, and Clinical Implications, (pp. 55 – 85). New York: Guilford.
Birns, B. (1999). Attachment Therapy Revisited: Challenging Conceptual and Methodological Sacred Cows. Feminism & Psychology, 9(10), 10-21.
This essay evaluates the counselling skills used during a 30 minute integrative counselling session with a male client aiming to combine strengths of person-centred theory, attachment theory and cognitive-behavioural therapy. It starts by offering a case formulation based on Padesky and Greenberger (1995), as well as Lazarus’ (1973) multimodal assessment template the BASIC ID (cited in Prochaska and Norcross, 2003, p.496), of a married young male client called Eric, who is suffering from anxiety and marital relationship problems triggered by unemployment and influenced by existing difficulties within the client's relationship to his mother.
I find that Roger's theory to be interesting and seemingly affective. It makes sense that a change in a clients negative relationship patterns would allow freedom for the client to express themselves emotionally. According to Strupp (1971), “The client, therefore, is not a patient who is sick and who is in need o... ... middle of paper ... ...
Secondary emotions are not instant, but instead a conscious thought. They may be simple feelings or be a mix as more emotions join the fray, and they involve higher brain centers in the cebrbral cortex (Bekoff, 2007, p. 8). This could be true as to what was happening to the group of elephants in The Emotional Lives of Animals. Bekoff tells of a group of 14 elephants, that thrashed through a village looking for a group member that was missing. Thousands of people were forced to flee their homes although the member they were missing had fell into water and drowned, and some of the villagers had already buried it. The fact that the elephant was all ready buried suggests that time had passed, making thrashing of the village a reaction from a secondary emotion (Bekoff, 2007, p. 3). They may also come from more complex chains of
New York, NY: Guilford Press. Gurman, A., (Ed.). Clinical Handbook of Couple Therapy (4th ed.). New York, NY: Guilford Press.
The techniques used in marriage and family counseling can be different. For instance, counselors will sometimes handle family therapy in different ways than they would couples or marital therapy. Both family and marriage c...
There are four main factors identified in emotional intelligence. The first is the perceiving of emotions, which involves the initial understanding of emotions in order to perceive them accurately (Parker et al, 2013). In most cases, it could involve the comprehension of facial expressions and body language. The second factor is reasoning with emotions, which involves the use of perceived emotions in the promotion of cognitive and thinking activity. An individual’s emotions have a critical role to play in their prioritization of what they pay attention to, as well as react to. Te next factor is the understanding of emotions, which involves how the individual interprets the perceived emotions. The individual will be required to, for example, interpret why another individual is expressing emotions of anger. The final factor is the management of emotions, which refers to a person’s ability to manage effectively their own emotions (Parker et al, 2013). Regulation of emotion, appropriate response, and how one responds to other people’s emotions is fundamental aspects of EI.