Action Tendency Questions
Have you ever had EFT therapy? Like, have you sat in the chair as a client and experienced really good EFT therapy? I have. And, here's what happens. It's this "in the room" new conversation, then flashback to real life. So, as you're having the new conversation, you're also simultaneously looking at yourself in real life. It's like watching a movie with a surprise ending. And then it all comes together and you can look back at the beginning of the movie and make sense of it. And, you're crying.
I tell you this because I think it's helpful to know what your clients are experiencing when you ask the action tendency questions. What's so important about action tendency questions? If clients can't make the connection between real life (protective behaviors/reactive emotion) and the "new conversation" (therapy - slow and safe), then they'll never actually get to second order change. They'll just cope in a different way. Change behavior, but never heal the heart.
If you're unsure of what I'm talking about with action tendency questions, here's a quick review on how to track the cycle: once you validate secondary emotion/what the cue is from their partner, then what the appraisal is/threat they hear - you'll ask some version of "What do you do next?" or..."Do you share this? No..then what do you do instead?"...by this time they might have accessed a little something new and then enact (linking new, more primary emotion with action tendency and secondary emotion). The "What do you do?" is the action tendency question. There are so many ways to ask it.
There are some clients that are a bit "flowery." You know? They don't really answer questions - they kind of float above and say the things they're thinking in the moment. Or, they've accessed emotion and opened up, but can't really tell you what their "action tendency" is. And if you say, "What's your action tendency..." - that might not land well. Ha!
My favorite question for those clients is this:
"So, what would be happening right now if I wasn't in the room?"
Then, you get a "in the room"/experiential and clear picture of what "they do" and what's happening now (the under the surface). Once you can grab that, you validate the mess out of it and then they start to make connections OUTSIDE of therapy (EFT gold).