Medicine Atlas

How Healing Is Practiced
Sign In
Text size
100%
Theme
Treatment

Emotionally Focused Therapy

Psychotherapy and Behavioral Therapy

Emotionally focused therapy and emotion-focused therapy (EFT) are related humanistic approaches to psychotherapy that aim to resolve emotional and relationship issues with individuals, couples and families. They combine experiential therapy techniques, including person-centered and Gestalt therapies, with systemic therapy and attachment theory, on the central premise that emotions influence cognition, motivate behavior and are strongly linked to needs. Treatment goals include transforming maladaptive behaviors such as emotional avoidance and developing awareness, acceptance, expression and regulation of emotion along with understanding of relationships; EFT is usually a short-term treatment of eight to twenty sessions. Emotion-focused therapy for individuals was originally known as process-experiential therapy and is still referred to by that name in some contexts, and it is distinct from emotion-focused coping, a separate concept describing coping strategies for managing emotions, though EFT has been used to improve clients' emotion-focused coping abilities.

Facts
Classification
Status
Standard of Care 1
Origin Year
1985 2
FAQs

What does emotionally focused therapy mean in Sue Johnson's model?

Sue Johnson's term names a relationship therapy model built on attachment theory.

In Sue Johnson's use of the term, emotionally focused therapy refers to a specific model of relationship therapy. It explicitly integrates systems and experiential approaches and places prominence on attachment theory as a theory of emotion regulation.
Connections

Treats

Source Emotionally focused therapy (Wikipedia)
Depression, Conditions
Source Emotionally focused therapy (Wikipedia)
Sources
1. Wikipedia
Wikipedia contributors, Wikimedia Foundation
2. Emotionally focused therapy (Wikipedia)
  • History section
    EFT was originally formulated and tested by Sue Johnson and Les Greenberg in 1985, and the first manual for emotionally focused couples therapy was published in 1988.
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotionally_focused_therapy, lead section
    Emotionally focused therapy and emotion-focused therapy (EFT) are related humanistic approaches to psychotherapy that aim to resolve emotional and relationship issues with individuals, couples, and families.
  • Treats: Avoidant Personality Disorder, Article text, use for Avoidant Personality Disorder
    Studies have suggested that it is effective in the treatment of depression, interpersonal problems, trauma, and avoidant personality disorder.
  • Treats: Depression, Article text, use for Depression
    Studies have suggested that it is effective in the treatment of depression, interpersonal problems, trauma, and avoidant personality disorder.
View the Source
Comments (0)
No comments yet. Be the first to share a thought.
Reader Challenges (0)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.

View At A Past Year

Choose a year to see this entry's facts and connections as the atlas records them at that moment: what it held then, what it held instead, and what it had not yet adopted. Choose Present for the current record.