Family rules provide clear boundaries related to expected acceptable behavior. They create a safe environment for children to learn and grow. When you clearly state and consistently follow expectations and consequences, behavior problems often decrease. Establishing rules for your family is an important step towards creating the family life you want.
What Are Family Rules
Family rules are boundaries that you put in place to create structure in your family. These rules should be specific in order for them to be most effective. Family rules need to be clearly stated, have consistent consequences when they are not followed, and be age appropriate. It is helpful to discuss these rules with your children and to create a visual display. The rules can be put into three different categories of safety, expectations, and aspirations. When rules and consequences are clear, children are able to make an active choice in their behavior. The structure that you create through these rules can help your family function more effectively and peacefully.
Why Family Rules Are Needed
Rules create structure and set up expectations for appropriate behavior and functioning. Structure is very important for child development. When children have clear expectations and consequences at home, they have an easier time adjusting to rules in other settings. Family rules keep expectations clear for everyone. These guidelines help define appropriate and expected behavior, as well as undesirable behavior. Although it is normal for children to test boundaries, with consistent consequences it’s less likely to continue.
Know Your Values and Beliefs
When establishing family rules, it is important that they are in agreement with your family values and beliefs. In order to keep them consistent, it is helpful to write out these beliefs and values. For instance, if respect is a family value, write down what this means and why it is important. Younger children will have a difficult time understanding this concept unless the rules related to this value are specific. You could establish rules related to knocking before entering someone else’s room and discuss how this relates to respect. When your family rules align with your values and beliefs, they are easier to establish and follow.
Make Sure Rules Are Age Appropriate
Effective family rules consider the ages and developmental stages of your children. Young children need fewer rules as they rely on their caretakers to keep them safe. As children grow and require more freedom, more rules are also necessary. Teenagers often require the most rules as they strive to become more independent. Rules around staying in your room at bedtime are important for your preschooler, yet not really relevant for your high schooler. Family rules will be most effective when you consider the ages and developmental stages of each of your children.
Have Clear Consequences
Rules are most effective when there are clear consequences. When everyone is aware of the rules and the consequences, they are able to make an active choice. With inconsistent consequences, it is more likely that the rules will not be followed. Consequences that are either too lenient or too severe can be ineffective or difficult to enforce. The consequences should fit the situation. Such as, if you don’t eat dinner, you don’t get dessert. This is a more natural consequence that can be easier to enforce. When considering rules that involve safety, the consequences can be stricter in order to deter unwanted behavior from occurring. It is important to know your child’s values in order to establish meaningful consequences. Remember, consequences can be positive as well as negative.
Get Everyone Involved
Although safety rules may be nonnegotiable, children can and should have input into the family expectation and aspiration rules. When children are included in the creation of the rules, they are more likely to abide by them. You can learn a lot about your children by asking what rules they think are important and why. Getting their input on what consequences they believe to be most effective can also be helpful. While children shouldn’t have the final say on the family rules and consequences, their input should certainly be considered.
Renegotiate As Needed
To keep the family rules meaningful, you should renegotiate them as needed. When your children are toddlers, your expectations and their needs and abilities will be different than when they are teenagers. Therefore, the rules and consequences should be adjusted accordingly. If your family situation changes, such as an elderly relative moves in, the family rules need to be re-evaluated. The rules might also need to change when something that wasn’t a problem before becomes an ongoing issue. When an adjustment needs to be made, the entire family should still be involved in the process.
Safety Rules
Family rules can be put into three different categories. The first category is safety rules. These rules are about keeping everyone safe. The safety rules are often nonnegotiable, at least for a period of time. These rules are most effective if they are clearly stated and the consequences are rigid. This way you discourage, or encourage a particular behavior, which is the point of these rules. There should only be a few safety rules. A safety rule for first-graders might be we only cross the street when we are holding a grown-ups hand. The consequence could be losing outside playtime. For a teenager, a safety rule is, we put our phones on do not disturb when driving. The consequence could be losing the car for awhile. If the safety rule isn’t followed, the consequences occur regardless of why the rule was broken.
Expectation Rules
The next category of rules are expectations. You establish these rules according to your family values to make sure everyone is on the same page. There can be more than one rule under each family value. These rules can be stated positively to encourage the desired behavior. If a family value is respect and a rule is wait your turn to speak, a consequence occurs if they interrupt. The consequences for breaking these rules are much less severe than the consequences for breaking a safety rule. A consequence for a first offense might be a reminder or warning. If they continue to interrupt, they might have to apologize and finally, they might have to leave the room. Rewarding desired behavior is a good way to reinforce expectation rules.
Aspiration Rules
Aspiration rules are the things that you aspire to do as a family. Maybe you want to eat dinner together, but conflicting schedules make this difficult. If this is an aspiration rule, you can look at schedules and come up with a day that works for everyone. It then becomes an expection that everyone will be there on that day, or consequences will occur. Aspiration rules are flexible and often positive consequences are most effective. However, if an aspiration is put on the schedule, it then becomes an expectation and subject to negative consequences. Aspiration rules are important because they encourage activities that keep your family connected.
Family rules can help your family function effectively. If you are struggling to create and enforce family rules, counseling can help. When you establish clear rules with consistent consequences, your children, and entire family will benefit.
Forgiving others is a process that takes time and effort. If you were abused by a parent, cheated on by a partner, or attacked by a stranger, forgiving the person who hurt you might seem impossible, and even unnecessary. This is especially true when the person that hurt you denies what they did, or isn’t even sorry. However, forgiveness isn’t something you do for them, it’s something you do for you. Forgiveness requires processing what occurred and how it impacted you, and finding a way to let go of the anger, pain, and desire for revenge. When you make peace with what happened, you can let it go and move on.
Why Forgive
Holding on to the pain and anger caused by someone that harmed you isn’t good for you. Those who choose not to forgive can experience problems with their physical and mental health. This can include cardiovascular problems, a weakened immune system, and increased symptoms of anxiety and depression. When the focus is on the hurt instead of healing, you might replay the negative experience repeatedly. This negative thought loop can actually perpetuate the pain, anger, and other difficult emotions experienced at the time of the initial offense. If you forgive, you release the negative emotions and the energy you were focusing on. When you are able to forgive those that you are close to, reparation and reestablishing trust is possible. Forgiveness can improve your health, your relationships, and your overall emotional well-being.
Why It’s Hard To Forgive
Forgiveness is not always easy. At times it can be seemingly impossible. There are a number of reasons why forgiveness can be a difficult process. It can be hard to give up the anger, pain, and desire for revenge related to what happened. This is especially true if you haven’t spent time feeling it and working through it. You may believe that forgiving lets the person who hurt you off the hook. It’s possible that you believe that forgiveness means you have to accept the person back into your life in the same way, or forget what they did. Maybe you believe forgiveness isn’t necessary if the person is no longer in your life, doesn’t know they hurt you, or isn’t even sorry. Giving up thoughts of revenge and letting go of focusing on the past, and instead living in the present, can be scary. You might be afraid you’ll forget, or give the impression that what happened wasn’t that big of a deal. There is also the possibility of believing that forgiving means you are giving the person permission to hurt you again.
Define Forgiveness
Defining what forgiveness means to you, is an important step in the forgiveness process. Decide for yourself if forgiving others is something you do for them, or for you. Figure out what religious, family, and personal beliefs influence your definition and if you believe you have to forget and no longer feel hurt to forgive. Consider whether or not you want to continue to have a relationship with the person that hurt you and what that might look like. These are some things that you might want to think about when formulating your definition of forgiveness. The psychological definition of forgiveness, is making a deliberate choice to release the need for vengeance and harboring resentment toward those who have caused you harm. When you clearly define what forgiveness is and is not, it should be easier for you to let go and move on.
Acknowledge Your Feelings
If you have been hurt by someone, especially a person you really care about, you might experience a lot of different feelings. You could feel pain, anger, confusion, betrayal, and many other emotions. It is okay to feel whatever it is you are feeling. Accepting your feelings and allowing them to be, is the easiest way to work through them. There is no reason to judge your feelings, they are what they are. Pushing your feelings down and trying to ignore them can prevent you from working through them and being able to forgive. It is much easier to begin the healing journey when you are able to acknowledge and process your emotions.
Forgive Yourself First
The decision to forgive others always starts with forgiving yourself. If you are struggling to forgive someone that hurt you, maybe you need to forgive yourself first. It’s possible that you blame yourself for ignoring obvious signs. Perhaps you were in the wrong place at the wrong time. There is also the possibility that even though you did nothing to cause what happened, you still struggle with guilt and shame. You might believe that you were hurt because there is something inherently wrong with who you are. While it might be hard to forgive yourself, doing so can be quite freeing and can improve your emotional well-being. Practicing self-forgiveness also enables you to extend that forgiveness to others.
Establish Strong Boundaries
Forgiveness is not the same thing as saying what happened didn’t hurt, and is okay. It does not mean that you have to forget what transpired. If what was done, or not done, was not okay, you want to establish a strong boundary around this to help prevent it from happening again. A boundary is for you, not for the other person. In order for a boundary to be effective, it must be clearly stated and have specific consequences that you are willing and able to follow through with. Creating clear boundaries, and being aware of what the consequence will be if the boundary is broken, enables you to forgive the other person and repair your relationship. This way you forgive the person, but maintain a boundary around what caused you pain, so it is less likely to happen again.
Practice Compassion
No one is perfect. Mistakes are bound to happen, even quite painful ones. Practicing empathy and compassion can help you find a way to forgive. Focusing on what happened and how bad it hurt can reinforce the negative experience and difficult emotions since you are giving them so much energy. Shifting the focus to empathy and compassion enables you to view the offender as a flawed human. Although it does not make what happened okay, it helps change the focus. The focus is now on understanding and kindness instead of pain and revenge. This subtle shift can make a big difference in your outlook and ability to forgive.
Write It Down
Forgiveness is something you do for you, so you can let go and move on. Therefore, you do not have to tell the person that hurt you that you forgive them. If you want to let them know they are forgiven you can, but it is certainly not necessary. Sometimes, writing down what happened and what you want to say about it, can help you release it. You could write out what happened and how it impacted you. When you are ready, you can write out what forgiveness means to you and why you choose to forgive. You could give this to the person if that seems important, keep it for yourself, or destroy it as a way of symbolically releasing yourself from the pain. Writing it down can keep you clear on what forgiveness is and why it’s important to you, while also honoring the experience and the process.
It Is A Process
Forgiveness is a process. It takes time to fully recognize what occurred and how it impacted you. Time is also needed to determine what forgiveness is, why it is important, and how you can forgive. It is rarely a one time event. Making the decision to forgive someone is just the start. You need to go through the process of forgiving before you can release the pain and desire for revenge and be able to let it go. It could be easy forgiving part of an offense, but quite difficult forgiving another aspect of it. Maybe you have no problem forgiving one person for what they did, but you struggle to forgive another person that did the same thing. Forgiveness is a process that takes time, effort, and energy. You do not have to hurry the process, and you don’t have to judge it either. When you allow the process to unfold, forgiving the person that hurt you will seem more complete and it will be easier to let it go.
Forgiving others isn’t always easy. If you are struggling with your ability to forgive someone and it is having a negative impact on your life, individual counseling can help. Forgiving others can be freeing. When you experience the freedom forgiving others provides, you can move towards your future feeling lighter, happier, and more at peace.
Connection and autonomy are essential components of a healthy, secure relationship. When things are going well, it is easy to navigate the conflicting needs of spending time together and spending time apart. However, when things become stressful due to life transitions, illness, or other concerns, balancing these needs can be hard. This is especially true when one person pulls their partner close, and the other pushes their partner away. When this happens, a relationship pattern known as pursuer/distancer can develop. If the pursuer/distancer relationship pattern becomes an ongoing part of the couple relationship, it could be difficult for the relationship to survive.
The Pursuer/Distancer Pattern
A pursuer/distancer relationship pattern can occur when a couple experiences relationship stress. There is a struggle between the need for closeness and the need for distance. When the pursuer experiences relationship stress, they turn to their partner for increased closeness and reassurance. The distancer feels overwhelmed by their partner’s pursuit and withdraws to relieve anxiety. The pursuer then increases their efforts to ease their own anxiety, often through criticism, anger, and making more demands. This causes the distancer to withdraw further and respond critically to the added demands, while avoiding their partner by increasing involvement in other areas of their life. The pursuer can eventually feel defeated and withdraw from the relationship, becoming the distancer. The distancer can then fear that their partner will leave the relationship, so they take on the role of the pursuer, and thus the pattern continues. While this can be a normal pattern in relationships during times of stress, it can be problematic if it becomes entrenched. When this happens, the behavior of one partner triggers and perpetuates the behavior of the other.
An Example
The pursuer/distancer pattern can cause a lot of problems for a couple and can interfere with their ability to maintain a loving connection. For example, a couple is sitting on the couch together watching television. The wife turns off the television and asks her husband what’s wrong. The husband says nothing is wrong, he was just trying to watch the show. The wife gets upset and tells the husband that he always shuts down and he never shares his feelings with her. The husband says that he doesn’t know what she is talking about and that she is overreacting. The wife tells the husband that he is cold and emotionless and probably doesn’t even have feelings. The husband says he has work to do and leaves the room. Either partner can assume either role. This can also change over time or in different situations. This relationship pattern can be extremely destructive. It can lead to divorce or separation if this pattern continues to be a regular part of the relationship.
Pursuers
The partner that is the pursuer tends to enjoy talking about their feelings with their partner and needs emotional closeness. When problems arise, they react quickly and emotionally. The purser often has an anxious attachment style and requires a lot of reassurance from their partner. They need a lot of affection, connection, and attention from their partner in order to feel secure in their relationship. Expressing feelings comes easily to pursuers and they crave a deep connection with their partner. They can be emotionally intense and highly sensitive and are very attuned to the slightest hint of rejection. When their partner requires space, they can take it as a personal rejection and can resort to nagging, criticism, and blaming in order to ease their anxiety and try to force their partner to reconnect. This behavior often pushes their partner even further away.
Distancers
The distancer values independence and requires a great deal of personal space. When problems occur, they like to think things through, and avoid uncomfortable emotions by engaging in compulsive behaviors. They often have an avoidant attachment style and require emotional and physical space when relationship anxiety is high. Autonomy is highly valued and it can be difficult for them to identify their feelings and express vulnerability. Although they also value connection, distancers can feel overwhelmed by their partner’s pursuit as they need to feel emotionally safe to establish and maintain a connection. To avoid feeling emotional pressure and to protect both themselves and the relationship, they minimize their partner’s concerns, shut down and go silent to avoid conflict, and withdraw from their partner. The distancer responds to their partner’s pleas for connection with rationality, which can cause their partner to feel rejected and misunderstood.
The Attraction
Pursuers and distancers are often quite drawn to one another as they each have what the other lacks. Distancers can view pursuers as being passionate, direct, and ambitious. Pursuers, on the other hand, see distancers as calm, self-reliant, and confident. When trouble occurs, the natural opposite reactions of the pursuer and distancer create anxiety for their partner. This anxiety reinforces the pattern and the pursuer becomes more insistent on connection and increases their emotional response, while the distancer responds to the increase in intensity by withdrawing further. Each time a problem arises, the pattern becomes more deeply ingrained.
Breaking The Pattern
Breaking the pursuer/distancer pattern requires each of the partner’s to give a little. The reality is that everyone needs both autonomy and connection. Relationships require give and take and asking for what you need. Understanding and addressing the attachment needs of your partner during times of relationship stress can stop the pursuer/distancer pattern. It takes a willingness to acknowledge the pattern, directly ask for what you need from your partner, and alter the automatic response that occurs when relationship anxiety takes over.
What Pursuers Can Do
Since the pursuer is often more concerned about the distance in the relationship and more motivated to fix it, changing the pattern often starts with them. The pursuer needs to find a way to stop the chase. The pursuer can acknowledge their needs and clearly state what they are. Instead of turning towards the relationship to meet all of their needs, they can create a rich experience outside of their relationship and begin to meet some of their own needs. When they can learn to self-soothe, they can calm their relationship anxiety and decrease the demands and criticism. By embracing their own need for independence, they can turn to their partner for interconnection, instead of turning to them to relieve their anxiety.
What Distancers Can Do
The distancer can also change the relationship pattern by focusing on their own behavior. Distancers can schedule a time to connect with their partner, both emotionally and physically. Scheduled connection time also allows for scheduled alone time. When the pursuer knows that there is a scheduled time for connection, it can decrease their anxiety about the relationship and their need to pursue. The distancer can start being more vulnerable with their partner. They can share their day, their feelings, and thoughts, and actively listen to their partner. They can ask for space and time to think about an issue their partner has brought up if needed. When asking for time and space, they should let their partner know when they plan to discuss it. When the distancer is able to support their partner in times of stress, instead of withdrawing, the couple can achieve a greater balance between independence and togetherness.
The pursuer/distancer pattern becomes a concern when it becomes entrenched. When you notice the pursuer/distancer pattern becoming more prevalent in your relationship, stopping it will be important to the health of your partnership. If you find it difficult to stop this pattern on your own, couples counseling can help. Learning how to acknowledge and meet each other’s attachment needs without falling into this destructive pattern, can help you create the successful relationship you want.
Forgiveness can be hard. When someone does something that hurts you, it can be difficult to let it go and move on. Although forgiving others can be a daunting task at times, it is often much easier to forgive others than it is to forgive yourself. Everyone makes mistakes. Maybe you missed your daughter’s winning goal because you left work late, told a lie that caused problems for others, or perhaps your actions resulted in life-altering consequences. No matter what happened, practicing self-forgiveness provides an opportunity for important growth, meaningful change, and improved emotional well-being. Below are 7 tips for practicing self-forgiveness.
Why You Should Forgive Yourself
Fixating on difficult emotions, such as guilt, anger, and shame, can have negative consequences on your mental and physical health. Ruminating on these feelings keeps your nervous system on high alert. The adrenaline release related to these emotions can lead to heart problems, autoimmune diseases, and mental health issues, such as anxiety and depression. Beating yourself up over and over again strengthens the feelings of guilt and shame and reinforces the accompanying self-belief of being a bad person. Staying stuck in the past prevents you from moving forward and learning valuable lessons. Self-forgiveness enables you to separate who you are, from the mistakes you have made. This way you can begin to learn from your choices and find ways to make amends when possible. It will be easier to truly forgive others when you start forgiving yourself. Forgiveness is a process that takes time. Below are some tips to get you started on your journey towards self-forgiveness.
1. Define Forgiveness
Having a clear definition of forgiveness, and what it means to you, is an important first step. Your definition could stem from your religious beliefs, family, or personal ideas. When you define what forgiveness is, make sure you are also clear on what it is not. If you believe that forgiveness releases you from responsibility, or means that you are not at fault, it will feel like you are letting yourself off the hook. Understanding forgiveness as forgetting, or moving on as if nothing happened will keep you stuck in shame or denial. This is why it is important to have a clear definition of forgiveness. Perhaps forgiveness can be defined as a decision to acknowledge that you are flawed and made poor choices that have caused harm. But instead of continuing to punish yourself and wallow in shame, you are choosing to treat yourself with compassion and understanding so you can learn from this experience, accept responsibility for your actions, and grow in ways that will encourage effective change.
2. Acknowledge Your Feelings
In order to forgive yourself, you need to acknowledge your feelings, not deny them. Set aside time to focus on your feelings without judgment. Name your emotions and allow yourself to experience what you feel. You can feel anything you need to feel and these feelings don’t have to define your responses. This might be difficult, but you will not be able to let go of your feelings of guilt and shame until you acknowledge them, feel them, and allow yourself to work through them. It is normal to experience remorse when you have caused pain for someone else. Acknowledging these feelings enables you to gain a deeper understanding of what occurred. Ignoring your emotions can lead to more regret, which can make self-forgiveness very difficult.
3. Acknowledge What You Did
You can’t really learn from your mistakes unless you are able to acknowledge them. Acknowledging what happened and taking responsibility for your part in it allows you to gain insight into why it happened. Put judgment aside and look at what actually occurred and your role in the situation. When you learn the lessons related to what you did, you can also take steps to avoid doing it again. Living in denial keeps you from owning up to your mistakes and learning from them. Likewise, replaying the incident over and over again keeps the focus on what went wrong, instead of on what you learned. If you can acknowledge what behaviors and actions lead to the problem, you can take the steps necessary to make effective changes.
4. Apologize
If your actions caused someone else harm, apologize. A heartfelt apology to someone you have hurt can go a long way towards self-forgiveness. It will probably be difficult to truly forgive yourself if you still feel as though you need to make amends with someone else. While you can’t anticipate how your apology will be received, saying sorry to the injured party can help you let it go sooner and find forgiveness for yourself. If you hurt someone else and are unable to apologize to them, writing down what you would like to say can keep you from ruminating on it. You can write out an apology to yourself as well. For an apology to seem sincere, you need to admit what you did wrong, explain why you regret it, acknowledge the pain you have caused, and describe what you plan to do differently in the future to ensure it is unlikely to happen again.
5. Focus On What You Learned
It is much easier to learn important lessons when things go wrong, then when they go right. If you can focus on the learning experience and what you will do differently going forward, you may find self-forgiveness more appropriate. When you know what you did and the consequences, you can make a different choice going forward. Sometimes this type of lesson is learned most effectively when you mess up. It is normal to get caught up in what you did wrong, but you may not learn much from this if it is your only focus. By focusing on what adjustments you need to make going forward, you can grow from the experience. When you can view it as a hard lesson learned, you may be able to start forgiving yourself.
6. Make Meaningful Changes
In order to forgive yourself, you may need to make some changes. Acknowledging that your actions caused a problem is only the first step. You also need to change your behavior. If you continue the problematic behavior, you are not taking responsibility for what you did. Only changing the behavior can lead to the possibility of a better outcome. For example, if you are continuously late for work and feel bad about this, you can change this by leaving your house earlier. If making a behavioral change won’t help the situation, you can make a meaningful change in a different way. You could volunteer, share your story with others, or work to devise a future solution. Paying it forward is a good way to shift your focus from what you did wrong to what you are doing about it.
7. Practice Compassion
Just as you show compassion for others, you can show compassion for yourself. Continuously beating yourself up about something that has already happened and can’t be undone reinforces the negative. This can lead to a troubling self-perception that you are a damaged person who is not worthy of grace. Instead, you can treat yourself with kindness and acceptance. Talk to yourself the way you would talk to your best friend. Recognize that making a mistake does not make you a mistake. Even though you are probably harder on yourself than you are on anyone else, the way you treat yourself is a choice. Choosing to treat yourself with compassion and understanding can help you practice forgiveness for both others, and yourself.
While forgiving yourself may not be easy, it is very important to your emotional health. If you are struggling with forgiving yourself for past mistakes, individual counseling can help. Remember, you do not have to forget what happened to forgive yourself. When you are able to forgive yourself, you can experience important growth and change that can improve your overall well-being.
Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) is a structured couples therapy approach developed by Sue Johnson and colleagues, based on John Bowlby’s attachment theory. This approach is founded on the premise that attachment needs and bonds continue into adult relationships. Distress occurs for couples when attachment fears, especially the fear of abandonment, are triggered. Emotional responses to these fears can cause distress in the couple relationship. If a couple has a hard time meeting the emotional needs of one another, they can become stuck in negative patterns of interaction. These negative patterns occur due to ineffective attempts to understand each other’s emotional responses and related attachment needs.
EFT helps couples understand each other’s attachment needs and insecurities so couples can learn to respond to each other in more empathic, emotionally connected ways. When couples learn to respond in this way, they develop a more secure attachment. EFT can help couples understand their own emotional responses as well as the emotional responses of their partner. The goal of EFT is to help couples reinforce positive relational bonds already in place and to increase secure attachment and connection in the couple relationship.
EFT Stages
There are three stages and nine steps involved in EFT. The first stage is the assessment and de-escalation phase. During this stage, the therapist assesses the couples patterns of interaction and helps to de-escalate conflict. In the second stage of EFT, the therapist works with the couple to find ways to form a stronger bond and a more secure attachment. The final stage of EFT is about consolidation and integration. During this stage, the therapist helps the couple identify the changes that have occurred and integrate them into all aspects of the couples lives.
The Stages And Steps
Stage 1: Assess And De-escalate
Step 1: Identify key issues of concern for the couple.
Step 2: Identify negative relationship patterns of interaction and
how they increase conflict when important issues arise.
Step 3: The therapist helps the couple to identify unacknowledged
fears and negative emotions related to attachment needs and negative
relationship patterns.
Step 4: The therapist reframes key issues in terms of negative
relationship patterns and underlying emotions related to
attachment needs.
Stage 2: Changing Patterns of Interaction
Step 5: The couple are each able to share their deeper
emotions and needs based on attachment.
Step 6: The couple is coached in how to show acceptance and
compassion for their partner’s deep emotions and attachment
needs.
Step 7: The couple leans how to express deep emotions and
attachment needs while discussing issues that are likely to lead to
conflict.
Stage 3: Consolidation And Integration
Step 8: The therapist coaches the couple in using new
communication styles to discuss old problems and create
new solutions.
Step 9: The couple learns new ways to use skills learned in
therapy in other situations outside of therapy and develops a
plan to make new interaction patterns a consistent part of life
after therapy.
Is EFT Effective
Emotionally focused couples therapy is an evidence based therapeutic approach. There is strong empirical evidence supporting the efficacy of EFT. Couples who participate in EFT often feel emotionally closer to their partner. Once the couple addresses attachment injuries and blamer softening occurs, couples report feeling a deeper level of connection to one another, which often results in an increase in relationship satisfaction. Furthermore, what the couple learns in EFT can be translated to other areas of their lives, encouraging a more secure attachment to each other.
EFT In Practice
A couple comes in for therapy because of constant fighting and a lack of intimacy. In the first stage of therapy, the therapist helps the couple recognize the interaction patterns that develop based on attachment needs. For this couple, the husband reaches out to his wife and the wife doesn’t respond the way he wants her to, so he becomes angry and critical. His wife responds to his anger by withdrawing. The couple’s interaction pattern is one of pursuing and withdrawing. The therapist helps them understand the underlying emotions of the husband feeling rejected and the wife feeling afraid.
In the second and third stages of therapy, the couple learns how to change their patterns of interaction. The therapist helps the couple acknowledge and validate their partner’s emotional experience. The couple is encouraged and coached to brainstorm new solutions that work for both partners. When the couple recognizes the emotions underlying the behavior of their partner, they are able to alter their own reactions and establish healthier interaction patterns. The therapist then helps the couple to develop a plan to utilize this approach in other areas of their lives where conflict can arise.
If you are struggling in your relationship, couples counseling can help. A therapist that is trained in EFT can help you understand your attachment needs and improve your emotional connection so that you can feel closer to each other. When you feel understood and deeply connected to your partner, your couple connection can grow stronger.
