Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy (EFT) was formulated in the early 1980s (Johnson & Greenberg, 1985) as a response to the lack of clearly delineated and validated couple interventions, particularly more humanistic and less behavioral interventions. It was called EFT to draw attention to the crucial significance of emotions and emotional communications in the organization of patterns of interactions and key defining experiences in close relationships. It also focused on emotion as a powerful and necessary agent of change rather than as simply part of the problem of marital distress. EFT is integrative; it looks within and between. It integrates an intrapsychic focus on how individuals process their experiences, particularly their key attachment-oriented emotional responses, with an interpersonal focus on how partners organize their interactions into patterns and cycles. it considers how systematic patterns, inner experience, and mental models of self and others evoke and create each other. The most important features of EFT that distinguish it from other approaches include the role of the therapist, a primary focus on emotion, treatment goals, an emotional focus, and taking people as they are. The results of research (Johnson et al., 1999) showed a 70 to 73 percent recovery rate from marital distress and a 90 percent rate of significant improvement. and these rates are amazing. EFT is brief, being usually implemented in 8 to 20 sessions, and includes 3 stages (de-escalation, restructuring the interactions, and consolidation.

Adopted from Sue Johnson 2020