Healing From Hurt: Emotionally Focused Therapy for Couples
Are you and your partner seeking healing from relational hurt? It is easy to get lost in a sea of suggestions when searching for the best therapeutic option. However, there is an approach with a wide history of success in reconnecting couples called Emotionally Focused Therapy. Instead of focusing on surface level issues, EFT helps to identify the deeper underlying needs you have that lie beneath day-to-day conflicts, anger, or anxieties in your relationship. So, if you and your partner are looking for surface level solutions, EFT is not for you. However, couples who are willing to lean into some vulnerability and discomfort will likely see success with this approach.
Who Is EFT for?
Emotionally Focused Therapy, or EFT, is for couples in which both partners are committed to improving their relationship, increasing safety, and/or healing from trust breaches. It is not for couples who are ready to separate, engaging in ongoing deceit, or experiencing intentional harm or abuse.
Do I Have to be an Emotional Person to Benefit From EFT?
EFT is proven to work regardless of how comfortable one is with expressing or engaging with emotion, as long as there is a willingness to humbly engage in the process. In fact, EFT can be an incredibly helpful resource for people to better understand how to access their emotions and to bond with others
How Does It Work?
The foundation of emotionally focused therapy is based on the theory of attachment, which emphasizes the fundamental role that safely connecting with close others plays in both our development and relational wellness. In other words, we each have a survival need to feel safe, loved, and connected. These feelings of security are disrupted when we perceive that others are not unconditionally there for us, sending us into harmful protective strategies such as vicious blaming, criticizing, defending, and hiding away. The more we become entrenched in a cycle of blame, defense, and withdrawal in our relationships, the less hopeful we become that we will get our needs met.
Perhaps even more significant, when we experience a particularly painful moment where we feel betrayed or abandoned by our partner in a moment of need, we can suffer from painful attachment injuries that make it difficult to trust again. Wounds from betrayal can disrupt our attachment needs so deeply that it can take months or even years to restore the safety needed to risk trusting again. Resentment can fester from disappointed expectations of not getting our needs met by a partner over a long period of time.
How Can EFT Help?
An EFT therapist can help you and your partner to better understand how your negative cycles of criticizing and withdrawing act as shields to deeper and more vulnerable emotions and unmet needs. Cluing into our true longings and fears empowers us to step out of a frustrating cycle and into ownership, safety, and support. If you have been betrayed, you can learn to express the deep devastation and fear you experience in a way that invites your partner further into your world and allows them access to the knowledge of how to support and empathize. If you have betrayed your partner, you can receive help in regulating shame and knowing how to truly show up for your partner in a safe, reparative way. While emotional safety is essential before engaging in this deeper work, every person can deepen their ability to heal and restore safety to a relationship with the required work and commitment.
If you and your partner think EFT might be the right fit for you, reach out to a trained therapist for a consultation today and start your journey towards a safer and deeper intimacy in your relationship.
Do you find these tips on emotional healing for couples helpful? Are you curious about how else we might be able to help? While each person’s relationship is unique, there is always hope for repair. To find out if treatment at The Haven is right for you, contact us for a free phone consultation. Our team of counselors are licensed, experienced, and specifically trained in healing relationships and as well as treating betrayal, trauma, and addiction.
About The Author
Kelsi Wilson is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, Certified Partner Trauma Therapist, and couples therapist trained in Gottman Method, Level 1. Kelsi recognizes the emotional hurt that comes from unmet attachment needs, and works with couples to realize their needs and show emotional responsiveness to each other.
