Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) and Emotionally Focused Family Therapy (EFFT): A Challenge/Opportunity for Systemic and Post-Systemic Therapists

Abstract

Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) and Emotionally Focused Family Therapy (EFFT) may present some challenges for systemic and post-systemic therapists. EFT’s focus on the use of emotion in the room is off the map of many solution focused or narrative therapists. Also, its emphasis on attachment theory as the key to change can be a hurdle, especially for therapists unfamiliar with attachment theory. Another challenge for some systemic and post-systemic therapists is that EFT therapists are committed to an attachment lens to understand the behavioral cycles of couples and families. EFT therapists will work to keep an attachment perspective and focus in-session. This places them in a different therapeutic stance than the narrative or solution focused therapist’s constructionist position. Some may say, for example, that when therapists believe that there is a central reason for the behavior they see, such as deep attachment needs which are not being met, they are operating more from a “modernistic” stance than a “postmodern” constructionist stance. The EFT therapist’s role is not to lead the family or couple toward all possible paths that the family might choose, but initially toward one focused path. Some therapists may be uncomfortable with this as it may appear reminiscent of the “expert” therapist stance of earlier mental health models. They may feel the tone of the sessions is too directive for their tastes, especially when the EFT therapist specifically directs a client to say or do things in order to increase attachment security and change the patterns of disengagement they see in the room. In fairness to EFT, EFT therapists would likely respond that they are collaborative in their work, and that attachment theory and constructionist theory are indeed both, in fact, theories. Therapists are using each as a lens by which to guide their work