Couple Therapy

What is EFT?

Emotional Focused Couple Therapy (EFT) is a highly effective short-term therapy, based on the theory of attachment by J. Bowlby , and by Canadian psychologist Dr. Sue Johnson and South African-born psychotherapist Leslie Greenberg.

In the process, the attachment relationship is strengthened and the experience of closeness and security is promoted. Negative interaction patterns of allegations, demands and blame, justifications and withdrawal are interrupted and dissolved.

Thus, encounters are possible in which even difficult feelings and underlying needs can be shared and new loving relationships can grow. 
According to recent studies, 90 percent of couples experience sustained improvements within eight to 20 sessions, and 70 percent even find basic healings.
 

Experience with EFT

• 10 percent of couples need only 1 or 2 long sessions at EFT to initiate a positive change.   
   
• 50 percent need 7 long sessions or less. 
   
• 10 percent of our couples will be with us until all relationship issues have been fully resolved. In such cases, a couple therapy involves about 20 long sessions. 
   
• Ten percent of couples need up to 30 long sessions before the relationship improves significantly. This is usually the case when there are major relationship injuries or the partners have a traumatic history. 
• 20 percent decide to break up in friendship, usually within the first five sessions. 
  

 

When is it too late for couples therapy?

Sometimes couples wait too long to start therapy. Once a month I find couples sitting in front of me and realize that their love has faded so much that it cannot be revived.

Such moments are particularly painful and sad. Recently, a woman poignantly put it: "The flame has gone out. I no longer have feelings of love for you."

Often, these are couples who have been living together for many years. They have "somehow arranged" themselves with conflicts instead of addressing them. They feel an increasing distance, stagnation, and burdensome silence.

In this phase, partners often develop individual interests, focus on their careers or children, friends, and hobbies. Living together increasingly becomes a shared living arrangement.

Yet, the story of a couple usually begins with deep love. Together, they create a cozy home, perhaps start a family, and support each other in all aspects of life. But over time, stress, exhaustion, and lack of communication can lead to recurring problems remaining unresolved. Instead of fostering closeness and understanding, feelings of loneliness and frustration intensify. For one of the partners, the situation often becomes unbearable. There is a growing sense of lost purpose and being emotionally drained. The lack of physical closeness and intimacy can also intensify the emotional distance. Often, the desire to be understood in deep conversations and to restore the connection with the loved one remains unfulfilled. Even suggestions to work on the relationship together or to start couples therapy sometimes meet with disinterest or rejection.

But love means connection!

Often, the relationship reaches a point where one of the partners speaks of separation. For the other, it is usually a shock, accompanied by the sudden realization that help was needed. But for the one who has long suffered and mourned the relationship, it is usually too late.

Therefore, it is important to have the courage to talk about difficulties and seek help early on - before the shared flame goes out.

 
Emotion-focused couple therapy in the video

(German language only)

 

  Imprint • Privacy Policy