EFT Couples Therapy
Couples in early seasons of marriage often arrive to therapy holding a lot of love for each other, and for that reason, feel confused and overwhelmed by the intensifying conflict, lack of connection in intimacy, or difficulty adjusting to life’s changes as they get married, change jobs, have kids, move, etc.
Couples I work with want to feel more connected and confident about their ability to connect through all of life’s seasons and are ready to adapt a new framework of conflict to make it happen.
In Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy (EFT), you will:
increase insight to yourself & your partner, so that you both understand what’s actually happening in conflict
recognize and own your go-to coping behaviors and the impact they have on your conflict
address the fears, beliefs, and/or experiences that block you from connecting on a deeper emotional level
and practice taking the risk of really, truly connecting with each other about your needs and emotions
Sessions will be spent slowing down your conversations to notice and understand the common conflict cycles you get stuck in.
I’ll help you dive deeper into connection with yourself to understand the emotions and needs that really deserve attention during conflict so that you can share these with your partner. We’ll pay attention to stories and beliefs that influence how you engage with each other — things you may have taken from your family growing up, from larger society, or specific experiences that have formed your perspective on the world and relationships.
Ultimately, we’ll practice — in session — turning toward each other, holding difficult emotion together, and building the safety to go to vulnerable emotion instead of protective coping mechanisms that keep you stuck in loops of conflict.
Frequently Asked Questions
-
Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) is a research-backed, attachment-based approach to couples counseling. It's built on the idea that when couples fight, they get stuck in a negative cycle of interaction. This cycle includes how you each cope with conflict — shutting down, criticizing, defending — and the feelings underneath, from obvious ones like anger to hidden ones like shame or fear. This cycle is what we want to address. In EFT, I help you identify your negative cycle, understand it more fully, and build the tools to step out of it, so you can connect more deeply and build a safer, more secure bond.
-
Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) views couple conflict as a "negative cycle" — a repeating pattern where each partner's actions trigger and reinforce the other's, like two sides of an infinity loop. In EFT, I help couples identify what's happening in their cycle and get underneath it, to the emotions and needs driving it, so they can respond to each other differently. Read more about how the negative cycle works.
-
Couples meet with me weekly or biweekly for 50-minute EFT sessions.
-
No. My role as an EFT couples therapist is to help you address the cycle together — no one partner holds the blame for how you've gotten stuck. Instead, I help you both recognize, own, and shift your part in the pattern.
-
Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) can help couples who are:
Feeling emotionally disconnected
Fighting often and don’t know what to do
Struggling to handle how past trauma impacts the relationship
Wanting to be able to talk about money, sex, or family without getting into a fight
Going through stressful life transitions such as getting married, having a baby, moving, or changing roles/jobs
-
I've completed training through the International Centre for Excellence in Emotionally Focused Therapy (ICEEFT), including training in EFT for couples (EFCT):
Fundamentals of EFCT
EFCT Externship
EFCT Core Skills (in progress)