Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy Online: Handholding from a Distance

Abstract

Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), has reshaped the field of psychotherapy to be focused on the healing power of emotional connection. Initially designed as a model of couple therapy, EFT is now broadly used across three modalities of individual (EFIT), family (EFFT), and couple therapy (EFCT) (Johnson, 2019). Emotional connection is the primary mechanism of change in EFT. Creating and maintaining empathic responsiveness and emotional connection between therapist and clients, to shape emotional connections within clients’ relationships, are tasks that are fostered in EFT whether in-person or online. We discuss how the emotional proximity created while doing Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy online is akin to handholding from a distance, illustrating how EFT, by its very nature, is adaptive to online therapy. We focus on the modality of Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy (EFCT) and briefly comment on the modality of Emotionally Focused Individual Therapy (EFIT) (Brubacher, 2017b; Johnson, 2009; 2019; Johnson & Campbell, 2022) which is similarly amendable to an online format.We argue that there are little different or additional adaptations that an EFT therapist needs to do when working online that they would not already be doing in-person. The attachment-orientation of the model and the experiential and systemic interventions aptly meet the challenges of online therapy. The three core ingredients shown to be associated with success in EFT therapy – therapeutic alliance, deepening of emotional experiencing, and shaping affiliative encounters between partners can all be created online when the therapist is solidly grounded in the model, consciously and deliberately aware of their presence in the therapeutic collaboration, and empathically attuned to the clients. We address how EFT responds to therapist questions and anxieties about doing EFT online and offer practical considerations and tips for doing EFT online. We distinguish the individual modality of emotionally focused individual therapy (EFIT) from other emotion-focused approaches.