Emotionally Focused Therapy--The Foundation of Hold Me Tight
Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) is the formulation of Dr. Sue Johnson’s approach to couples therapy, a model for working with intimate partners whose relationship is in distress. Shown effective in treating distressed couples, EFT is founded on a long history of research in human bonding and attachment.
Through her work with couples, Dr. Johnson had an insight that love with an intimate partner is neither a mystery nor a giddy ecstasy, doomed to end in boredom and distance. She realized that love is the deepest of bonds, a necessity for successful human life, providing a safe haven and refuge, a sustaining and nourishing ground from which the partners go out into the world with confidence and strength, bringing the love they hold together into their work. Most importantly, she saw that love can continue to grow and to deepen throughout the lifetime of the partners. Understanding the essential need humans have for love, she developed a model of therapy based on seven steps (which she calls “conversations”), trained thousands of therapists in this model, and conducted research to assess the model’s effectiveness and fine-tune which strategies work best.
She found this approach was both efficient and effective, leading couples to new understanding of each other and of their love. Wanting to inform more people about the new science of love and attachment, with the goal of helping more couples access the wisdom contained in the science of love and the model, she wrote Hold Me Tight, Seven Conversations for a Lifetime of Love. This book walks couples through the stages of EFT with straightforward exercises, helping them to see ways in which they interact which actually sabotage connection, showing the way to new patterns, guiding the healing of old hurts, and introducing and affirming new communication patterns which deepen love.
Knowing that many couples could use additional support in working through the processes in the book, Dr. Johnson designed the Hold Me Tight workshop and made this model available to professionals to offer in their communities. Through videos, lectures and group sharing, a Hold Me Tight Workshop guides groups of couples through these healing conversations, supporting and accelerating each couple’s process. Couples return to their private work with the book, or to their ongoing couples therapy, with increased understanding, motivation, hope and attachment to each other.
Through her work with couples, Dr. Johnson had an insight that love with an intimate partner is neither a mystery nor a giddy ecstasy, doomed to end in boredom and distance. She realized that love is the deepest of bonds, a necessity for successful human life, providing a safe haven and refuge, a sustaining and nourishing ground from which the partners go out into the world with confidence and strength, bringing the love they hold together into their work. Most importantly, she saw that love can continue to grow and to deepen throughout the lifetime of the partners. Understanding the essential need humans have for love, she developed a model of therapy based on seven steps (which she calls “conversations”), trained thousands of therapists in this model, and conducted research to assess the model’s effectiveness and fine-tune which strategies work best.
She found this approach was both efficient and effective, leading couples to new understanding of each other and of their love. Wanting to inform more people about the new science of love and attachment, with the goal of helping more couples access the wisdom contained in the science of love and the model, she wrote Hold Me Tight, Seven Conversations for a Lifetime of Love. This book walks couples through the stages of EFT with straightforward exercises, helping them to see ways in which they interact which actually sabotage connection, showing the way to new patterns, guiding the healing of old hurts, and introducing and affirming new communication patterns which deepen love.
Knowing that many couples could use additional support in working through the processes in the book, Dr. Johnson designed the Hold Me Tight workshop and made this model available to professionals to offer in their communities. Through videos, lectures and group sharing, a Hold Me Tight Workshop guides groups of couples through these healing conversations, supporting and accelerating each couple’s process. Couples return to their private work with the book, or to their ongoing couples therapy, with increased understanding, motivation, hope and attachment to each other.
EFT is effective!
Historically, couples therapy has generally been successful about 30% of the time, meaning that 30% of couples went on to reestablishing trust and intimacy and feeling that their relationship continued to grow.
A substantial body of research outlining the effectiveness of EFT now exists. Research studies find that 70-75% of couples move from distress to recovery and approximately 90% show significant improvements.
A substantial body of research outlining the effectiveness of EFT now exists. Research studies find that 70-75% of couples move from distress to recovery and approximately 90% show significant improvements.
EFT is practical!
The exercises in Hold Me Tight and work in EFT concentrate on the couple relationship as it is operating in the present. Rather than focusing on the content of an argument (who took the trash out and when), or each person’s history (how Mom and Dad used to manage responsibility for taking the trash out), attention rests on how the conversation about this necessary job happens in present time. The couple learns to see how each person’s way of speaking and behaving may trigger the other into isolation, anger, depression or despair. These triggers have kept a pattern of fear and anger going, as one person feels let down and gets madder, while the other feels like a failure and shuts down, for example. Once the patterns are clear, the partners can come to understand the deeper emotions that underlie disagreements about supposedly simple daily events, emotions that come from their need and love for each other. They are then free to establish new ways of relating that support each person and the love they share, bring deepening trust and security, letting each know that the vulnerability of need is answered on a firm foundation of connection.
EFT is efficient!
Couples frequently play out the injuries to loving secure attachment which occurred in each partner's early life. These injuries are the basis for the negative and hurtful conversations which couples get into, and which seem to persist, worsen, and cycle endlessly. Through her work, Dr. Johnson found that by changing the conversation patterns, and their understanding of their need for each other, the couple can help to heal early attachment injuries. Love and intimacy are powerful healers. This approach allows each partner in the couple to see the other more clearly as the person they chose at the beginning of love.
Because the focus is kept on present-day interactions, change can occur efficiently and in connection.
Because the focus is kept on present-day interactions, change can occur efficiently and in connection.
EFT is revolutionary!
EFT stands firmly on the truth that we need each other. Contrary to cultural norms that say each person should stand independently, humans have a deep drive to seek loving intimacy with another, to need that person and to have our individual life nourished and enriched by love. Concerns about co-dependency, a useful term in treating addictions, are unfounded and in fact injurious to our legitimate needs for connection and support from other people. In our current society, few people live in villages where they know and are connected with many people. For many of us, the partner bond is the major support we have. EFT, and its Hold Me Tight format, is the current best hope for couples who want to rejuvenate and grow their relationships.
