Relationship Therapy

Here is a short version of a working understanding of EFT!  You and your spouse are just not getting along.  Everything becomes an argument, and you are just not finding common ground on anything.  You fight about the children; you fight about what needs to get done around the house; you even fight about whether you should go out together.  You just are not connecting.  We are created for connection; we even see this concept in the Triune God who connects with Himself.  The problem with us as human beings is that we desire connection, but somewhere along the line our ability to connect was damaged.  Bowlby was the primary researcher of these attachment issues; John Eldredge called it a “father wound.”

One of the best scenes in the movie, “Shrek” is when Shrek is trying to explain himself as an ogre.  Ogres are like onions! Donkey responds…because they stink, make you cry, or turn brown in the sun?  “NO! Ogres are like onions because they both have layers.”  I would liken EFT couples therapy to onions.  We must peel away the layers of the relationship to get to the root of what is going on in the relationship.  Dr Sue Johnson, founder of EFT, writes in her book, Created for Connection, “We have to dive below to discover the basic problem: these couples have disconnected emotionally; they don’t feel emotionally safe with each other” (Johnson, 2016, p.40).  As therapists, we are the opposite of detective Friday, “Just the facts mam!”; we are stripping away layers to get to the heart of the individual.  We are detectives asking questions like, “That landed really sharp for you; where did you feel in your body? What were your thoughts about you and about your significant other?  What feelings did that invoke?”  Johnson writes further, “Attachment theory teaches us that our loved one is our shelter in life. When that person is emotionally unavailable or unresponsive, we face being out in the cold, alone and helpless” (p.40).

There have been volumes written about EFT therapy and tons of research on its effectiveness, so a little blog about the therapy cannot do it justice.  However, this introduction of EFT, I hope, will spark your interest to learn more.  The foundational questions that we are assisting couples to unpack is summed up in the acronym A.R.E. Are you available for me when I reach for you? Can I rely on you to respond to me emotionally? Will you engage me so that I feel valued and seen?  We expose these deep-seated questions by presenting a safe enough place to strip away layers so that each individual can be vulnerable enough to ask these questions.