The Science of Love - Emotionally Focused Therapy
By: Rebecca Jorgensen, Ph.D, Current # of Ratings = 1 | Rating = 5/5

The Science of Love
Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy

by Rebecca Jorgensen, Ph.D.



I read recently a blog post where a psychologist was talking about signs it could be time for a couple to end their relationship. The signs were:

1. Emotional distress,
2. Erosion of trust with no repair attempts, and
3. One or both partners have changed significantly.

While at first glance this list seems reasonable what it fails to do is to take into account John Gottman’s research that tells us in distressed relationships both people are trying to make repair with the other as much or more as in non-distressed relationships but the repair attempts are not accepted, or maybe the repair attempts just aren’t recognized.

No Strings Attached Dating Here is a novel concept, "Let's get to know one another before we start making commitments to one another." The NSA Dating Site offers free accounts and free email to all of its members. Get your free account at: http://www.nsadatingsite.com/

As a field, couple’s therapy knows a lot more about love these days than we ever knew before.
There is a new science of love, and knowing about it will enable you to work with you couples. It will also help you in your own relationships! Really? Yes, a recent study (Levenson and Sandberg, 2010) reports attending an EFT externship will have a positive effect on your relationships. Pretty cool, to study to improve your professional expertise and get CE's and improve your own life all at the same time.

Why does this even matter? Because people who are in a stable, committed relationship have:
• better health,
• less disease,
• improved emotional stability,
• happier children who learn better and out-perform children of divorce across the board,
• feel better about themselves,
• are happier,
• earn more money
• and live longer!

As humans, we don’t attach, bond and create a family with the intention of breaking up. I’ve never met a couple yet who wanted their relationship to fail, and yes, sometimes divorce is the best of two bad choices. But there is a third option becoming reliably available for clinicians to help even the most distressed couples.

What is this Science of Love?
Emotionally Focused Couple therapy is a “manualized� couple treatment that has put together the puzzle of how to help couples create secure bonds and lasting happiness. Research reports 72% of couple distress is 'cured' in 12 weeks with continued improvement at 2 year follow up. 90% of couples showed significant reduction in distress. (If only we had a few more weeks with 10% of those tough couples!) Emotionally Focused Therapy provides a specific map to creating security in the couple relationship. It’s becoming the gold standard among therapy professionals in the treatment of couples.

Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) for couples has largely been developed by Dr. Susan Johnson. EFT is based on attachment theory and is a humanistic, experiential therapy that privileges emotion and maintains a systems perspective. In EFT, couple distress is viewed as insecurity in the couple's bond that creates an interactional sequence of negativity and becomes a self-maintaining pattern. EFT focuses on interrupting distress patterns and utilizes the attachment system to create nurturing relational events that redefine the relationship as safe and secure.

EFT has three stages of treatment.

Stage 1: Assessment and De-escalation
Stage 2: Changing Interactional Sequences and Creating Bonding Events
Stage 3: Consolidation and Integration
The progression of treatment begins with assessment of the couple's negative interactional sequence and creating an alliance. Through interventions that focus on putting the attachment meaning of the negative interactional sequence into view, the couple begins to experience their negative pattern differently and learns to fight together to interrupt it.

Once de-escalation is achieved, the focus shifts to deepening self- and other-awareness of primary emotions that drive negative interactional sequences. This culminates in partners reaching and responding to each other with compassion and understanding. These enactments create new bonding events and create a second order change. (For a more thorough explanation of the stages and steps of treatment, please refer to the Creating Connections treatment manual).
EFT is unique in its approach and has years of research demonstrating its effectiveness. EFT is used with a variety of clinical issues. It has been proven effective with parents of chronically ill children, in the treatment of depression, and with men who are considered emotionally inexpressive. It has both process and outcome research that support its validity and effectiveness (Clothier, Manion, Walker & Johnson, 2002). It is also used in family therapy and the treatment of trauma (Johnson, Maddeaux & Bloudin, 1998 and Johnson, 2002).

The ability to have securely attached relationships is a documented imperative, as science continues to explore the importance of:
• presence and resonance with other humans for well-being (Siegel, 2010),
• the effects of social rejection (Isenberger, 2005) and
• the soothing presence of another we are securely bonded with (Coan, 2006).

This information requires clinicians to be able to reliably and effectively treat the couple system.
As we do, a critical lasting connection becomes possible for even our most distressed couples.

About Rebecca Jorgensen, Ph.D.
"Becca" began clinical practice during her first undergraduate practicum course in 1989, where, initially working with children, she quickly realized that working with parents created more change, safety and help for these children.

Her interest has always been in relationships and families. Her interest in relationships and families grew, and her first postgraduate in-depth couple training was with John Gottman and his "Scientifically Based Marital Therapy," where she was introduced to the phenomenal work of Dr. Susan Johnson and her model of couple's therapy.

Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) revolutionized Becca's work with couples, dramatically reducing their divorce rate. She completed advanced training with Dr. Johnson, becoming certified as an EFT Therapist and Supervisor.

With years of experience as an EFT trainer, Becca is one of the handful of endorsed trainers in the U.S. on Dr. Johnson's team. She is devoted to strengthening families through helping couples develop safe and secure marital bonds and helping other therapists learn more effective couple's therapy.

In addition to training therapists in Emotionally Focused Therapy throughout North America, she also specializes in distance and online education. She has taught Psychology, Family Life Courses and Counselor Education for many years Having recently moved to San Diego from Rexburg, Idaho where she was clinical faculty at BYU-Idaho, she currently holds a Faculty position at Alliant University San Diego, and is Director of the Training and Research Institute for EFT at Alliant. She continues to maintain a clinical practice in conjunction with her passion for advancing education and training in Emotionally Focused Therapy.
Follow Rebecca Jorgensen, Ph.D.
You can follow Becca on Twitter at http://twitter.com/eftdoc
Becca is also teaching a 5 day seminar this June 20 - 25, 2010 in Lucca, Italy. Italy is for Lovers! Join Rebecca and fellow professionals in a certificated and accredited externship which teaches the fundamentals of EFT, how you can apply it in your life and therapy practice, AND begin full accreditation as an EFT specialist.
Visit http://www.squidoo.com/emotionallyfocusedtherapy.
Or Click Here to find out About Rebecca in Italy

Please Rate this Article

5 out of 54 out of 53 out of 52 out of 51 out of 5  # of Ratings = 1 | Rating = 5/5

BlinkBits	Blinklist	BlogMarks	Co.mments	Connotea	Delicious
Delirious	Digg it	Fark it	Furl This	Link A GoGo	Magnolia
Netvouz	Raw Sugar	Reddit	Scuttle	Seed This	Shadows
Simpy	Smarking	Spurl This	TailRank	Wists
Feed Me Links		Technorati Cosmos		YahooMyWeb

More Articles for Reprint