Emotionally Focused Therapy
Do you feel like you’re always chasing after your partner, trying to get them to open up or show they care?
Or, do you feel like you’re constantly being criticized, so you push back to avoid conflict?
This is where Emotionally Focused Therapy can come in.
What is Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT)?
EFT is an effective, highly researched, and empirically validated therapy model that helps couples experiencing distress to reconnect with one another. It’s built on one simple but powerful idea: as humans, we’re wired for connection.
EFT sees a relationship as an attachment bond, similar to how a child depends on a caregiver for nurture and protection. It recognizes adults’ basic emotional needs for safety and closeness in intimate relationships. Perceived threats to the security and emotional bond in the relationship may result in distress and feelings of isolation and loneliness for many couples. One partner might push harder for connection, while the other protects themselves by shutting down to avoid conflicts. Over time, these patterns can become so entrenched that leave both partners feeling exhausted and isolated.
Created by Dr. Sue Johnson and Dr. Les Greenberg, EFT is a model of couple therapy with over 30 years of research indicating that 70-75% of couples who participated move from distress to recovery and approximately 90% show significant improvement. Couples report satisfaction, trust, and increased intimacy as a result of feeling more secure with their partner.
How does EFT work?
EFT is experiential; it focuses on how people experience their partners and their relationships and how they express those emotions. EFT is also systemic; it helps couples identify and break negative cycles by focusing on the underlying emotions, fears, and longings.
EFT is not about the content of the conflicts, or about teaching people communication and negotiation skills; instead, the goal of EFT is to help couples create more positive interactional patterns and a more secure emotional bond.
Typical EFT treatment involves 12 - 20 weekly 75 minute session.
How can EFT help you and your partner?
Identify and break the negative communication patterns
Express the underlying emotions to your partner in a vulnerable way
Learn to respond to your partner’s desire to feel loved, valued and secure
Repair wounds and disconnections
Reconnect and create a deeper, more secure bond where both of you feel seen and heard
Is EFT Right for You?
EFT can help couples at any stage of their relationship who are experiencing the following challenges:
Emotional disconnection
Communication struggles
Ongoing conflicts
Lack of physical intimacy
Life transitions: getting married, starting a family, relocation, loss of a loved one, career change
Broken trust from a betrayal or infidelity
Whether your relationship is in crisis or you simply want to strengthen the foundation of your relationship, EFT can support your desire to feel closeness and security with your partner. At Relationship Counselling Toronto, our team of experienced couples therapists have completed advanced training in EFT. Reach out and book a free consultation to see how we can support your relationship.
See Dr. Sue Johnson's groundbreaking book Hold Me Tight: Seven Conversations for a Lifetime of Love for a more in-depth understanding of how EFT with a trained therapist can help you. For more information about Dr. Sue Johnson, visit www.drsuejohnson.com.
For more information about EFT, please visit International Centre for Excellence in Emotionally Focused Therapy.
Emotionally Focused Therapy is based on decades of research into relationships, emotions, and attachment. It’s built on one simple but powerful idea: as humans, we’re wired for connection, meaning we all need safe, supportive relationships.
When we feel loved, supported, and securely connected to our partner, we thrive and can face challenges together. But when our deeper needs such as the need to feel loved and valued go unmet or threatened, it can trigger feelings of hurt, anger, or even fear of abandonment.
One partner might push harder for connection, while the other protects themselves by shutting down and creating distance. Over time, these patterns can become so entrenched that leave both partners feeling exhausted and hopeless.
