Our Approach: Emotionally Focused Therapy
At Courageous Being, our primary therapeutic approach is Emotionally Focused Therapy.
Emotionally Focused Therapy has at its core the goal of creating close, secure connections between partners, where each experiences a felt sense of being seen and heard. Developed by Sue Johnson in the 1980’s, it is informed by John Bowlby’s Attachment Theory that recognises the innate need we have to feel securely attached to and comforted by our significant others, and this remains true from infancy to adulthood.
As its name suggests, Emotionally Focused Therapy prioritises our understanding of emotion to understand ourselves, our loved ones and to elicit real and lasting change. Focusing on emotion promotes self-awareness and acceptance, emotional regulation, and new forms of expression. As a result, clients are better able to access key information and meanings about themselves and their world that emotions provide, and become skilful in using this to live fully and adaptively. By facing difficult emotions, we process and transform them. This transformation is only possible when we accept ourselves as we are.
“Being the ‘best you can be’ is really only possible when you are deeply connected to another. Splendid isolation is for planets, not people.”
— Sue Johnson, developer of Emotionally Focused Therapy
What to Expect
At Courageous Being we recognise that seeking therapy takes being courageous. Which is why we honour your bravery by walking alongside you, every step of the way.
Emotionally Focused Therapy takes a client-centred, experiential approach to therapy. Because Emotionally Focused Therapy emphasizes the importance of awareness, acceptance and understanding of emotion, we seek to get to the heart of the matter by utilising the visceral experience of emotion in therapy because we know that this promotes psychotherapeutic change.
You can expect your psychotherapist to work with you in the following ways:
Empathetic listening: Hearing and understanding you, without judgement.
Reframing experience: Identifying perspectives of partners and family members, and understanding issues through the lens of your attachment needs and desires.
Focused redirection: Maintaining focus within the session to enable us to address the heart of the matter, together.
Supportive encouragement: Acting as a personal coach and support team, encouraging you every step on your journey toward Courageous Being.
Active reflecting: Checking in and normalising your experiences.
Experience validation: Welcoming your emotions to the room and reaffirming that your experiences are important to us and to the therapeutic process.
Emotion heightening: Undertaking courageous process of touching on deep emotions, building awareness and compassion for you and your loved ones, promoting lasting change.
Tracking problem cycles: Piecing together details to help you identify the cycle at the core of your distress, assisting you in creating new, adaptive patterns.
