Module 01: Relationship

Counseling: Emotional
Focussed Therapy

In this module you will learn

The required counseling skills
The importance of encouraging your clients’ commitment
to the process
An understanding of the cycle of conflict and how to
break it

Relationship Counseling: Emotional

Focussed Therapy – 04m 34s

1.1 Counseling Skills

To be a good counselor in any area, it is
important that you are able to make your
clients feel relaxed and safe in the therapy
environment.

Trust is an important part of the success of the session. To

work within relationship counseling and in particular,
emotionally focused therapy, you must be an observer of
emotion. Therefore, you have to understand the difference
between reactive, secondary emotion and vulnerable, primary
emotion. Not only should the clients feel the emotion but you,
as the counselor must do so too.
Progress can be surprisingly rapid. Even in the first session,
emotions may arise that will have not been discussed
previously and this may be a shock to your clients. Emotional
revelations are however good. There may be apparent and
obvious issues when dealing with connection and disconnection
and when this line of enquiry is followed, often there are
underlying emotions which were previously hidden and will now
come to light.

Once this happens, clients are able to increase communication

regarding any issues.

Your role is to help slow down the conversation and to access

the information that is being revealed from an emotional
perspective.
You may find that your clients are surprised to not only
discover that these emotions have been buried within but also
the impact that it has had as regards their partners.
Certainly within the first few sessions, you should have been
able to reveal some of the more vulnerable emotions and these
should have been not just communicated with the clients but
felt by all.

Your aim is to help your clients:

Undercover hidden emotions

Make sense of their emotions
Consider the message relative to the emotion
To act on the message
To gain clarity of wants and needs
To share emotions and needs with the partner
To work together to overcome the cycle of disconnecting
To work together to create a cycle of connection
To listen to and understand the emotional needs of the
partner

You must be prepared to not just encourage your clients but to

push them when required. One of your clients may not be
listening fully, or supporting or simply not understanding and
so you must support the process, leading them both to the same
active participation. It will help them to discover and share
their findings with each other and you must observe and take
an intuitive stance, knowing instinctively when to help them
share directly with each other. This will keep progress on
track, focusing on any critical elements that come to light
and helping them to truly hear each other. Their responses
must be both practical and emotional.

Progress can only take place if you’ve created a safe

environment and if both clients are committed to the process.
Change begins to happen during the sessions once both clients
know the primary, vulnerable emotions that lie beneath the
surface and ultimately controls their relationship. As these
emotions come to light they give new meaning and also
encourage action. Another aspect of change occurs as the
clients start talking to each other. It sounds simple,
communication is everything but this is one area that suffers
when there are problems and it’s also natural for your clients
to instinctively withdraw emotions but emotionally focussed
therapy aids transformation of this emotional change.

1.2 Emotions and EFT

Emotion plays a significant part in the
success of any relationship and once you
have discovered the influence of these
emotions, you can help your clients to
communicate and to improve their connection.

When using Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), you will note

straight away that it is different from other relationship-
style counseling. This is because as previously stated, the
client is actually ‘the relationship’ itself and this way,
blame is not involved, you simply understand that whatever’s
happened, both will have had a good reason for acting in a
certain way. This is true even if it has not been the best way
toward developing a loving relationship.

It is up to you to help your clients discover the reasons for

their actions. As you do so, rooting about for the core
reasons behind any destructive behaviors, you will start to
see emotions emerging. While you may think that the primary
emotions will be that of anger, jealousy or even frustration,
it is just as likely that the more vulnerable emotions arise –
those of fear, hurt and deep sadness.

These are the types of emotions that couples (especially when

they are having problems) will show each other. It is easy for
one of the partners to have felt terribly hurt either through
inaction (perhaps the partner forgot something important or
failed to meet a promised action). Often the core hurt is then
replaced with anger. When this type of scenario is bought to
the surface, the partner who has experienced feelings of hurt
– expresses emotional pain as well as anger.

This individual then has choices to make:

Admitting the mistake and apologizing

Downplaying the importance of the mistake
Is aggressive in defence
Remains silent

These types of scenarios can happen more and more and often
the partners become caught up in a never-ending cycle of
blame, emotional hurt and, deep disappointment. Both will play
a role but will be unable to change the script. More damage is
ultimately done to the relationship at this point.

Even though both couples may be worried about the impact on

their relationship, it is likely that they will seem helpless
to prevent it. Fortunately, emotionally focused therapy will
target this destructive cycle by helping them go beneath the
surface, beyond the anger and frustration which is most
visible and to venture into those more vulnerable areas –
namely hurt and fear.

1.3 The Cycle of Conflict

It’s important that couples start to
recognize their core emotions and also be
able to identify their partner’s responses
in a different way.

Each couple will be different. Not only will they have their
own learned behaviors (from childhood into adulthood) but
their perceptions will be unique to them. In the same way,
their actions may be very different. Perhaps one partner
starts to shout or become louder as anger takes over while the
other starts to withdraw or even responses in a similar way –
aggressively defensive. Understanding how and why this happens
can certainly lead to progress. Once your clients start to
understand each other little more they begin to enter into
what is known as the cycle de-escalation phase.

This stage of therapy does not mean that the problems have
been resolved, it just means there is greater understanding
and perhaps not as much intensity experienced within the
conflicting moments. This naturally enables the individual to
de-escalate any anger felt and expressed because the partner’s
reaction is different. Perception can make such a difference
once they are able to tune into the moment witnessing it as if
through the other’s eyes. Certainly, as the partners begin to
experience each other’s emotions and are able to not just
describe them but also share them with each other, the
fighting reduces and changes happen. The cycle de-escalation
is an essential and normal part of the process.
With renewed perception comes greater understanding.
Once the client’s start to argue less, you will often see them
becoming much closer again. In a way, they stop seeing each
other as the enemy and recognize that the real enemy is the
destructive emotions experienced i.e. jealousy and they
naturally start to share their relationship needs more freely.
Even if they were able to talk about their needs previously,
the environment may have been tense or at least, met with
resistance. When the arguing lessens, it does not
automatically mean that their relationship is on safe ground
or even that they feel closer, but it is certainly one step
nearer toward a more intimate relationship.

In addition, there is often a fear of arguing more so as it

becomes a pattern.

Once there is less inclination to hide or withdraw from each

other, intimacy will naturally increase. Once your clients
start to feel safer around each other, they will also be able
to open up more and therefore, communication improves.
Assignment
Relationship Counseling – EFT

Work your way through this assignment to see how well you have
really done in absorbing the relevant information.

Self-Study Assessments

Task 1: In this course, what does EFT stand for?

Task 2: How is EFT different from other types of
relationship counseling?
Task 3: How long are individual sessions usually?
Task 4: How many sessions are usually required in this
type of relationship counseling?
Task 5: What circumstances would make EFT an unpractical
solution for recovery?

SUMMARY
In this module, you learnt about Emotionally Focused Therapy
and how it is used to stimulate meaningful communication
between your clients. You learnt about the main goals of the
therapy, and how important it is that your clients are
actively participating. It is your job as the counselor to
encourage or even push your clients to reach these goals. You
now have an understanding of the importance of communication
in a relationship, and how it can improve the connection in
the partnership. The module also introduced the concept of the
cycle of conflict, whereby a pattern forms when the behavior
of one person triggers the response of the other.

In the next module, we explore romantic attachments.

[Tweet “I just completed Module 01 of the Professional

Relationship Counseling Certification”]