Video therapy sessions, to complement the book are available for purchase by those who confirm they are mental health professionals. Pseudonyms are used in the introductions of the videos below.
A Stage 1 session of a gay couple illustrates elements of the first change event of EFT – de-escalation. Metaphorically they de-escalate their automatic cycle of a train gathering speed, away from the station, by accessing the underlying fears that are powering the train. The more pursuing partner, whom I will call Ted, acknowledges he fires up and becomes like the scorched earth in Gone with the Wind, when his more withdrawn partner, Jed, describes the “all flight, no fight” panic that overcomes him in the face of Ted’s outbursts. This video complements Chapters 4 and 5. Chapter 4 is Assessment and alliance: The attachment experience of steps 1 and 2. Chapter 5 is The tyranny of unheeded attachment fears: Unpacking emotion in the de-escalation change event: (Steps 3 and 4).
The video begins with clarifying the simple Step 2 of EFT: The cue that each partner receives from the other that triggers a sense of attachment threat and the automatic self-protective moves or actions that made in reaction to these perceived threats. The cue for Ted is a look on of admonishment or disapproval on Jed’s face or any sign that Jed may be about to flee. This moves him to quick reactions of angry complaints The cue for Jed is Ted’s raised voice. This triggers his reaction of getting out of the way and letting the train run its course. – what he calls his reaction of “all flight no fight”.
An EFT Stage 2 session, of a couple with a more withdrawn female partner and a more pursuing male partner, demonstrates the consolidation of withdrawer re-engagement change event, and the third change event of EFT – known as blamer softening. This complements Chapters 6 and 7 – Working with emotion to shape the withdrawer reengagement and blamer softening change events. Prior to completing these change events, the couple uses poignant, attachment images: “Meg” describes her withdrawer’s attachment panic of rejection and disapproval as a fire hose pelting water in her face and knocking her back and her inner sense of failing as a pot of failure bubbling in her chest. “Ben” describes his pursuer’s attachment panic of getting no response and fearing abandonment as a cold, white marble wall, sliding away, with nothing to hold on to and his dread and fear of loss and abandonment as a rock in his chest. Expanded themes of blamer softening, identified by Bradley and Furrow and presented in Chapter 7, are seen in the video. They culminate in Step 7 reaches, met with engaged responses, illustrating antidotes to attachment fears that heighten the safety of the bond.
An emotionally focused individual therapy (EFIT) session illustrates the attachment-based EFT model as applied to individual concerns. In this video I work with a 36 year-old woman, I call “Jane.” Jane wants to stop her addictive cycles. She begins the session, expressing curiosity about her cycles of using & not using substances and how they keep recurring and has fear that she may slip again. Attachment theory frames these cycles as patterns of coping with separation distress and reaching for comfort. You can observe me extending EFT to individual therapy by: (a) focusing on attachment, (b) following emotion, and (c) priming new responses. In short, I repeat the 5 basic moves of EFT, which Sue Johnson has dubbed the EFT Tango. These moves are available to download as part of the summary of Chapter 12 and are part of the package when you purchase this video.
I work with Jane to track her automatic patterns of dismissing her own emotions and needs – sometimes by focusing on others and sometimes by using substances. Together, we reprocess her emotions of grief and sadness, guilt and shame into experiences of clarity, beginning to reconnect with the joy of her past relationship and the goodness of her current relationships. She savors a new connection with her underlying, lingering grief and sobs of sadness, and gets a taste of resolution to her guilt and shame. Her compassion for her deceased husband’s struggle, begins to open her to receive some sense of acceptance and compassion and recover some sense of connection with him again and with others in her life.