Emotion-focused therapy and emotion-focused therapy ( EFT ) are the family of psychotherapy-related approaches to individuals, couples, or families. The EFT approach includes elements of experiential therapy (such as people-centered therapy and Gestalt therapy), systemic therapy, and attachment theory. EFT is usually a short-term treatment (8-20 sessions). The EFT approach is based on the premise that human emotions are connected to human needs, and therefore emotions have innate potential adaptations that, if activated and worked, can help people change the emotional state of trouble and interpersonal relationships. emotion-focused therapy for individuals was originally known as experiential-therapy , and sometimes still called by that name.
EFT should not be confused with emotion-focused coping , the cure category proposed by some psychologists, even though doctors have used EFT to help improve clients who focus on emotions.
Video Emotionally focused therapy
Histori
EFT began in the mid-1980s as an approach to help couples. EFT was originally formulated and tested by Sue Johnson and Les Greenberg in 1985, and the first manual for emotionally focused pair therapy was published in 1988.
To develop the approach, Johnson and Greenberg began reviewing couples therapy video sessions to identify, through observation and task analysis, elements that led to positive change. They are influenced in their observations by the psychotherapy of the humanistic experience of Carl Rogers and Fritz Perls, both appreciating (in different ways) the current emotional experience because of its power to create meaning and guide behavior. Johnson and Greenberg see the need to combine experience therapy with the system's theoretical view that meanings and behaviors can not be considered outside of the whole situation in which they occur. In this "systemic-experience" approach to couples therapy, as in other approaches to systemic therapy, this problem is seen as the property of not one partner, but rather the interaction patterns that strengthen between partners. Emotion is seen not only as an in-individual phenomenon, but also as part of an entire system that regulates interaction among partners.
In 1986, Greenberg chose "to refocus his efforts to develop and study an approach to experience for individual therapy". Greenberg and his colleagues turned their attention away from couples therapy to individual psychotherapy. They are present for emotional experiences and their role in individual self-organization. Building on the experience theories of Rogers and Perls and others like Eugene Gendlin, as well as on their own extensive work on information processing and the adaptive role of emotion in human function, Greenberg, Rice & Elliott (1993) developed treatment guidelines with many of the principles clearly described for what they call the experience-experience approach to psychological change. Elliott et al. (2004) and Goldman & amp; Greenberg (2015) has expanded the process-experience approach, with detailed manuals of specific methods of therapeutic intervention. Goldman & amp; Greenberg (2015) presents a case formulation map for this approach.
Johnson continues to develop EFT for couples, integrates attachment theory with systemic and humanistic approaches, and explicitly extends the understanding of attachment theory about the relationship of love. Johnson's model retains three original and nine step steps and two series of interventions aimed at reshaping attachment bonds: a set of interventions to track and restructure interaction patterns and one for accessing and reprocessing emotions (see ç§ Stages and steps in below)). Johnson's goal is the creation of a positive cycle of interpersonal interaction in which individuals can request and offer comfort and support to protect others, facilitating the regulation of interpersonal emotions.
Greenberg & amp; Goldman (2008) developed a variation of EFT for couples containing several elements from the original formulations of Greenberg and Johnson but added several steps and stages. Greenberg and Goldman place three dimensions of motivation - (1) attachment, (2) identity or power, and (3) attraction or joy - which affects emotional regulation in intimate relationships.
Maps Emotionally focused therapy
Similar terms, different meanings
The terms emotionally focused therapy and emotionally focused therapy have different meanings for different therapists.
In the Les Greenberg approach, the term "emotion-focused" is sometimes used to refer to general psychotherapeutic approaches that emphasize emotions. Greenberg "decided that on the basis of developments in the theory of emotion that treatments such as experience process approaches, as well as some other approaches that emphasize emotions as targets of change, are quite similar to each other and differ from existing approaches to get grouped under the general heading approach that focuses on emotions. "He and his colleague Rhonda Goldman noted their choice to" use a more American phrase from emotionally focused to refer to the emotionally focused therapeutic approach, rather than the original, perhaps more English terms (reflecting Greenberg and Johnson's Background) emotionally focused . "Greenberg uses the term" emotion-focused "to suggest assimilative integration of the emotional focus into any approach to psychotherapy. He considers focus on emotion to be a common factor among various psychotherapy systems: "The term
In addition to these empirical findings, leaders of the major orientations have voiced a serious critique of the theoretical approach they favor, while encouraging an open-minded attitude toward other orientations. Furthermore, different-oriented clinicians recognize that their approach does not give them enough clinical repertoire to address the diversity of clients and the problems they face.
The use of Sue Johnson for the term emotionally focused therapy refers to a particular relationship therapy model that explicitly integrates systems and experiential approaches and places excellence on the attachment theory as the theory of emotional regulation. Johnson considers the need for attachment as the primary motivating system for the survival of mammals; his approach to EFT focuses on the theory of attachment as the theory of adult love in which attachment, parenting, and sex are interrelated. The theory of attachment looks to characterize the quest for personal autonomy, dependence on others and a sense of personal, interpersonal, loving and desirable interest. Johnson's approach to EFT aims to reshape attachment strategies to optimal interdependence and emotional regulation, for resilience and physical, emotional, and relational health.
Features
Experimental focus
All of the EFT approaches have maintained an emphasis on the importance of Rogerian's empathetic interference and communicated understanding. They all focus on the value of engaging the client in a moment-to-moment moment of emotional moments in the session. Thus, focus experiences stand out in all EFT approaches. All EFT theories have expressed the view that individuals engage with others on the basis of their emotions, and build a sense of self from the drama of repeated emotional interactions.
Emotional information processing theory and emotional assessment (according to emotional theory such as Magda B. Arnold, Paul Ekman, Nico Frijda, and James Gross) and humanistic emphasis, experience on the moment-to-moment emotional expression (developing a previous psychotherapy approach from Carl Rogers, Fritz Perls, and Eugene Gendlin) have been a strong component of all EFT approaches since their inception. EFT approaches emotional values ​​as targets and agents of change, respecting emotional intersections, cognitions, and behaviors. The EFT approach presupposes that emotion is the first, often a subconscious response to experience. All EFT appraoches also use the primary and secondary emotional response framework (reactive).
Adapt emotional responses and negative interaction patterns
Greenberg and several other EFT theorists have categorized emotional responses into four types (see Ã, § Types of emotional responses below) to help therapists decide how to respond to clients at a particular time: primary adaptive , Maladaptive primary , secondary reactive , and instrumental . Greenberg has proposed six principles of emotional processing: (1) emotional awareness or naming what one feels, (2) emotional expression, (3) emotional arrangement, (4) reflection on experience, (5) emotional transformation by emotion, ) emotional corrective experience through new life experiences in therapy and in the world. While the primary adaptive emotional response is seen as a reliable guide to behavior in the current situation, the primary maladaptive emotional response is seen as an unreliable guide to behavior in the current situation (in addition to other emotional difficulties that may include lack of emotional awareness, emotionally dysregulated , and problems in making meaning).
Johnson seldom distinguishes between adaptive and maladaptive primary emotional responses, and seldom distinguishes emotional responses as dysfunctional or functional. In contrast, primary emotional responses are usually interpreted as a normal survival reaction in the face of what John Bowlby calls "distress segregation." EFT for couples, like other systemic therapies that emphasize interpersonal relationships, assume that interpersonal interaction patterns are problematic or dysfunctional elements. Interaction patterns can be changed after accessing an underlying primary emotional response that unconsciously directs the ineffective negative reinforcement interaction cycle. Validating the reactive emotional response and reprocessing the newly accessed primary emotional responses is part of the change process.
Individual therapy
Goldman & amp; Greenberg 2015 proposes a 14-step formulation process that considers emotion-related problems as deriving from at least four possible causes: lack of awareness or emotional avoidance, emotional dysregulation, non-adaptive emotional response, or problems by making meaning meaningful.. This theory presents four types of emotional responses (see Ã, § Types of emotional responses below), categorizes needs under "attachment" and "identity", establishes four types of emotional processing difficulties, describes different types of empathy, has at least a dozen different. task marker (see Ã, § Therapeutic tasks below), relies on two emotionally interactive paths and narrative processes as sources of information about the client, and considers constructive-constructivist constructive constructive models and schematic systems emotion .
Emotional schematic systems are seen as central catalysts of self-organization, often at the base of dysfunction and ultimately the path to healing. For simplicity, we use the term emotional schematic process to refer to the complex synthesis process in which multiple co-opted emotional schemes work together to produce a unified self-consciousness in relation to the world.
Techniques used in "training clients to work through their feelings" may include Gestalt's empty seat technique, which is often used to resolve "unfinished affairs", and two-seat techniques, often used for critical self-breaking.
Emotion response type
Emotion-focused theorists have proposed that each type of emotional response requires a different process of intervention by the therapist. Primary adaptive emotional responses need to be more fully permitted and accessible for their adaptive information. Primary maladaptive emotional responses need to be accessed and explored to help clients identify unmet core needs (eg, for validation, security, or connection), and then set and modified with new experiences and new adaptive emotions. A secondary reactive emotional response requires empathic exploration to find the sequence of emotions that preceded it. The instrumental emotional response needs to be explored interpersonally in therapeutic relationships to raise their awareness and discuss how they function in client situations.
It is important to note that primary emotional responses are not called "primers" because they are somehow more tangible than other responses; all responses are real to a person, but the therapist can classify them into these four types to help clarify the response function in the client situation and how to intervene appropriately.
Therapeutic task
The therapeutic task is an immediate problem that the client must solve in a psychotherapeutic session. In the 1970s and 1980s, researchers like Laura North Rice (former associate Carl Rogers) applied task analysis to transcripts of psychotherapy sessions in an effort to explain in more detail the client's cognitive and emotional change process, so the therapist may be more reliable at providing optimal conditions for changes. This type of psychotherapy process research ultimately leads to a series of standard (and evolved) therapeutic tasks in emotionally focused therapy for individuals.
The following table summarizes the standard sets of therapeutic tasks in 2012. The tasks are classified into five major groups: empathy based, relational, experiencing, reprocessing, and action. The task marker is an observable sign that the client may be ready to work on related tasks. The intervention process is the sequence of actions performed by the therapist and client in the task. The end state is the desired resolution of the immediate problem.
In addition to the task markers listed below, other markers and intervention processes to work with emotions and narratives have been determined: The same old story , empty story , not loaded , and broken stories . Emotional-focused therapies for trauma
Emotion-focused interventions and therapeutic structures have been adapted for the specific needs of victims of psychological trauma. Emotion-focused therapy manuals for individuals with complex trauma (EFTT) have been published. For example, the modification of the traditional Gestalt empty chair technique has been developed.
Other versions of EFT for individuals
Brubacher (2017) proposes an emotionally focused approach to individualized therapy focusing on attachment, while integrating the focus of experience from empathetic attachement to engaging and reprocessing emotional experiences and tracking and restructuring systemic aspects and patterns of emotional regulation. The therapist follows the attachment model by addressing the deactivation and hyperactivity strategies. Individual therapy is seen as the process of developing a secure connection between the therapist and the client, between the client and past and present relationships, and within the client. Principles Appendix therapeutic guidelines in the following ways: establishing collaborative therapeutic relationships, forming the overall goal for therapy to be "effective dependence" (following John Bowlby) on one or two others who are safe, depathologizing emotions with normalization of separated distress responses, and forming processes change. The process of change is: identifying and strengthening patterns of emotional regulation, and creating a corrective emotional experience to turn negative patterns into secure bonds.
Pair therapy
Systemic perspectives are important in all approaches to EFT for couples. Tracking patterns of interaction conflicts, often referred to as "dances" in Johnson's popular literature, has characterized the first stage of Johnson and Greenberg's approach since its inception in 1985. In the more recent Goldman and Greenberg approach, therapists help clients "also work towards self-change and pain resolution stemming from unmet childhood needs that affect partner interactions, in addition to working on interactional changes. "Goldman and Greenberg justify their additional emphasis on self-change by noting that not all problems in a relationship can be solved simply by tracing and change the interaction pattern:
In addition, in our observations of the work of psychotherapy with partners, we have found that problems or difficulty that can be traced to a core identity problem such as the need for validation or sense of worth are often cured through self-directed therapeutic methods rather than for interaction. For example, if one's core emotions are one of shame and they feel "rotten at the core" or "just basic flaws," calming or reassuring from one's partner, while helping, will not solve the problem, cause structural emotional change, or change the outlook self.
In Greenberg and Goldman's approach to EFT for couples, although they "fully support" the importance of attachment, attachment is not considered the sole interpersonal interpersonal motivation; conversely, attachment is considered to be one of three aspects of relational function, along with the problem of identity/strength and attraction/fondness. In Johnson's approach, the theory of attachment is considered a theory that defines adult love, incorporates other motivations, and guides the therapist in processing and reprocessing emotions.
In the Greenberg and Goldman approaches, the emphasis is on working with core issues relating to identity (self and other work models) and promoting both calming and soothing-others for better relationships, in addition to changing interactions. In Johnson's approach, the main goal is to reshape bonding and create "effective dependence" (including secure attachment).
Stages and steps
EFT for couples has a nine step model for restructuring attachment bonds between partners. In this approach, the aim is to reshape bondage and create more effective co-regulation and "effective dependency", improve self-organization and individual resilience. In cases of good results, couples are helped to respond and thus meet unmet needs and injuries from childhood. A new bond-shaped bond can be the best antidote to traumatic experiences from within and outside relationships.
Adding the original three-phase EFT frame, the nine steps developed by Johnson and Greenberg, Greenberg and Goldman's emotionally focused therapy for couples have five stages and 14 steps. It's structured to work on identity issues and self-regulation before changing negative interactions. It is considered necessary, in this approach, to help partners experience and express their own underlying feelings first, so they are better equipped to do intense work to adapt to other partners and be open to restructure the interactions and bonds of attachment.
Johnson (2008) summarizes the nine steps of treatment in the EFT Johnson model for couples: "The therapist leads the couple through these steps spirally, as one step combines and leads to another.In a rather depressed partner, partners usually work quickly, through steps at the parallel level.On a more depressed partner, a more passive or withdrawn pair is usually invited to pass the steps slightly ahead of the other. "
Stage 1. Stabilization (assessment and de-escalation phase)
- Step 1: Identify relational conflict issues between partners
- Step 2: Identify the negative interaction cycle where this issue was disclosed
- Step 3: Access the attachment emotion that underlies the position of each partner in this cycle
- Step 4: Rename the issue in terms of cycles, unrecognized emotions, and attachment needs
During this stage the therapist creates a comfortable and stable environment for the couple to have an open discussion about any doubts a partner may have about therapy, including the beliefs of the therapist. The therapist also gets a sense of positive and negative partner pairs from past and present and is able to summarize and present negative patterns for them. Partners soon no longer perceive themselves as victims of their negative interaction cycle; they are now allying against it.
Stage 2. Restructuring the bond (changing the interactional position of the phase)
- Step 5: Access recognized or implicit need (eg, need to be convincing), emotion (eg, embarrassment), and self-model
- Step 6: Promote each partner's acceptance of the other party's experience
- Step 7: Facilitate the expression of each pair of needs and desires to restructure the interaction based on new understandings and create a bonding event
This stage involves restructuring and expanding the partner's emotional experience. This is done through couples who recognize their attachment needs, and then change their interactions based on those needs. At first their new way of interacting may be strange and difficult to accept, but as they become more aware and control their interactions, they are able to stop old patterns of behavior from reappearing.
Stage 3. Integration and consolidation
- Step 8: Facilitate the formulation of new stories and new solutions to old problems
- Step 9: Merge the new behavior cycle
This stage focuses on the reflection of new emotional experiences and self-concept. It combines new ways couples deal with problems within themselves and in the relationship.
Attachment style
Johnson & amp; Sims (2000) describes four attachment styles that affect the therapeutic process:
- People who feel secure and trust feel themselves loved, able to trust others and themselves in a relationship. They provide a clear emotional signal, and are involved, resourceful and flexible in uncertain relationships. Partners are safe to express feelings, articulate needs, and allow their own vulnerability to display.
- People who have the ability to articulate feelings of deprivation tend not to recognize their need for attachment, and the difficulty of mentioning their needs in a relationship. They tend to adopt safe positions and solve problems without feeling without understanding the effects of their safe distance toward their partner.
- People who are psychologically reactive and who show an anxious attachment. They tend to demand certainty in an aggressive way, demand the attachment of their partner and tend to use blame strategies (including emotional blackmail) to engage their spouse.
- People who experience trauma and experience little or no recovery from it oscillate between attachment and hostility.
Family therapy
The emotionally focused family therapy (EFFT) of Johnson and his colleagues aims to promote secure bonding among depressed family members. This is a therapeutic approach consistent with systemically-oriented emotion-oriented models in three stages: (1) an increasingly negative cycle of interaction that strengthens conflicts and insecure connections between parents and children; (2) the interaction of restructuring to establish a positive cycle of parental accessibility and responsiveness to offer children or adolescents a safe place and secure base; (3) consolidation of new responsive cycles and secure bonds. The main focus is on strengthening parental response and parenting, to meet the needs of adolescent and adolescent attachment. It aims to "build stronger families through (1) recruiting and strengthening parents' emotional responsiveness to children, (2) accessing and clarifying children's attachment needs, and (3) facilitating and shaping parenting interactions from parents to the child ". Some doctors have integrated EFFT with play therapy.
One group of doctors, partly inspired by Greenberg's approach to EFT, developed a special treatment protocol for individual families struggling with eating disorders. This treatment is based on the principles and techniques of four different approaches: emotion-focused therapy, behavioral family therapy, motivational enhancement therapy, and the New Maudsley-based skills-based approach. It aims to help parents "support their children in processing emotions, improve their emotional self-efficacy, deepen parent-child relationships and thus make ED [eating disorder] an unnecessary symptom to address painful emotional experiences". This treatment has three major domains of intervention, four core principles, and five steps from the emotionally-focused GreenGlobal approach and influenced by John Gottman: (1) attending children's emotional experiences, (2) naming emotions, (3) validating emotional experiences , (4) meeting emotional needs, and (5) helping children to move through emotional experiences, solving problems where necessary.
Benefits
Johnson, Greenberg, and many of their colleagues have spent their long career as academic researchers who publish the results of empirical studies of various forms of EFT.
The American Psychological Association considers emotionally focused therapy for individuals to be empirical treatment supported for depression. Studies have suggested that it is effective in the treatment of depression, interpersonal problems, trauma, and avoidant personality disorder.
Research shows that emotionally focused therapy for couples is an effective way to restructure the relationship of the oppressed couple to secure and secure bonds with long-term outcomes. Johnson et al. (1999) conducted a meta-analysis of the four most rigorous study results prior to 2000 and concluded that the nine stages, the three stages of emotional approach therapy focused on couples therapy had a greater effect size than the other partner interventions that have been achieved to date.. 70 to 73% of couples reported recovery from relationship difficulties, according to Dyadic Adjustment Scale size of relationship satisfaction, and 86% reported significant increases in control. Studies have consistently shown significant post-therapy improvements and excellent follow-up results. A study with the fMRI component suggested that emotionally focused pair therapy reduces the brain's response to threats in the presence of a romantic partner.
Strength
Some of the strengths of the EFT approach can be summarized as follows:
- EFT aims to be collaborative and respectful to clients, incorporating therapeutic techniques centered on the experience of patients with systemic therapy interventions.
- Change the strategies and interventions determined through intensive analysis of the psychotherapeutic process.
- EFT has been validated by 30 years of empirical research. There is also research on the process of change and predictors of success.
- EFT has been applied to various types of problems and populations, although more research on different populations and cultural adaptations is required.
- EFT for couples is based on the conceptualization of marital distress and adult love supported by empirical research on the nature of adult interpersonal attachment.
Criticism
Psychotherapist Campbell Purton, in his book 2014 The Trouble with Psychotherapy , criticized various approaches to psychotherapy, including behavioral therapy, people-centered therapy, psychodynamic therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, emotion-focused therapy, and therapy existential; he argues that this psychotherapy has accumulated the advantages and/or lacks of theoretical content that deviates too much from the understanding of everyday common sense about personal problems. With regard to emotion-focused therapy, Purton argues that the "effectiveness of each" therapeutic task "can be understood without theory" and that what the client says "is not well explained in terms of emotion scheme interaction is better explained in terms of the person's situation , their responses to it, and those after studying a particular language in which they articulate their responses. "
In the 2015 article on Behavioral and Brain Sciences on "memory reconsolidation, emotional stimulation and change processes in psychotherapy", Richard D. Lane and colleagues summarize the general claims in the emotionally focused therapy literature. that "emotional arousal is a key element in therapeutic change" and that "emotional passion is essential to the success of psychotherapy". In the responses that accompany the article, Bruce Ecker and colleagues (coherent therapy creators) disagree with this claim and argue that the main ingredient in the therapeutic changes involving memory reconsolidation is not the emotional arousal but the perceived mismatch between expected patterns and experienced patterns. ; they wrote:
The brain obviously does not require emotional stimulation to encourage deconsolidation. That is the basic point. If target learning occurs emotionally, then reactivation (the first of the two necessary elements) certainly requires that emotional experience, but the emotion itself does not inherently play a role in discrepancies that then elaborate on target learning, or in new learning that later rewrote and remove target learning (discussed longer in Ecker 2015). [...] The same consideration implies that "changing emotions with emotion" (stated three times by Lane et al.) Inaccurately describes how the responses learned change through reconsolidation. Non-conformity consists of the most basic of direct perceptions, it is undeniable that the world functions differently from the model one learns. "Changing models with mismatch" is a core phenomenology.
Another response to Lane et al. (2015) argue that their emotionally focused approach "will be reinforced by including predictions about additional factors that may influence treatment responses, predictions for improving outcomes for unresponsive patients, and discussion of how the proposed model can account for individual differences in vulnerability for mental health problems ", and that their models require further development to account for the diversity of countries called" psychopathology "and relevant deterioration and maintenance processes.
See also
Note
References
EFT for pair
EFT for family
Video
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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