Restructuring Interactions 1. This exercise is designed to help you learn to track and reflect interaction. Notice that the excerpt below contains both a recent event and an in-session moment. Below you will see that the therapist’s reflections of Nick’s interactions and experience are filled in. As the therapist, fill in the blanks reflecting Nora’s interactions and experience: This exercise is designed to help you learn to track and reflect interaction. Notice that the excerpt below contains both a recent event and an in-session moment. Below youwill see that the therapist’s reflections of Nick’s interactions and experience are filledin. As the therapist, fill in the blanks reflecting Nora’s interactions and experience:Nick: “Yeah, I’ll tell you how this goes between us. Last night was a good example.I came home. I walk in the door, and she doesn’t look up. She ignores me.” (To wife)“Yeah, and then you were pissed off because I wasn’t all cheerful.”Nora: (wife jumps in) “You don’t really get this at all. When you came home, I wasworking with your son trying to help him with his homework. You didn’t offer to help.You went straight to your office. I can’t ever count on you. I used to get up and give youa kiss but you seem to walk right past me, and I don’t see you for the rest of the night,so I quit. You are hardly a part of my life anymore. Why don’t you make the family apriority in your life?” (Nora gives Nick a stern look.)Nick: “Of course I went to my office, because you give me that attitude every day. Whowouldn’t leave and go be alone?” (Nick looks down and away.) “If I try to come in andhelp, you just get angry and we start fighting. It doesn’t matter what I do. I can’t get itright with you.”Therapist: “Wait a minute, let’s slow this down. Let me get what’s going on here. Thissounds important to me.”Reflect Nick’s simple actions:Therapist: “Nick, You’re saying you walk in, you walk past Nora, you go to your office.”1. Reflect Nora’s simple actions:Therapist: ___________________________________________________________________Reflect Nick’s perceptions of Nora’s actions:Therapist: “Nick, you see her as ignoring you, that she doesn’t care, that she is pissedoff, it seems to you that it doesn’t matter what you do, you can’t get it right.”2. Reflect Nora’s perceptions of Nick’s actions:Therapist: ___________________________________________________________________Reflect how Nick’s perceptions cue his actions:Therapist: “It seems to you that she is mad and that it doesn’t matter what you dobecause no matter what you do it is wrong, so you distance yourself.”3. Reflect how Nora’s perceptions cue her actions:Therapist: ___________________________________________________________________Reflect Nick’s secondary emotion evoked by the interaction:Therapist: “You perceive that she is not interested in you and so you put up your guardand get defensive.”4. Reflect Nora’s secondary emotion evoked by the interaction:Therapist: ___________________________________________________________________Reflect Nick’s primary underlying emotion:Therapist: “You experience her as not interested and you feel hurt, lonely, rejected.”5. Reflect Nora’s primary underlying emotion:Therapist: ___________________________________________________________________Summarize Nick’s experience in a reflectionTherapist: “So, Nick, tell me if I’m getting it right. Your experience is that when youcome home Nora doesn’t look up, she ignores you, and you get that she is pissed offand has an attitude. You feel it doesn’t matter what you do; it’s never right. So youwalk past her and leave and don’t feel there is any use in coming back. And you endup feeling alone and isolated. There is a kind of cycle that happens here where you feelshe doesn’t care and you walk by and don’t say anything to her. She reacts by gettingmad and critical and you then shut down. And, of course, the more you shut down, themore she experiences you as not there and the more upset and critical she gets. Yeah?Is that how you see it?”6. Summarize Nora’s experience in a reflectionTherapist: “And Nora… ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 2. The therapist helps to make the negative cycle of interaction more explicit and helps the couple to stand outside and view themselves by which of the following: Reframing Tracking and reflecting Restructuring interactions 3. The therapist finds it especially useful to track and reflect key moments with attachment significance. While almost any contact between partners has the potential to have attachment significance, which of the behaviors below are most likely to do so? (more than one correct answer): Greeting and parting Performing household chores together Fighting Moments of needing support or physical comfort Making a grocery list together 4. Fill in the blanks: The therapist reframes the problematic cycle as an enemy in the couple’s relationshipthat keeps them from being close. The reframe shifts the couple’s focus of the problemfrom their partner to their (Hint: a process element.). The therapist helps the couple view the negative behaviors of critical pursuit andstonewalling as serving a positive function by framing their struggle as a . Looking through the lens of attachment, the EFT therapist frames critical pursuingas: Looking through the lens of attachment, the EFT therapist frames withdrawal andstonewalling as: 5. Reflect how Tim’s behavior cues Gina’s responses: Sample answer: Therapist: “Gina, when you try to confront him, he shuts down, and you want to “chase” him. You try to get him to talk but he won’t, but you keep trying.” 1. Reflect how Gina’s behavior cues Tim’s responses:Therapist: “Tim…__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ .”Reflect your sense of Tim’s behavior in terms of his underlying emotional experienceand attachment needs. Sample answer: Therapist: “Tim, you’re saying, ‘We get in a confrontation, I start feelingguilt like it’s my fault and I can’t stand feeling I’ve upset her. So I leave. I keep thingsinside. She doesn’t know my insides. I leave and end up feeling isolated. So it feels likeI can’t win, like it’s hopeless and like I’ll never make it with her.’” Reflect your sense of Gina’s behavior in terms of her underlying emotional experienceand attachment needs.Therapist: “Gina, you’re saying…____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ .” Create a framing that includes reflections of Gina and Tim’s experience and framestheir negative cycle as an “enemy” in their relationship.Therapist: “What I’m hearing… ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ .” Create a framing of Gina and Tim’s experience that “seeds possibilities” of safeattachment.Therapist: “I think that it must be difficult to imagine… _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ .” Time's up