Collection: Therapies In-Action: Emotionally Focused Therapy

In this video series, Dr Shea Dunham, an expert in Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), works with Jay and Danielle, an Afro-American couple who have come to session to work on trust in their marriage. Dunham’s overall goal is to help repair attachment injuries, teach the couple to negotiate different attachment styles, and build security and trust. Dunham begins the process by trying to understand the couple’s cycle, seeing how they process their relationship, and building the therapeutic alliance. Over the five sessions, Dunham also looks at how they handle conflict, their attachment history, and how they can express their experience from their primary emotions.

The couple learn to reframe their experience and to increase their capacity for emotional expression with each other. In discussion with series host Dr Shannon Dermer after each session, Dr Dunham explains the significance of some aspects of EFT for working with Afro-American couples, what some of the dominant underlying factors influencing their behaviour may be, and what their respective attachment styles may be. She talks about using evocative language and getting the couple to speak “from the heart”. The concept of emotional vulnerability and its role in the couple’s counselling is discussed.