Emotionally focused couples therapy7/3/2023 ![]() ![]() The necessity for defensive, rationalizing or justifying behaviours on the part of distressed partners is then minimized. So, an EFT therapist will accept and work with a client’s silence or rage, rather than offering immediate alternatives or attempting to modify this response. The humanistic therapist then joins each client where that client is and validates his or her attempts to survive, rather than assessing a “problem” and then asking clients to be somewhere else. Both Rogers ( 1951) and Bowlby ( 1969) believed that all responses are basically reasonable and adaptive if they are understood in context. Empathy here is an active leap of imagination where the therapist connects with and processes core experiences with each client, discovering that experience as it unfolds. It assumes that the therapist’s acceptance and empathy are powerful in and of themselves in that they create the safety where difficult experience can be encountered and assimilated and where risks can be taken. Second, this model specifically outlines the therapeutic relationship that is a necessary condition for growth and change. The humanistic therapist does not get caught in the trap of labelling and pathologizing partners or relationships and so is able to convey hope and the expectation that partners will be able to shape and improve their connection with each other. asking in an attacking, belittling way for reassurance and connection), and being caught in negative interaction patterns, such as demand-withdraw. In marital distress these issues result in partners showing and seeing less and less of each other, sending conflicting messages (e.g. Problems arise then from lack of or denial of awareness, constriction in processing ongoing experience so that this experience cannot be understood and trusted, a lack of coherence where emotion cannot be integrated with action and cognition, or where elements of the self are in conflict. They simply cannot access them when flooded with anxiety and trapped in negative self-reinforcing interactional cycles. The humanistic therapist takes a stance that all clients are capable of growth and agency, if they are given support and validation.Ĭlinical experience and research results from Johnson and Greenberg ( 1985) suggest that distressed partners have the “skills” and resources necessary to communicate effectively and positively. Health in this model is the ability to be open to experience, flexible in responding to one’s environment and to feel empowered to choose and actively construct one’s daily life and relationships with others. The focus is on the whole person rather than the problem that brings the client to therapy. ![]() First, the goal of therapy is more substantial than the alleviation of symptoms or pragmatic problem solving. ![]()
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