Understanding Emotionally Focused Therapy

Healing Connection Through Emotional Security

What is Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT)

Emotionally Focused Therapy, or EFT, helps improve relationships by restoring the security of our connections.

By healing emotional ties, the relationship can be restored to a sense of safety, mutual support, and satisfaction

In Emotionally Focused Therapy, a therapist guides you beneath any feelings of frustration, anger, or isolation to the desire for closeness that ultimately lies beneath. EFT is beneficial for couples and individuals who have experienced disconnection or loss of trust due to the challenges of vulnerable self-expression.

How Emotionally Focused Therapy Works

EFT centers on emotional experiences and reactions. It focuses on understanding relationships through the lens of attachment theory (learn more about our attachment-based therapy services here), and recognizes the importance of our connections and relationships for our emotional comfort and self-growth. These relationships may be with partners, family members, friends — or even with aspects of our internal identities, known as parts work. 

In EFT sessions, a therapist will help you:

  • Become aware of your emotions

  • Begin to gain acceptance for the full range of your emotional experiences

  • Allow your emotions to flow without self-judgment, denial, avoidance, or restriction

  • Practice regulating and working through emotions, so they aren’t overwhelming — and they aren’t subconsciously “running the show”

  • Give words and voice to your experiences

  • Understand the root causes of emotions

Why Emotionally Focused Therapy is Effective

Humans are evolved to be social creatures. Our need for others is deeply interwoven with our sense of safety — and if those relationships don’t feel safe, we don’t feel safe either.

EFT helps us explore the deeper nature of our connections — both external and internal — and the emotions that arise from those connections. It gives us the tools to resolve conflict in our relationships and create opportunities for richer, more meaningful ways of being and relating.

Emotionally Focused Therapy works on the principle that our emotions are not superfluous to our wellbeing — they are vital clues to the quality of our experiences, and important invitations to deepen our connections. EFT allows us to see the need beneath the emotion, and give and receive support from a place of more complete, compassionate understanding. While it’s rooted in attachment theory, it works with the realities of our relationships, and the feelings and experiences they create.

What Emotionally Focused Therapy Helps Address

Emotionally focused therapy was originally created for couples, but it is widely helpful for families and even individuals.

It can help address:

  • Depression & Anxiety

  • Disordered eating

  • Trauma

  • Impulse control

  • Communications issues in any relationships

  • Emotional suppression or overreaction / “overcoupling”

  • Interpersonal problems in families

  • Couples conflict and communication challenges

  • Issues with commitment and attachment

The potential benefits of emotionally focused therapy can include

  • Improved emotional awareness, emotional management, and overall wellbeing

  • Coping skills for unhelpful emotions

  • Improved symptoms for depression, anxiety, disordered eating, and other mental health conditions

  • Improved impulse control

  • Deepened capacity for bonding in relationships

  • Greater empathy and compassion

  • Expanding your capacity for meaningful and difficult conversations

Do you feel like Emotionally Focused Therapy might be right for you?

Cultivate thriving relationships with our emotionally focused therapy (EFT) for individuals and couples of all backgrounds in Bozeman and across Montana. To learn more about EFT or get matched with a therapist, reach out.