Emotion Focused Counselling

What do we do as practitioners? How do we respond? When do we intervene? These are just a few of the questions that practitioners of Emotion-Focused work struggle with. The Emotion-Focused approach is one of the most popular in humanistic psychology, and the subject has been well documented and researched. However, as practitioners we need practical information to guide us through using the protocols. We want know how to respond appropriately within the approach in a way that is sensitive and respectful of every client. This book does just that. Based on the author's forty years of clinical experience, this is an outline of the process of counselling and a step-by-step guide to working verbally and creatively within the Emotion-Focused approach.

Emotion-focused therapy is a research-informed psychological therapy that to date has mainly been studied in the context of depression, trauma and couple distress. The evidence suggests that this therapy has a lasting and transformative effect. Ladislav Timulak presents EFT as a particular therapeutic approach that addresses psychological human suffering, offering a view that puts more emphasis on attending to the distress, rather than avoiding or suppressing it. Focusing on the latest developments in EFT, Transforming Emotional Pain in Psychotherapy presents a theory of human suffering and a model of therapy that addresses that suffering. The model of suffering assumes that the experienced emotional pain is a response to an injury that prevents or violates the fulfilment of the basic human needs of being loved, safe, and acknowledged. This book focuses on a particular way of transforming emotional pain in psychotherapy through: helping the client to tolerate the pain; assisting the client to identify the core of the difficult emotional experiences; identifying the needs connected to the core pain which are unmet or being violated, and responding (with compassion and protective anger) to the underlying needs of the client that transforms the original pain. Transforming Emotional Pain in Psychotherapy provides an account of how emotional pain can be conceptualised and how it can be addressed in therapy. It provides practical tips for therapists working with emotional pain and shows how it can then be made more bearable and transformed allowing the client to be more sensitive to the pain of others, and to seek support when needed. This book will be essential reading for clinical and counselling psychologists, psychotherapists and counsellors in practice and training, as well as for fully qualified professionals undergoing further training in EFT.

This is the definitive introduction to the theory and practice of emotion-focused counselling. Starting with an introduction to the main theory and concepts, it then guides you through the counselling phases from beginning to end. The final chapter extends your learning by examining different client populations, process research, and ways of monitoring your practice. Chapters include features such as case studies and transcripts, further reading sections and reflective exercises that help you to enhance your understanding of the approach.

"In Learning Process-Experiential Therapy: The Process-Experiential Approach to Change, the originators of process-experiential therapy describe in detail the various tasks and techniques of this theoretically grounded, empirically supported humanistic therapy, while emphasizing the importance of the therapeutic relationship. The authors, Robert Elliott, Jeanne C. Watson, Rhonda N. Goldman, and Leslie S. Greenberg, well-respected scholars and leading figures in the field, discuss theory, case formulation, treatment, and research in a way that makes this complex form of therapy accessible to all readers. Particularly valuable are their careful moment-to-moment exchanges in extended case examples, which show the reader how deliberate and skillful use of these techniques can bring about change. This informative book will be of great practical value to therapists and students learning process-experiential therapy as well as to those who teach this mode of psychotherapy."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

From best-selling author, Susan M. Johnson, with over 1 million books sold worldwide! This essential text from the leading authority on Emotionally Focused Therapy, Susan M. Johnson, and colleague, T. Leanne Campbell, applies the key interventions of EFT to work with individuals, providing an overview and clinical guide to treating clients with depression, anxiety, and traumatic stress. Designed for therapists at all levels of expertise, Johnson and Campbell focus on introducing clinicians to EFIT interventions, techniques, and change processes in a highly accessible and practical format. The book begins by summarizing attachment theory and science – the theoretical basis of this model – together with the experiential approach to change in psychotherapy. Chapters describe the three stages of EFIT, macro-interventions, such as the EFIT Tango, and various micro-interventions through clinical exercises, case studies, and transcripts to demonstrate this model in practice with individuals, highlighting the unique benefits of EFT as a cross-modality approach for treating emotional disorders. With exercises interwoven throughout the text, this book is built to accompany in-person and online training, helping the practicing clinician offer targeted and empirically tested interventions that not only alleviate symptoms of distress but expand the client’s emotional balance, agency, and sense of self. As the next major extension of the EFT approach, this book will appeal to therapists already working with couples and families as well as those just beginning their professional journey. Psychotherapists, psychologists, counselors, social workers, and mental health workers will also find this book invaluable.

This influential volume provides a comprehensive introduction to emotionally focused therapy (EFT): its theoretical foundations, techniques, and clinical practice. EFT is a structured approach to couple therapy that integrates intrapsychic and interpersonal perspectives to help couples create new, more satisfying interactional patterns. Since the original publication of this book, EFT has been implemented and tested with growing numbers of couples in a wide range of settings. The authors, who codeveloped the approach, illuminate the power of emotional experience in relationships and in the process of therapeutic change. The book is richly illustrated with case examples and session transcripts.

Emotional pain is part of most people’s reality. For some of us though, that pain can begin to impact on our ability to function in our everyday life. Despite years of valiant attempts to resolve or deny such pain, we may continue to suffer. Before her untimely death early in 2021, Dr Melissa Harte had experienced her own journey through emotional pain that led her eventually to become a counseling psychologist and an internationally accredited Emotion Focused Therapy (EFT) trainer. She spent years teaching hundreds of therapists how to use EFT as well as running her own thriving private practice The legacy of her considerable skill and knowledge remains in this book which sets out a framework and model that works gently, effectively and deeply to assist in reversing the psychological, emotional, spiritual and physical damage of unresolved emotional pain. Applicable to a range of practitioners including counsellors and psychologists, this book will help you to help your clients whose emotional pain may be attachment-related, be a single episode, a series of major trauma experiences, or the culmination of many so-called ‘small t trauma’ events. This is a ‘how-to’ book, presenting techniques and concepts to assist practitioners, including investigating the use of the impacts of trauma case studies — an area until very recently often overlooked or minimised when formalising case histories. Chapters also address: • The dilemma with the DSM-5 diagnostic criteria for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). • The value of understanding the importance of emotions and how, as adaptive experiences, they provide essential information that can assist us in our daily lives. • The concept of emotional pain and how to work through it with an extended version of the focusing task, including the influences that helped to shape the task and its significant components. • The challenges around identifying dissociation and how to manage it. • The use of chair work as another element of working through emotional pain. At Melissa’s request, all royalties from sales of her book will go to the Australian Institute for Emotion Focused Therapy.

In Emotion-Focused Couples Therapy: The Dynamics of Emotion, Love, and Power, authors Leslie S. Greenberg and Rhonda N. Goldman explore the foundations of emotionally focused therapy for couples. They expand its framework to focus more intently on the development of the self and the relationship system through the promotion of self-soothing and other-soothing; to deal with unmet needs both from the client's adulthood and childhood; and to work more explicitly with emotions, specifically fear, anxiety, shame, power, joy, and love. The authors discuss the affect regulation involved in three major motivational systems central to couples therapy - attachment, identity, and attraction and clarify emotions and motivations in the dominance dimension of couples' interactions.Written with practitioners and graduate students in mind, the authors use a rich variety of case material to demonstrate how working with emotions can facilitate change in couples and, by extension, in all situations where people may be in emotional conflict with others. Greenberg and Goldman provide the tools needed to identify specific emotions and show the reader how to work with them to resolve conflict and promote bonding in couples therapy.