Emotion-focused therapy

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The Emotion Focused Therapy (EFT), and process-experiential therapy is, including a psychotherapy method for working with individuals, couples and families developed by Leslie Greenberg and Sue Johnson . On the basis of neuroscientific findings as well as psychotherapy process and outcome research, it integrates elements of gestalt therapy , client-centered psychotherapy , systemic therapy and attachment theory . By working directly with emotional processes, the aim of emotion-focused therapy is to transform dysfunctional emotional experience, to use adaptive emotions and to improve the patient's emotional intelligence. It grew out of a research program on the role of emotions in the psychotherapeutic change process that has been in existence for 40 years.

Goal setting and core therapeutic principles

Emotion-Focused Therapy (EFT) aims to help people perceive their emotions, allow them to accept, explore, consciously give them meaning, use them flexibly to solve current problems and transform them when they are not helpful. At its core, dysfunctional emotional experience should be changed and adaptive experience made usable. Emotions are seen as a motor for change also on the level of cognition and behavior.

The central principle is the change of emotions through emotions. Maladaptive primary emotions such as fear, shame, or sadness about loneliness and abandonment can be transformed by activating other adaptive emotions (e.g., compassion, sadness, or empowering anger). The therapist does not suggest another emotional experience or another fundamental conviction to the client, but rather gives him the opportunity to reorganize his own experience.

The core principles of therapeutic work are the promotion of experience-oriented processing in the client through acceptance and attention to internal processes and needs as well as the active expression of emotional experience. Process control by the therapist is exploratory and is based on certain markers for specific problems of emotional processing that the therapist identifies: this can include problematic emotional reactions, unclear felt senses , self-interruptions of one's own emotional experience, conflicting divisions (e.g. self-critical or fear generating processes) or an unfinished business in the sense of recurring, stressful experiences with important caregivers.

In addition to focusing elements to symbolize physically perceptible felt senses, working with chairs is used as a therapeutic intervention, depending on the marker. Self-interrupting processes are made explicit, for example, by asking the client to actively interrupt themselves from the other chair and to experience their inner reaction to them after another chair change. In the case of conflicting divisions (splits), the experiencing self and the z. B. self-devaluing inner critics spatially separated from each other, made explicit and put into a possibility of exchange. An unfinished business based on biographical need frustrations can be re-enacted and processed by working with an empty chair in which the client imagines the frustrating aspects of the important caregiver . The internal representation of the other person is made explicit, resulting feelings and frustrated needs are made accessible in the experiencing self and an exchange and dialogue is initiated.

Specific indications

In EFT there are numerous approaches for special indications, especially with regard to working with depressed and traumatized clients, generalized anxiety and emotion-focused couples therapy .

EFT in Germany

The EFT Community Deutschland e.V. is committed to spreading emotion-focused couples therapy . V. based in Berlin . In 2018, the German Society for Emotion- Focused Therapy was founded to promote networking and dissemination of the emotion-focused approach in individual and couple settings . V. (DeGEFT), a non-profit association based in Munich .

literature

  • Lars Auszra, Imke Herrmann, Leslie S. Greenberg: Emotion-Focused Therapy: A Practice Manual. Hogrefe, Göttingen 2017, ISBN 978-3801724252 .
  • LS Greenberg: Emotion-Focused Therapy. Ernst-Reinhardt-Verlag, Munich, 2011, ISBN 978-3-497-02246-5 .
  • R. Elliott, JC Watson, RN Goldman & LS Greenberg: Practical Handbook of Emotion-Focused Therapy CIP-Medien, Munich, (2004/2007)
  • J. Bischkopf: Emotion- focused therapy: Basics, practice, effectiveness Hogrefe, 2013, ISBN 978-3-8017-2209-8 .
  • LS Greenberg and LN Rice et al. R. Elliott: Promoting Emotional Change. Basics of a process and experience-oriented therapy. Junfermann, Paderborn 2003, ISBN 3-87387-503-9 .
  • SM Johnson: Emotion Focused Couples Therapy Practice: Making Connections. Junfermann, 2010, ISBN 978-3873877146 .
  • SM Johnson: Love Makes Sense: Revolutionary Findings About What Holds Couples Together. Random House Publishing Group, 2014, ISBN 978-3-442-75443-4 .
  • T. Hofer, L. Auszra & I. Herrmann: "Emotion-focused therapy: a new therapy for depression" Psychiatry and Neurology, 2013.
  • Emotion-Centered Therapy: An Overview. In: Psychotherapist Journal. 4, 2005, pp. 324ff, 337ff. Review article
  • From cognition to emotion in psychotherapy. In: SKD Sulz, G. Lenz (ed.): From cognition to emotion. Psychotherapy with feelings. CIP-Medien, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-87159-058-4 , pp. 77-110. - Review articles
  • P. Greenman & SM Johnson: Process Research on EFT for Couples: Linking Theory to Practice. Family Process, Special Issue on Couple Therapy, 2013.
  • LS Greenberg and SC Paivio: Working with the emotions in psychotherapy. Guilford Press, New York 1997, ISBN 1-572-30243-7 .
  • LS Greenberg and SM Johnson: Emotionally focused therapy for couples. The Guilford Press, New York 1988, ISBN 0-89862-730-3 .
  • K. Stavrianopoulos, G. Faller & J. Furrow Emotionally focused family therapy: facilitating change within a family system. Journal of Couple & Relationship Therapy: Innovations in Clinical and Educational Interventions, 2014.
  • Julia Böcker: Emotion-Focused Therapy, Junfermann, 2018

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ S. Kiszkenow-Bäker: Clarification-oriented psychotherapy and emotion-focused therapy in comparison. In: R. Sachse & M. Sachse. Clarification-oriented psychotherapy in practice II. Lengerich: Pabst.
  2. ^ A b E. T. Gendlin: Focusing. New York: Bantam Books, 1981
  3. ^ LS Greenberg & JC Watson: Emotion-Focused Therapy for Depression. Washington: American Psychological Association, 2005
  4. ↑ SC Paivio & A. Pascual-Leone: Emotion-Focused Therapy for Complex Trauma: An integrative approach. Washington: American Psychological Association, 2010
  5. ^ LS Greenberg & RN Goldman: Emotion Focused Couples Therapy. The Dynamics of Emotion, Love and Power. Washington: American Psychological Association, 2008
  6. ↑ SM Johnson: The Practice of Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy: Creating Connection. New York, NY: Brunner Routledge, 2004