Emotion-focused therapy
Emotion-Focused Therapy
Emotion-focused therapy (EFT) is a therapeutic approach based on the premise that emotions are key to identity. According to EFT, emotions are also a guide for individual choice and decision making. This type of therapy assumes that lacking emotional awareness or avoiding unpleasant emotions can cause harm.
Therapists qualified in EFT can help people seeking assistance with a range of concerns. These therapists may help people learn to become more aware of their emotions. EFT also allows people to become better at using information provided by adaptive emotions. People may be better able to cope with and decrease negative effects of maladaptive emotions.
EMOTION-FOCUSED THERAPY THEORY
In this approach to treatment, the therapist and the person in therapy collaborate in an active process. Both are viewed as equal contributors. The person in treatment, not the therapist, is seen as the person most capable of interpreting their emotional experience.
EFT is founded in the idea that emotions should be used to guide healthy, meaningful lives. Its theory is based on a scientific inquiry into the human emotional experience. Scientific study of human emotion has provided information about:
- How emotions are produced
- The importance of emotions to human functioning
- How emotions are related to thought and behavior
Emotion schemes is the core concept of EFT. It was developed largely from these theories of human emotion. Emotion schemes are models that outline how emotion can:
- Be experienced physically
- Cause physiologic changes
- Influence thinking
- Guide future action
- EFT helps people both accept and change their personal emotion schemes.
TECHNIQUES USED IN EMOTION-FOCUSED THERAPY
EFT sessions typically center around the development of two key skills. These are:
- Arriving at one’s emotions through increased awareness and acceptance.
- Learning to transform emotions and better use the information they provide to avoid negative or harmful behaviors or other effects of certain emotions.
Therapists practicing this method take a compassionate, non-judgmental, and reflective approach to listening and questioning. This allows the person in therapy come to a better understanding of their emotions. Then, various therapeutic techniques known as emotion coaching are utilized. These help people learn new ways to use healthy emotions to guide their actions. Emotion coaching may further help people transform and move on from challenging emotions.
Initial sessions of therapy focus on helping people arrive at emotions. One or more of the following goals are often included in each session:
- Become more aware of emotions
- Learn to welcome, allow, and regulate emotions
- Learn to describe emotions clearly and in detail
- Increase awareness of the multiple layers of emotional experiences and learn to identify the most direct reaction
The next phase of treatment focuses on leaving. It may include the following goals:
- Evaluate whether emotions are helpful or unhelpful in various situations
- Learn to use helpful emotions to guide action
- Identify the source of unhelpful emotions
- Learn to change unhelpful emotions
- Develop alternative, healthy ways of coping with situations that often elicit maladaptive emotions
- Form personal scripts that help challenge the destructive thoughts that may be associated with unhelpful or maladaptive emotions
EFT is generally thought to have been successful when the person in treatment has an increased awareness of their emotional experience. They may also have an improved ability to regulate emotions and be better able to transform unhelpful emotions.