The Benefits of Emotion Focused Couple Therapy
There are several different theories and modalities in couple's and marriage therapy. For instance, Cognitive-Behavioral Couple's Therapy focuses on the thoughts and beliefs of each partner (their expectations of the relationship, and their interpretation of their partner's behaviors) and how those thoughts manifest into behaviors in the relationship. The goal is to reduce conflict and build better ways of communicating. There is also Solution Focused Therapy, which focuses entirely on small steps that can be taken to move the relationship from highly conflicted to the relationship that each partner desires. There are many different types of therapy, which is beneficial because of the range of different personalities and couples that can benefit from theories that match their personality. A form of therapy that has been found to be extremely helpful to couples is Emotion Focused Couple's Therapy.
Emotion Focused Couple's Therapy
Over the past fifteen years Emotion Focused Couple's Therapy has gained strong research and backing in the counseling community, and it is this method that we primarily utilize at Resolve Counseling in Prairie Village, KS. The goal of this method is to not only reduce the conflict in the relationship, but to increase the connection between partners. The theory was originally developed off of Attachment Theory, which was designed to study the attachment of children to their parents. What was found is that attachment is an important part of our lives throughout adulthood as well, and that there are different styles of attachment that can help or hinder relationships.
The Process
Emotion Focused Couple's Therapy is a process where the therapist identifies the pattern of the couple's conflict, de-escalates the conflict, identifies the true emotions (which can be masked by other emotions or behaviors), re-frames the problem in term of those true emotions and needs which can now be more effectively communicated, and restructures the couple's bond with these more honest interactions. Through this process, you move out of old patterns of conflict and into new, more effective ways of emotionally connecting to your partner. This is a short term process, typically lasting 12 to 20 sessions, and has been found to not only be effective in the short term, but also shows less likelihood of relapse into old patterns and conflict.
The Benefit
The reason this form of counseling is effective for couple's is that it not only addresses the thinking and behavior of the couple, but how to interact during the highly emotional times. It is easy to talk about how to improve the relationship during calm times, but once a fight starts our emotions take over and we rarely are thinking clearly enough to follow through with those statements. Emotion Focused Therapy is an experiential form of counseling, meaning the goal is to bring up the emotions and experience them in the counseling office, and then work through new ways of interacting in those emotions with the help of the counselor. This helps both practice new ways of being in conflict, but also solidifies those changes because they happened in the emotional states rather than calm ones.