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Helping Craig & Michelle Understand their Negative Dance
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DESCRIPTION:
INTRODUCING MICHELLE AND CRAIG
This couple has had 8 sessions with an EFT therapist. This clinical demo is their first (and only) session with Sue Johnson.
Sue Johnson describes them as a representative EFT couple who still love each other and are not escalated. Key facts: The couple recently emigrated from South Africa. Craig started a new job and acclimated easily. Michelle is not working, has not acclimated, and reports depression.
OUTLINE:
DEMONSTRATION OF ESTABLISHING SAFETY AND BUILDING AN ALLIANCE IN PHASE 1 WITH ANALYSIS
In the first clip, the therapist begins to establish safety and build an alliance with both partners. She is open and real with them. She wants to hear their stories. She understands, normalizes, and validates. She is attuned and engaged, looking for incidents of connection and disconnection between the partners in order to begin tracking their dance.
Notice how she mirrors their pace and language.
Notice the therapist’s use of requests and questions:
- Can you help me understand?
- Do I have that right?
Questions like these serve in 3-ways:
- Helping therapist get information about behaviors and patterns
- Heighten awareness of behaviors by examining with the client
- Maintaining safety by being open, real, and accessible
DEMONSTRATION OF PHASE 1, STEP 2 WITH ANALYSIS
In order to Identify the negative dance, triggers, and disconnecting behaviors, Sue Johnson invites partners to interact with each other in the second clinical demo clip. She generally moves from one to the other deepening, slowing the pace, rephrasing, mirroring in order to get the clearest possible picture-all in order to get to the primary underlying emotions.
NOTE: Therapist works with Craig first to see if there’s a path through his difficulty with emotions. Sue believes needs to be resolved if EFT is to help the couple.
She explicitly elicits how he responds to his wife’s depression, anger, and requests for more closeness. Sue validates him by putting his withdrawing/distancing behavior in the context of his being a scientist. He validates and normalizes this going into his head.
She also recognizes and validates the concrete help he gives his wife.
Sue turns to his wife and invites her to tell her husband how she feels about his help. The wife replies that she appreciates his efforts, but still misses the connection with him. Sue Johnson repeats and summarizes for Michelle: So what you need is not the help, but you need him to get close.
Sue ends by working with Michelle validating and normalizing her pain, sense of loss, and need. Notice how deftly she moves Michelle from a lengthy explanation to the crystalized feeling really lost.
In the third clinical demo clip, Sue continues working with Michelle, identifying attachment-based emotions, reactions, and triggers. In small bites, Sue distills Michelle’s emotions into a request she can make to her husband. Sue then sets up an enactment and engages and reframes for both partners.
The third clinical demo clip wraps up with a summary of the feelings, triggers, and reactive behaviors that make up the couple’s dance. Notice how Sue:
- Keeps her voice low and soft and the pace slow
- Uses phrases like have I got this right? and Now you help me here because I’m jumping ahead to keep partners engaged and ensure she articulates the emotional responses correctly
- Gets agreement with partners that she’s got it right before moving forward.
Craig and Michelle do agree that Sue has summarized what happens between them correctly and now both partners are primed to explore the attachment-related emotions, triggers, and reactions that have informed their dance of disconnection.
OBJECTIVES:
Explain how the EFT therapist conducts a Stage I session step by step
Richard Simon, Ph.D.
Richard Simon, PhD, was a clinical psychologist and the late editor of Psychotherapy Networker, the most topical, timely, and widely read publication in the psychotherapy field. During his career, he received every major magazine industry honor, including the National Magazine Award.
Speaker Disclosures:
Financial: Rich Simon is the President of Psychotherapy Networker, Inc. and the editor of Psychotherapy Networker magazine. He is a published author and receives royalties. He has no relevant financial relationships with ineligible organizations.
Non-financial: Rich Simon has no relevant non-financial relationships.
Susan Johnson, EdD
Dr. Sue Johnson is an author, clinical psychologist, researcher, professor, popular presenter and speaker and a leading innovator in the field of couple therapy and adult attachment. Sue is the primary developer of Emotionally Focused Couples and Family Therapy (EFT), which has demonstrated its effectiveness in over 30 years of peer-reviewed clinical research.
Sue Johnson is founding Director of the International Centre for Excellence in Emotionally Focused Therapy (ICEEFT) and Distinguished Research Professor at Alliant University in San Diego, California, and Professor, Clinical Psychiatry at the University of British Columbia, Canada, as well as Professor Emeritus, Clinical Psychology, at the University of Ottawa, Canada.
Dr. Johnson is the author of numerous books and articles including Attachment Theory in Practice: EFT with Individuals, Couples and Families (2019) The Practice of Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy: Creating Connection (3rd edition, 2019), and Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy with Trauma Survivors (2002).
Sue trains behavioral health providers in EFT worldwide and consults to over 75 international institutes and affiliated centers who practice EFT. She also consults to Veterans Affairs and the U.S. and Canadian militaries.
Speaker Disclosures:
Financial: Dr. Sue Johnson has employment relationships with University of British Columbia, Campbell & Fairweather Psychology Group, Alliant International, University Ottawa, Couple and Family Institute, and the International Center for Excellence in Emotionally Focused Therapy. She receives royalties as a published author. Dr. Johnson receives a speaking honorarium, recording royalties, and book royalties from PESI, Inc. She has no relevant financial relationships with ineligible organizations.
Non-financial: Dr. Sue Johnson serves on the editorial board for the American Journal of Family Therapy (AJFT) and the journal Couple and Family Psychology: Research & Practice.
