Saturday, February 27

All-Day Workshops

9:00 - 11:30 A.M. & 1:30 - 4:00 P.M.

Workshop 76a

Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy: Theory, Process, and Interventions for Healing the Couple Relationship

Chair:

Karen Shore, Ph.D., CGP, Private Practice, Santa Monica, California

Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy (EFT) combines Attachment and Systems theories plus an emotionally experiential process. The couple's difficulties are framed as cycles of emotions and behaviors due to perceived threats to the attachment bond. Both beginning and intermediate interventions will be discussed.

didactic-demonstration-sharing of work experiences-experiential

Learning Objectives:
The attendee will be able to:
1. Describe the basic tenets of Attachment Theory.
2. Identify repeating negative cycles demonstrated by their couples.
3. Define and discriminate between primary and secondary emotions.
4. Identify the Stages and Steps in the EFT process.
5. Utilize the basic techniques of Reflection and Validation used in EFT with their couples in therapy.
6. Identify some of the more intermediate EFT skills of empathic conjecture, heightening, and seeding attachment between partners.
7. Identify bonding interactions between partners and have a beginning understanding of how they are created in session.

Course References:
Johnson, S. (2004). The Practice of Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy, 2nd Ed. New york: Brunner-Routledge.

Johnson, S. (2008). Hold Me tight: Seven Conversations for a Lifetime of Love. New York: Little, Brown and Company.

Palmer, G. & Johnson, S. (2002). Becoming an Emotionally Focused Couples Therapist. Journal of Couple and Relationship Therapy 1(3), pp. 1-20.