Emotion Focused Therapy Essay

There are myriad theoretical perspectives to guide counsellors when working with couples and families. One size does not fit all. Thus, is crucial that counsellors tailor their approach to meet the needs of each individual client. Narrative therapy and emotion-focused therapy are two approaches to couples and family counselling that provides clinicians with a framework to help clients broaden their understanding of themselves and those with whom they are close.
Emotions are the underlying motivating factor for why people seek therapy. Emotions are responsible for facilitating decision making, informing our responses to the environment around us and providing information that helps to regulate social interactions. According to Greenberg & Paivio (2004) while emotions are integral to shaping our actions and building “new adaptive experiences” (p. 5), they also can be disordered and cause relationship breakdown when not processed in a healthy manner. Within the context of families and couples, emotional habits can have a detrimental effect on interpersonal relationships. Emotion-focused therapy (EFT) is a systematic therapeutic approach that seeks to revise and restructure “distressed patients’ constricted interaction patterns and emotional responses
Sue Johnson, EFT is a model of therapy that draws attention to the “crucial significance of emotion and emotional communication in the organization of patterns of interaction and key defining experiences in close relationships” (Johnson, 2012, p.4). Drawing from the humanistic perspective, EFT integrates Rogerian’s person-centered approach which rests upon the empathic relationship between the therapist and the client (CITE). Moreover, EFT incorporates empirically supported research on adult attachment theory (CITE). The combination of these two schools of thought encourages clients to more adequately understand how their emotional patterns, affect and reactions play out in