Jill Smith and Associates

Counseling, Coaching, and Change

Unravelling the Mystery of a Good Therapist

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For those with a fascination for the therapy profession and therapy experience as a client…this article is worth reading. I particularly love the encouragement for clinicians to be in a consultation group (which I have been for years) , to survey our effectiveness with clients (we have done this at Jill Smith and Associates, but need to re-up our efforts), and, finally, the call to videotape and review our sessions and show our work to colleagues for feedback to improve. Thank you to all my individuals and couples who have given me written permission to videotape sessions so that I may do just that–review our time together and therefore, hopefully, continue to improve my effectiveness.

See article from Bruce Wampold at Pychotherapy.net here.

If you love me, why do you still-face me?

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Last week I was invited to assist at an EFT training in UNC Greensboro.  This four day introductory training spends an entire day reviewing the literature on attachment bonds and the role they play in the way we understand ourselves, our world and our life partners.
As a child, If we are securely attached to  our parents or a loved one, we can consider ourselves lucky. A healthy attachment sets a stage for us to explore our world, knowing safety and predictability waits for us at home. We begin to believe in our ability to interact with others and function successfully in relationships. If we have a need, we can express it and we will be heard and understood. We can hear and understand others successfully–even when things get complicated emotionally.
But when we are raised by parents or caregivers who do not come when we call, things can be different.  Then, many times, don’t feel securely attached to a primary person. We might not explore  our world because we aren’t sure if safety and predictability awaits at home. So..as an adult, our attachment style might be fearful. Or avoidant.  We are not sure if we will be understood by the world, so we keep emotions hidden away, burying them deep inside, even denying them.  Sometimes our emotions then explode after being hidden for so long. Typically, we don’t ever understanding what is behind this pattern that leads to loneliness or difficult, conflict laden relationships
At EFT trainings, clinicians are shown a classic psychological experiment video called The Still Face Experiment.
Although hard to watch, The Still Face Experiment demonstrates with crystal clarity what is outlined above. When Mom responds predictably and loving the baby is delighted, calm and engaged.   But when Mom ignores the baby with “still face,”   the baby reaches, screeches, squirms. The world is no longer responsive safe and predictable. Maybe crying and protesting will make it so.
We do the same in our adult love relationships. We reach, we screech and we squirm when we aren’t sure if we are understood by our partners. We want them to respond to our needs and when they don’t, it is unbearable.  We protest. We criticize. We cry. We yell. We sulk. We turn away.
Emotionally Focused Therapy, the couples therapy protocol used in our office, makes sense of this attachment stuff so you and your partner can feel securely attached. Again.

Does this couple look familiar? Then you are among friends and help is here.

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Do you recognize this couple? Do they remind you of you?

\\https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyCHT9AbD_Y&t=307s

Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) is a unique empirically-based approach, based on methods designed to help people accept, express, regulate, make sense of and transform emotion. Recent years have seen a growth of EFT in individual and couples therapy, both because of its status as an evidence-based treatment, and also because the EFT approach focuses on the development of emotional intelligence and on the importance of secure relationships. Because of these emphases, EFT offers an alternative to more technically-oriented evidence-based treatments.

Most fundamentally, emotions tell us what is important to us in a situation and thus act as a guide to what we need or want.  This, in turn, helps us to figure out what actions are appropriate.  Emotions are basically adaptive and guide attachment as well as the tendency toward growth. EFT focuses on helping people become aware of and express their emotions, learn to tolerate and regulate them, reflect on them to make sense of them and transform them.  Learning about emotions is not enough; instead, what is needed is for clients to experience those emotions as they arise in the safety of the therapy session, where they can discover for themselves the value of greater awareness and more flexible management of emotions. Emotion-focused therapy systematically but flexibly helps clients become aware of and make productive use of their emotions.

Description of EFT from the Emotion Focused Therapy Clinic in Toronto Canada