Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT)

Emotionally Focused Therapy helps individuals, couples and families overcome mental and emotional roadblocks, find relief from distressing emotions and build healthy relationships and communication patterns.

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CALL US (832) 559-2622

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Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT)
in Houston, TX and Online

What Does Emotionally Focused Therapy Treat?

Today, Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) is used to treat most conditions that result in unpleasant emotions and disruptive behaviors.

There is a strong basis of research to support its effectiveness in individuals. And Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy is considered by many therapists to be the gold standard for marriage counseling.

EFT can help with:

Depression
Anxiety and indecision
Interpersonal conflict
Marital conflict and recurrent arguments among couples
Post-traumatic distress
Stress disorders

In addition, research supports the “depth of emotional processing” that occurs when working with an emotionally focused therapist correlates strongly with a lasting therapeutic outcome.

You Can Thrive With
Emotion Focused Therapy (EFT)

Give us a call at 832-559-2622 to find out more about Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) in Houston. You can also schedule an appointment online with our counselors today. We have therapists near the Montrose, Heights & Sugar Land neighborhoods.

Book an Appointment

CALL US (832) 559-2622

What Is Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT)?

EFT is an approach to couples therapy and individual therapy designed to help individuals and couples identify the core emotion at the root of distress or conflict.

Les Greenberg and Sue Johnson developed Emotionally Focused Therapy, working with both couples and individuals.

Sue Johnson expanded the model to Emotionally Focused Couples Counseling.

Emotion focused therapy for couples helps partners create a secure attachment bond with one another. Secure bonding can shift a negative pattern of communication and reaction into one of secure attachment and emotion regulation.

Greenberg expanded EFT for individuals into a highly effective model for counseling with a variety of concerns. EFIT helps to resolve the root cause of mental, emotional and interpersonal struggles.

Emotionally focused family therapy expanded EFT to repair family bonds. EFT for families focuses on changing interactional patterns to increase connection.

How Does EFT Work?

Our Reptilian Brain

When humans feel threatened or experience strong emotions, we often revert to the reptilian response in our brain. This results in us becoming distressed and reactive.

This reaction often leads to conflict with others, as well as the feeling of being unsettled and out of control.

In EFT, all emotions contain valuable information.

While some therapeutic approaches attempt to suppress certain unpleasant sensations, EFT seeks to resolve unpleasant emotions by understanding and working with them. Regulating the emotional experience begins soothing the threatened brain. This breaks the negative cycle of reactivity and disconnection.

So, the process of change in EFT comes from transforming maladaptive emotions and negative interactions into adaptive emotions and expression of attachment needs.

Once emotions are processed effectively, we can move into more logical, less reactive modes of thinking and being.

What Should I Expect in an EFT Session?

Therapy using EFT begins with a typical intake during which the individual or couple will discuss presenting symptoms, conflicts, and history.

The EFT therapist will then use sessions to facilitate the feeling of emotions—including the unpleasant ones—directing clients to verbalize the physical and emotional reactions they experience.

Using this approach, clients will be encouraged to identify their patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving. And as strong emotional reactions and intense feelings are processed, clients gain clarity about the patterns that create distress and conflict.

Unpleasant emotions stemming from trauma experiences may be challenging to work with at the outset of therapy. For these situations our clinicians may use Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) before introducing EFT into sessions. EMDR gently targets trauma responses stored in the brain to help our clients feel calmer and in control of their reactions.

Clients Can Expect To Feel Better

With this combination of benefits from EFT, clients ultimately reduce reactivity and are able to regulate their emotions and behaviors. For this reason, Emotionally Focused Therapy is especially beneficial to couples because it promotes a feeling of safety among partners as they learn how to navigate conflict together.

Not only does EFT teach clients to regulate their emotions, but it also teaches them to use the information provided by emotional responses to ultimately transform emotions and behaviors and make appropriate decisions.

Using EFT, both our couples, families and individual clients become less impulsive and fear-driven. This allows them to make better choices and foster more harmony in their lives and relationships.

Instead of feeling overwhelmed or driven by emotions, clients can expect to feel calm, aware, and break from perpetual struggles and patterns using emotionally focused therapy.

top therapist in houston and sugar land texas

Emotion Focused Therapy (EFT) FAQ's

Emotionally Focused Therapy At Eddins Counseling

We began incorporating EFT into our practice at Eddins Counseling after observing our clients get stuck inside of emotional patterns that were hijacking their brains, creating discomfort, distress, and interpersonal conflict in their daily lives.

We’re lucky to have therapists on our team who were trained by some of the original developers of Emotionally Focused Therapy. And though many therapists use EFT primarily for couples counseling, our clinicians can tailor therapy for individuals experiencing symptoms of depression, anxiety, PTSD, and other common disorders if appropriate.

Do EFT Therapists Use Other Types of Therapies?

How An Emotionally Focused Approach Informs Other Therapeutic Methods

EFT can be beneficial alongside other therapeutic approaches used for both individuals and couples.

Emotionally Focused Therapy adds to cognitive therapies and behavioral methods—such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). CBT can help clients see the useful and constructive aspects of certain emotions.
EFT informs a psychoanalytical approach because it focuses on the here and now of the emotion as opposed to the why underneath it.
EFT emphasizes the self and importance of past relationships. Thus enhancing interpersonal psychoanalytic approaches.
And finally, EFT is specifically engineered to work alongside attachment-focused therapy. Understanding the influence of early relationships on clients’ connection to themselves and others makes the core emotion more easily identified.

You Have The Power To Understand And Manage Your Emotions

If you struggle with indecision, getting hooked by strong negative reactions, or feeling stuck in painful thoughts and cycles of conflict with your partner, Emotionally Focused Therapy at Eddins Counseling can offer you a transformational experience.

To learn more about how we can help or to schedule an appointment with one of our EFT therapists, please contact us below.

Book an Appointment

CALL US (832) 559-2622