Attachment Theory and Emotionally Focused Therapy for Individuals and Couples
by Susan M. Johnson
Experiential therapies, such as emotionally focused therapy (EFT; Greenberg, Rice, & Elliott, 1993; Johnson, 2004), share with John Bowlby’s (1969/1982, 1988) attachment theory a focus on the way we deal with basic emotions, engage with others on the basis of these emotions, and continually construct a sense of self from the drama of repeated emotionally laden interactions with attachment figures. The relevance of attachment theory to understanding change in adult psychotherapy, whether individual or couple therapy, has become clearer because of the enormous amount of research applying attachment theory to adults in the last two decades (Cassidy & Shaver, 2008). Attachment theory is now used explicitly to inform interventions in individual therapy (Fosha, 2000; Holmes, 1996), and it forms the basis of one of the best-validated and most effective couple interventions— EFT for couples (Johnson, 2004; Johnson, Hunsley, Greenberg, & Schindler, 1999). This chapter considers how the attachment perspective helps the humanistic experiential therapist address individual problems such as anxiety and depression, as well as the relationship distress that accompanies and maintains these problems. The current humanistic experiential model of individual psychotherapy is perhaps best represented by the systematic and evidence-based interventions of the EFT school (Greenberg et al., 1993). This approach has received considerable empirical validation both for anxiety/trauma-related problems and for depression in individuals (Elliott, Greenberg, & Lietaer, 2004).
From: Attachment Theory and Research in Clinical Work with Adults, Edited by Joseph H. Obegi and Ety Berant, 2009, Guilford Press