Certified EFT Couple Therapist
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Are you longing for love and understanding but you avoid going home or discussing sensitive topics?
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Is your relationship distressed or is there too much distance?
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Do you feel nagged or criticized?
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Are you discouraged because you don't feel understood or heard?
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Do your arguments always go the same route over and over?
Everyone wants a happy relationship. Even your health and your financial status is related to the happiness of your relationship. When distressed and discouraged, the patterns of the relationship and the interactions can get skewed, difficult and entrenched.
What distinguishes EFT (Emotionally Focused Therapy) most from other approachs is that EFT works not only with the “within,” i.e. with intrapsychic processes, but also focuses on the “between,” i.e. on interpersonal processes – and on how the “within” and “between” interact and mutually shape each other in those interactions.
Relationships take work. They can become especially difficult when people get stuck in negative expectations. EFT works with the core of the emotional bond between couples. It addresses the important and often scary questions we ask ourselves when the relationship is difficult: Do I matter to my partner? Do I feel safe enough in this relationship to be myself? Will he or she be there for me when I need them the most?
These questions are typically the root of what couples fight about: the security or emotional bond in their relationship. When we are in fear that the answer to one of the above questions may be no, it can cause us to feel alone and isolated, and as though we are fighting for survival. And we often do fight, or withdraw, without realizing it.
EFT helps partners learn not only to be more open and trusting with each other, but also to reach out for one another more effectively. It is a highly researched, effective, evidence-based form of treatment that focuses on the emotional bond between partners, presuming that most relationship problems arise from a disruption in this bond.
From the first session you begin to see that neither you nor your partner is ill-intentioned or pathologically impaired. Both of you are acting in ways that make sense, in that you are each in your own way trying to create a better relationship. You then come to understand that the ways that you interact with one another, though well-intentioned, is sadly tearing your relationship apart. Once you see the steps of this destructive dance and get in touch with the emotional music underneath that tells you that you can't be loved by him or her, I help you to feel and move to the deeper music of longing that reconnects you with your partner. You begin to dance together again, stopping the old hurtful pattern, moving in a new way that makes you feel safe, close, and in love again.
The focus of EFT is to change the nature of the emotional experience which you have with your partner. It is based on doing, rather than insight or education. This is what creates such rapid and lasting change and such a high success rate. New meaning comes out of the new emotional experiences that I help you have in session and that you repeat at home during the week.
EFT doesn't take sides. It works with the reactionary feelings and behaviors to understand, and therefore slow and make conscious, the unconscious patterns.
If you are interested and ready, give me a call. I love helping couples make sense of their relationship, no matter how off-kilter it has gotten. 916.501.0529
More information on Emotionally Focused Therapy: iceeft.com
