Last weekend, I attended a teaser-training about Emotionally-Focused Therapy, the latest “craze” in couples counseling. I’ve been curious about it for awhile, because it’s one of those buzz words that keeps popping up in therapist circles, and I finally had the opportunity to learn a little bit about it at a networking event through The Massachusetts Association of Marriage and Family Therapy. A woman named Suzanne Marcus spoke about the subject for half an hour and I finally learned a little bit about this wonderful modality!
Basically, EFT is about patterns and ways of interacting. Consider an argument between two people in a couple. One person says something, the other does not respond, the first person gets angry at the lack of response and escalates, the second person flees.
This dynamic is called pursuer/withdrawer, and is the most common dichotomy in troubled relationships. The pursuer (the first person) is seeking attention because he or she feels invisible, disconnected, and abandoned, and the message behind words and actions is, “I can’t count on you!” The withdrawer (second person) feels rejected, inadequate, numb, and overwhelmed, and his or her underlying sentiment is, “I can’t do anything right, and if I’m wrong you might leave me.” The pursuer pursues because s/he is seeking a reaction, validation, and connection, and the withdrawer withdraws for fear of doing or saying the wrong thing. This leads a couple to feel trapped and have spontaneous arguments.
The result of all of this is really negative circular feedback loops. In other words, someone says something, which causes the other person to respond, which causes the first person to react, and so on. So what happens is that person 1 is seeking validation, person 2 reacts from a fearful place, person 1 then tries to maintain contact, person 2 becomes even less certain of how to respond “correctly,” and it escalates from there. What both people have in common is that they are being driven by their emotions, and when they can hone in on and identify their emotions, they can become softer (if a pursuer) or more communicative (if a withdrawer).
This is just the very beginning of this theory and modality, which I learned from a half-hour lecture. I plan to pursue more information, eventually by taking workshops, but my next step is to read Hold Me Tight by Sue Johnson. If you’re interested in learning more about these patterns, I recommend the same for you.