Family of related psychotherapies
Emotionally focused therapy and emotion-focused therapy (EFT) are a set of related approaches to psychotherapy with individuals, couples, or families. EFT approaches include elements of experiential therapy (such as person-centered therapy and Gestalt therapy), systemic therapy, and attachment theory.[1] EFT is usually a short-term treatment (8–20 sessions).[2] EFT approaches are based on the premise that human emotions are connected to human needs, and therefore emotions have an innately adaptive potential that, if activated and worked through, can help people change problematic emotional states and interpersonal relationships.[3] Emotion-focused therapy for individuals was originally known as process-experiential therapy,[4] and it is still sometimes called by that name.[5]
EFT should not be confused with emotion-focused coping, a category of coping proposed by some psychologists,[6] although clinicians have used EFT to help improve clients' emotion-focused coping.[7]
- ^ Examples of psychotherapy survey textbooks that have covered one or more EFT approaches include: Fromme 2011, pp. 233–261, 385–389; Corey 2013, pp. 83–92; Goldenberg & Goldenberg 2013, pp. 267–272; Wedding & Corsini 2013, pp. 102–103; Gehart 2014, pp. 449–465; Prochaska & Norcross 2014, pp. 161–168; Corey 2015, pp. 167–168, 480. Examples of texts on EFT for individuals include: Elliott et al. 2004; Greenberg 2011; Greenberg 2015. Texts on EFT for couples (sometimes called EFT-C) include: Greenberg & Johnson 1988; Johnson 2004; Greenberg & Goldman 2008; Johnson 2008; Ruzgyte & Spinks 2011. Examples of texts on EFT for families (sometimes called EFFT) include: Heatherington, Friedlander & Greenberg 2005; Sexton & Schuster 2008; Stavrianopoulos, Faller & Furrow 2014.
- ^ Johnson & Greenberg 1992, pp. 220–221, 223; Goldenberg & Goldenberg 2013, p. 267
- ^ The connection between human needs and emotions is explored in, for example: Greenberg & Safran 1987; Safran & Greenberg 1991; Greenberg, Rice & Elliott 1993; Greenberg & Paivio 1997; Greenberg 2002a; Johnson 2004; Flanagan 2010
- ^ Prochaska & Norcross 2014, p. 162; examples of early texts using the term process-experiential include: Rice & Greenberg 1990, p. 404; Greenberg, Rice & Elliott 1993
- ^ For example: Wedding & Corsini 2013, pp. 102
- ^ Emotion-focused coping is typically contrasted with problem-focused coping and relationship-focused coping, for example: Folkman et al. 1986, p. 571; Greenberg & Goldman 2007, p. 391; Morgan 2008, p. 185; Cormier, Nurius & Osborn 2013, p. 407
- ^ For example: Baker & Berenbaum 2008, p. 69; Baker & Berenbaum 2011, p. 554; Stanton 2011, pp. 370, 378