Expanding And Heightening Emotion - EFT Couple Therapy Switzerland

Place yourself in the role of the therapist in the above session, given that this is a synopsis of key statements and the process is seldom as clear, focused, and concise. It usually evolves with interruptions, stories, content issues, etc. How would you respond to some of these statements to keep the process moving forward? You can compare your response with the example in the answer section.

Both client’s emotions and their interactions are always addressed in every EFT session, but in the beginning of Stage 2, the therapist first particularly emphasizes and helps to deepen engagement with which partner’s underlying emotions?

Why is the manner (RISSSC) in which the therapist conducts interventions particularly important in Step 5?

The client is risking more by engaging with difficult/unclear emotion—needs focus and safety.

The therapist is encouraging deeper experiential engagement so needs slow pace, soft voice, repetition, etc.

Research shows that focused low voice encourages emotional processing.

Research says that imagery elicits physiological responses when abstract words do not.

What are the emotions that usually emerge and deepen in Step 5?

Attachment vulnerabilities, hurts, and fears

Grief/sadness and shame also can emerge.

In trauma survivor’s relationships, shame—a sense of contamination or unlovableness—nearly always emerges.

Core primary emotions that involve existential issues such as aloneness and helplessness.

Emotions concerning connection with the other—such as fears of loss and abandonment.

Fears and shame about the nature of self. “I am lovable and acceptable”/ “I am inadequate/a failure.”

Step 5 can be described as: (check the two correct answers)

The most intensely intrapsychic step in the EFT process

A recap and intellectual synopsis of Step 3.

A time of discovery about one’s own often unformulated attachment vulnerabilities.

An invitation into insight.

These responses are also appropriate. Can you name them?

“What do you want to do when your wife gets ‘difficult,’ as you see it? What do you
want to do when you feel uncertain as you seem to do right now?” (focus on action
tendency) “Some part of you feels ‘fond’ and ‘civil,’ but some part of you says what?
Better to stay away, keep your distance?”
“Could you help me? The word ‘freedom’ seems a little abstract. What would that
feel like? Free from what?”
“The word ‘detached’ hits me. You seem to have become less and less detached over
our sessions. You came in speaking of leaving the relationship. What does detached
sound like? Is it like ‘I have given up. Maybe it’s safer to shut down and not want
anything.’ Or is it like ‘She is too much for me. I can’t make it with her, I am too hurt
and afraid’? Not sure.” (focus on reappraisal, meaning).
“It is so hard for you, Louis, to feel sure of yourself, not to begin to be worried about
meeting her demands when, even if things have improved, there are moments when
your partner seems ‘difficult.’” (could also ask him to tell her this).
“Could you help me, Louis? I am remembering you talking briefly about a sense of
failure in our last sessions. Is the ‘uncertainty’ about that? Is it like ‘I will never make
it with her, never pass her tests. It’s hopeless, might as well give up.’ Is it like that?”

A very intellectual and withdrawn partner, Louis, who had asked for a divorce but has touched and named a sense of helplessness and failure in Step 3 and has, in Step 4, agreed that now he and his wife are friends. He adds that they are not close, and now begins in a calm distant manner:

“We have been together for so long. But things have eroded over the years. I am fond of
her. I am perhaps uncertain of my commitment, so I cannot really talk about the future
with any clarity. We have civil conversations now, but then there are moments when she
seems difficult, so I am unsure as to my way here.” (He rubs his hand furiously against
his leg for a moment.) “I have spoken before about always having to meet her demands
and being tested. I feel quite detached. I’d feel more freedom perhaps if I did leave.”
Check the responses an EFT therapist might make to help this man begin the process of becoming more engaged with his emotional experience and distill the key parts of it. Check
the responses that help to make his experience more concrete, specific, immediate, and
tangible. If you wish you can also name the interventions that you check as appropriate

“You are friends; you are civil. But you are still feeling quite ‘detached’ and ‘uncertain.’ How are you feeling as you say this, Louis? You seem a long way away.”

“Yes, I remember you speaking of demands and feeling tested, with some pain, if I am remembering properly. How do you feel now as you talk about these things?”

“Could you help me understand ‘difficult?’ What does that look like? When did you see your partner that way this week? If I understand, these difficult moments bring up uncertainties in you, yes?”

“On a scale of 1 to 10, can you tell me how difficult you experience your spouse being this week?”

“Perhaps we can problem solve and see how you can feel more free with your wife.”

“I notice as you speak in this detached way, Louis, especially as you speak of being ‘unsure,’ you rub your hand very hard against your leg. I was caught by that. The rubbing seemed very agitated, not so detached?”

“What happens in your body as you speak of being uncertain, unsure, tested?”

“Looking at the patterns in your family of origin, does this impact how you see this, do you think?”