Empiricism and Art
by Susan M. Johnson and Lorrie L. Brubacher
Emotionally focused couple therapy (EFT) (Johnson, 2004) is a brief, integrative approach that focuses on helping partners in close relationships create secure attachment bonds. In practice, EFT integrates an experiential humanistic perspective that values emotion as an agent of change combined with a systems view of reciprocally reinforcing patterns of interaction, all grounded in an attachment orientation to intimate adult relationships. The EFT therapist is a process consultant, helping partners expand constricted and constricting inner emotional realities and interactional responses, thereby shifting rigid interactions into responses that foster resiliency and secure connection (Lebow, Chambers, Christensen, & Johnson, 2012).
From: Handbook of family therapy, Sexton, T., Weeks, G., & Robbins, M. (Eds.), Brunner-Routledge, 2003