Suzanne McCarthy, PsyD and Danielle Green, LICSW, instructors
Emotionally
Focused Couple Therapy (EFT) was formulated in the early 1980s by Drs. Susan
Johnson and Les Greenberg. It is usually
a short-term, structured approach to couples treatment. EFT is empirically-validated and shows that
approximately 90% of treated couples report improvement and 70-73% are
recovered from distress at follow-up. In
a two year follow-up on very stressed couples in relationship distress,
depression and parental distress results were stable. This presentation will
focus on guiding the therapist through the stages and steps of EFT. EFT is a three stage, 9 step model. Stage one focuses on de-escalation. Stage two
focuses on restructuring the bond between partners. Stage three is the
consolidation of a secure base. EFT is integrative and looks both within and
between people, integrating an intrapsychic and interpersonal focus in the
treatment. Understanding the personal
experience and the process of interaction is key for the therapist as she
attempts to guide the distressed couple toward greater flexibility and
sensitivity, key components of a secure attachment between people. The three tasks of EFT couples therapy are:
fostering a safe therapeutic alliance to enhance engagement in the change
process; accessing, unfolding and expanding emotional responses in an
attachment context; and choreographing response sequences to restructure key
interactions. In accessing, expanding and reprocessing the emotional experience,
the interventions used to accomplish this are: reflection, validation,
evocative responding, heightening and empathic conjecture/interpretation. To create or choreograph new interactional
patterns, the interventions used are tracking and reflecting the process of the
interaction; making positions and cycles explicit; reframing the experience or
interaction in terms of the attachment context and cycles; and restructuring
and shaping interactions.
Upon completion of this program, participants will be able to:
·
Identify
the couple’s negative interactional pattern and each partner’s role in it as
well as each partner’s presenting attachment style and how it impacts their
negative cycle
·
Demonstrate
the stages and steps of EFT couples therapy and begin to work with these.
·
Explain
the primary interventions used in EFT and how to begin to practice these in the
modelProgram Code: EFCT
6 CE Credits
Location: at MSPP, Newton
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Danielle Green, LICSW is a Founding Partner of New England
Center for Couples and Families in Arlington, MA. She received her MSW
from Columbia University in 1993 and completed 5 years of further specialist training
in couples and family therapy at the Ackerman Institute for the Family, in New
York City. She worked and taught at Cornell Medical Center for 10 years before
relocating to Boston to serve as Clinical and Training Director of the Couple
and Family Therapy Program, at the Cambridge Health Alliance, Harvard Medical
School. There, she trained psychologists, psychiatry residents and social
workers and lectured extensively throughout the Harvard system. Danielle is a
certified EFT (Emotionally Focused Therapy) therapist and supervisor.
Suzanne McCarthy, PsyD, is a licensed psychologist and
certified EFT therapist and supervisor.
She graduated with a specialty in health psychology from MSPP and her
dissertation studied the narratives of couples facing cancer and their impact
on the couple’s ability to cope with this life crisis. She trained at the Wellness Community of
Greater Boston and worked as part of the staff of the Family and Couples Clinic
at Cambridge Health Alliance. She is a
staff psychologist at Boston Behavioral Medicine and a Founding Partner of the
New England Center for Couples and Families in Arlington, MA. Suzanne also teaches EFT to various college
level student groups including the psychiatric resident program as a member of
the Harvard Medical School faculty