Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT): Evidence-Based Interventions for Your Distressed Couples

CPD

Handouts

Speaker

Kathryn Rheem, EdD, LMFT Related seminars and products

Washington Baltimore Center for Emotionally Focused Therapy

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Kathryn Rheem, EdD, LMFT, has been using the empirically-validated EFT approach exclusively in private practice for nearly twenty years and continues to study and learn the model daily. She works extensively with couples where one or both partners have endured trauma and has written and presented on the application of EFT with trauma numerous times.

As an international EFT trainer, she collaborates with Dr. Sue Johnson, the primary developer of EFT, to bring EFT to populations worldwide. Together, Sue and Kathryn created Strong Bonds, Strong Couples, LLC, which provided EFT-based weekend retreat for soldiers and Marines coming home from war and their partners at military installations in the US and abroad.

Kathryn is the director of the Washington Baltimore Center for Emotionally Focused Therapy. She was voted a Top Couples Therapist in Washington, D.C., by the Washingtonian Magazine. She is a clinical fellow and approved supervisor of AAMFT and has written 15 articles/chapters on the application of EFT with trauma.

 

 

Speaker Disclosures:

Financial: Kathryn Rheem is the director of the Washington Baltimore Center for Emotionally Focused Therapy (WBCEFT). She receives a speaking honorarium from PESI, Inc. She has no relevant financial relationships with ineligible organizations.

Non-financial:  Kathryn Rheem has no relevant non-financial relationship to disclose.
 

Alternate Options

Objectives

1. Communicate “the laws” of human bonding and how the laws operate in adult love relationships for purposes of client psychoeducation.
2. Assess for attachment injury and trauma history in presenting couples as it relates to case conceptualization.
3. Summarize the stages, steps and interventions of EFT to be utilized in a clinical setting when working with couples.
4. Articulate the “stuck” places couples encounter that perpetuate negative cycles and emotional disconnection in love relationships, and utilize this information to improve clinical outcomes.
5. Increase treatment effectiveness by adapting the EFT model to different clients, including escalated, traumatized, and depressed partners.
6. Utilize clinical exercises to shape new bonding interactions for couples that can redefine connection, forgiveness and change working models of attachment.

Outline

• The map to basic relationship emotions and needs
• Understand and contain distance and distress
• Shaping responsive bonding
• Understand love relationships – invaluable to the therapist

• The three stages of EFT
  1. De-escalation
  2. Restructuring Attachment
  3. Consolidation
• Key change events

• Reflection of emotional process
• Validation
• Evocative process questions
• Deepen and distill emotion
• Interpretation - conjecture
• Reflecting interactions – feedback loops
• Reframing
• Shape enactments
• Contain enactments that go awry

• The core tasks of EFT
• Build an alliance
• Reprocess and distill emotion
• Choreographing new interactions

• Dysregulated, escalated, and shut down, dismissing clients
• Attachment injuries (i.e. affairs) – Relationship traumas that destroy trust
• A proven model for forgiveness and reconciliation

• Growing into and applying the EFT model
• Gaining confidence in EFT – Maximize effectiveness in your practice
• Key changes and challenges in the field of couple therapy

Target Audience

• Counselors
• Social Workers 
• Psychologists
• Marriage and Family Therapists
• Psychotherapists
• Nurse Practitioners
• Addictions Counselors
• Case Managers 
• Clergy
• Other Mental Health Professionals

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