“Are you there for me? Can I count on you?”
— Dr. Sue Johnson
Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT)
Finding your way back to connection
When you love each other but keep getting caught in the same painful patterns, it can be difficult to know how to reconnect.
You may find yourselves having the same arguments again and again. One of you may reach out while the other pulls away. You may both become defensive, shut down, or feel that your partner simply does not understand you.
In Emotionally Focused Therapy, I help couples slow down these patterns and understand what is happening underneath the conflict.
How I Can Help
Understanding the cycle
Rather than focusing on who is right or wrong, I help you look at the pattern that develops between you.
What happens when one of you reaches out? What happens when the other feels overwhelmed and pulls away? How does each person's response affect the other?
Together, we begin to recognize the cycle you have become caught in, rather than seeing each other as the problem. EFT works with both the emotional experience within each person and the interactional patterns between partners.
Exploring what is underneath
Anger, criticism, withdrawal, or shutting down are often the more visible parts of a difficult interaction.
In our sessions, I help you slow things down and explore the emotions, fears, needs, and longings underneath these reactions. This can help you understand what you are really trying to communicate when it is difficult to find the words.
Creating new ways of responding
Once the cycle becomes clearer, we can begin to create opportunities for something different to happen between you.
I help each partner express more vulnerable feelings and needs in ways that can be heard, while supporting the other partner to respond with greater understanding and emotional availability.
EFT focuses on helping partners become more accessible, responsive, and emotionally engaged with one another.
Building a more secure connection
The aim is not simply to stop arguing or communicate more effectively.
It is to help you experience your relationship as a place where you can feel understood, valued, supported, and connected.
As new patterns of reaching and responding develop, partners can gradually experience greater emotional security within the relationship.
What You Can Expect in Our Sessions
In our work together, we may:
Identify the patterns that keep you feeling stuck
Slow down difficult interactions so we can understand what is happening beneath them
Explore the emotions and attachment needs underneath your reactions
Find ways to express vulnerable feelings and needs more openly
Help each partner hear and respond to the other differently
Develop new patterns of connection and emotional responsiveness
My role is not to decide who is right or wrong. Instead, I help you understand the cycle between you and create space for a different experience of connection. This reflects EFT's focus on reprocessing emotional experience and restructuring the couple's interactional pattern.
From Conflict to Connection
Sometimes the question underneath a conflict is not simply:
“Who is right?”
It may be:
“Do I matter to you?”
“Can I reach you when I need you?”
“Are you there for me?”
EFT helps couples move toward greater openness, responsiveness, and emotional connection — so that the relationship can become a place of greater safety and security.
Developed by Dr. Sue Johnson
Emotionally Focused Therapy was developed by Dr. Sue Johnson and is grounded in attachment theory. It brings together experiential and systemic approaches, focusing on emotion, attachment needs, and the interactional patterns that shape our closest relationships.
Reference
Johnson, S. M. (2020). The Practice of Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy: Creating Connection (3rd ed.). Routledge.
