Signals and needs
Emotions can point to what matters, an unmet need, a crossed boundary or something requiring attention.
Emotion-Focused Therapy
Understanding and transforming emotional patterns
Emotion-Focused Therapy (EFT), developed by Leslie Greenberg and colleagues, is an experiential approach that helps us understand what emotions are communicating and work with responses that feel overwhelming, stuck or difficult to explain.
Understanding emotional patterns
Protective responses
Anger, numbness, self-criticism or withdrawal may protect feelings such as hurt, fear, shame or longing.
Earlier learning
Past experiences can leave emotional messages such as “I am not safe,” “I am not enough” or “my needs do not matter.”
Experience, meaning and change
How emotional change happens
Insight can be valuable without changing how an experience feels inside. EFT therefore pays attention to emotion in the present moment, including sensations, images, impulses and memories. Change can emerge when an old response is met with something different: perhaps compassion instead of shame, protective anger instead of helplessness, or grief for what was never acknowledged.
What this may look like in therapy
We may slow down around a particular moment, notice what happens as you speak, explore different sides of an inner conflict, or use an experiential exercise such as an imagined dialogue.
Nothing has to be performed or forced. You can pause, adapt or decline any exercise, and we can adjust the work together as needed.
EFT also works naturally alongside Internal Family Systems (IFS). IFS helps us understand what different parts may be protecting, while EFT helps us stay close to the emotions and needs they carry.
Curious whether EFT might support you?
If you'd like to explore whether EFT might support you, you're welcome to get in touch.
Get in touch