Emotion FOCUSED Therapy

I haven't written since Thanksgiving. Like most of you, this pandemic and political climate has taken quite a toll on me. It's January and I've received both my vaccine shots. I have the bandwidth to write again. I can see light at the end of the tunnel. 2021, I admit I have my hopes up.

Ok, let's get to business. In our last Created for Connection Member Group - Kenny said, "This is not emotion feelings therapy - this is emotion FOCUSED therapy."

Why do we need to emphasize this point? People learning EFT often make it their goal to get a primary emotion. If you make this your goal (especially in stage 1), you will be frustrated and your clients might start to placate you (give you a feelings word so you'll back off).

"Kelly, if my goal isn't to find a primary emotion (and therefore corrective emotional experiences) - than what am I doing? "

So, yes - your HOPE is to eventually land on a primary emotion and have a beautiful moment. But, your GOAL needs to be to focus on emotion (and all the parts of it). Follow the model and hold your hopes loosely.

I think Kenny's use of the word "feelings" when he said "this is not emotion feelings therapy" is significant. The model is emotion focused therapy. What is emotion? Aren't emotion and feelings the same? If we take a clinical view of emotion and look at the way "feelings" have been viewed in the broad psychotherapy world - we'll see that there's a big difference.

Those of you that were trained in feelings charts or to identify a feelings word - it might be helpful to throw that out (or try to) when doing EFT.

Emotion is an internal and relational process that happens in the body and brain. Remember Magda Arnold's emotion processing. Emotion includes a cue/trigger (internal, external or both), physiological sensation (body/somatic), appraisal (alarm bells/non-linguistic), reappraisal (meaning making/cognition), action (response). ALL of that is emotion.

What does that mean practically? When you ask your client, "...and what do you tell yourself in that moment?" (re-appraisal) - you're focusing on emotion. When you ask your client, "What is it that you do in these moments? (action tendency) - you're focusing on emotion. When you ask your client, "Where do you notice that in your body?" - yes, focusing on emotion.

There are trainers that stay away from the phrase "and how does that make you feel?" because as a western culture - we have a preconceived notion of what "feelings" means. It's often not experiential. We need to rely on the process of emotion from research in order to help clients organize and access actual emotion - the whole experience of it, not a "primary emotion" arrival point.

This is very nuanced, so if you need help with this, please reach out to any of the EFT supervisors. We're here to help!