Final Flashcards
Stages of EFT
Stage I: De-escalation of negative cycles and stabilization” (assessing and creating an understanding of interpersonal patterns and foundational attachment-related affect); “Stage II: Creation of new stances and patterns of interaction that foster open responsiveness and more secure bonding” (“withdrawer re-engagement and blamer softening”), allowing attachment needs to surface and be met in a “transforming emotional connection”; and “Stage III: Consolidation/integration” (addressing issues in light of new patterns).
primary emotions
their real feelings, such as fear of rejection
secondary emotions
reactive emotions such as expressing anger or blaming when afraid
step-by-step treatment process for EFT
- Delineating conflict issues in the core struggle
- Identifying the negative interaction cycle
- Accessing the unacknowledged feelings underlying interactional positions
- Reframing the problem in terms of underlying feelings, attachment needs, and negative cycles
- Promoting identification with disowned needs and aspects of self, and integrating these into relationship interactions
- Promoting acceptance of partner’s experiences and new interaction patterns
- Facilitating the expression of needs and wants and creating emotional engagement
- Establishing the emergence of new solutions
- Consolidating new positions
Key Points of EFT
- The therapist acts as a process consultant and helps couples to create collaborative alliances that will allow
them to create a secure bond and explore their emotions. - Emotions are the key element in relationships.
- attachment needs and desires are healthy and adaptive. Problems occur when people are
not able to enact or meet those needs in a secure way. - Problems occur when people develop their interaction patterns based on negative emotions and
experiences that each of them have in the relationship. -emotions and interactional patterns develop a self-reinforcing feedback loop.
-Change occurs by creating new emotional experiences in the present relationships that are based on secure attachment-driven interactions. This theory does not focus on the insight to the past, catharsis, ornegotiation.
The therapist views the relationship between the partners as a “client” in the session.
The goal of therapy is to create relationship that is based on secure bonding
Emotional Engagement
a sense of trust and safety, and self-confidence.
The Structural Model Thesis
The components of a system interact, how balance or homeostasis is achieved, how family feedback mechanisms operate, how dysfunctional communication patterns develop
operational rules
a framework for understanding those consistent, repetitive, and enduring patterns that reveal how a particular family organizes itself in order to maintain its stability or, under new conditions, to seek adaptive alternatives
boundaries
determine who participates and what roles those participants will have in dealing with one another and with outsiders who are not included in the subsystem
Subsystems
components of a family’s structure
Permeability
The ease or flexibility with which members can cross subsystem boundaries within the family and that degree of accessibility helps determine the nature and frequency of contact between family members. Clearly defined boundaries between subsystems help maintain separateness
Spontaneity
The goal is to transcend technique and avoid contrived interventions. Only a person who has mastered technique can transcend it.
Unbalancing
The goal is to change the hierarchical relationships in
the family to restore generational boundaries
enactment
staged effort by the therapist to bring outside
family conflict into the session so that the family members can demonstrate how they deal with it
metacommunication
A message about a message, typically nonverbal (a smile, a shrug, a nod, a wink), offered simultaneously with a verbal message, structuring, qualifying, or adding meaning to that message.
