About EFT

Developed by Dr. Sue Johnson, Emotionally Focused Therapy for Couples (EFT) offers a comprehensive theory of adult love and attachment, as well as a process for healing distressed relationships.

Couple distress is a common reason adults seek psychotherapy. It undermines family functioning and is strongly associated with depression, anxiety disorders, and alcoholism.

It recognizes that relationship distress results from a perceived threat to basic adult needs for safety, security, and closeness in intimate relationships. This experiential/systemic therapy focuses on helping partners restructure the emotional responses that maintain their negative interaction patterns. Through a series of nine steps, the therapist leads the couple away from conflict deadlock into new bonding interactions. EFT is now one of the best delineated and empirically-validated approaches in the field of couple therapy.