How Do I Know if My Couple is Ready for Stage Two?

I get this question a lot: "What exactly does stage 2 look like?"

EFT is such an intuitive model, it can be maddening. Yes? You throw yourself into the model and feel your way through it, but then you get at the stage 1/stage 2 crossroad and you think, "Wait. Wait a minute. Am I in stage 2? And, hang on a second - what do I do exactly?"

Intuition combined with structure equals EFT magic.

There's an overlap here.

An aside - (Most things I write about here I learn by doing supervision - you guys teach me so much! Supervision is an amazing way to fine tune your EFT game. This is where everything is questioned and you can't take anything for granted).

Ok, where were we? The crossroad of stage 1 and 2 and how to blend intuition and structure for magic.

You're not going to do anything too different regarding following the mini-map (what to do in session). In stage 1 - tango. Stage 2 - tango. The difference is what you enact and how the couple presents.

This is the big take away. You know you're in stage 2 because your couple tells you. They show you. Watch them. As you do a move 2 (assembling emotion with one of the partners), what confidence do you have that the other partner will be there and not drop them? If you have zero to 40% confidence - you are in stage 1. If you have anything more than that - you could be in stage 2.

Then, what happens when you enact? Does the listening partner easily receive and respond with little to no help from you? Stage 2. And, what kind of enactment did you set up? If you can stay with one partner for a while, go deep (into fears/longings/view of self) and the listening partner can easily be there - stage 2.

So - stage 2 is actually your reward for doing all the stage 1 work. And, stage 1 takes the longest. It's a lot of repetition and stamina - you have to be in the worst part of the trenches with your couple. You earn stage 2. Your couple earns stage 2.

Also - if your couple is in any amount of distress at all when coming to therapy (which I'm assuming they would be) - don't expect to get to stage 2 in less than around 12 sessions (at the earliest). Don't hold me to that number. It's my anecdotal experience. I've had couples enter stage 2 around session 9, but I've also had couples take years to get to stage 2, so - hold the session number thing loosely.

Here's where therapists get confused: often times you can get one partner to go pretty deep and talk about view of self in stage one. They can access and show emotion. BUT - look at the system. You're not doing individual therapy. Can their partner be with them in that emotion and respond? The level of emotion or depth of one partner is not alone a marker for stage 2. This is usually a shift in therapist mindset to go from individual work to couples work.

You have to keep your eyes and your heart on both partners at all times. Imagine you have two young kids coming to you, both hurting. What do you do? Maybe you put your hand on one child's back while you talk to the other. And, you switch your gaze back and forth between both of them because they both need you at the same time.

You can do this. A supervisee told me something he learned on "The Leading Edge" podcast recently.

"I just need to get in the snake pit with them. I have to be willing to open myself up enough to really get in there with them instead of just managing the distress."

Otherwise, people will stay where they are. This also means you have to get in the collective snake pit (with both partners). You have to do the thing that they can't do for each other - yet. Do it long enough until the entire system looks different.

Bottom line: when you look for markers for stage 2, look in the eyes of both partners. What do you see? Are they both with you and each other? They'll be with you before they're with each other.