EFT THERAPY SACRAMENTO
Do you ever feel like no matter how hard you try, even the people closest to you never seem to fully understand you?
Maybe even when you’re wanting to share how you feel, you have trouble finding the right words to communicate that with your partner, family, friends, or boss.
Maybe you’re someone that has been told you’re “too sensitive,” or on the contrary, “too closed off.” Either way, there’s just something about the way you think or feel that no one seems to get no matter how many times you’ve tried to explain it.
The unspoken myth is that if we don’t show our emotions, we have them under control.
It’s a nice thought, but emotions are not something that we are born being able to regulate.
Think of an infant. They cry and fuss around when there is something wrong but they do not have the words to communicate what it is they need. Their caregiver has to figure it out and help them regulate their emotions. As their parents or caregivers learn more about the emotional language of the infant, they begin to tie together that “When Little Jimmy cries he needs us to hold him and rock him. When Little Jimmy fusses, he needs us to change him. When Little Jimmy coos, he is happy and content.”
Emotions were our first and primary way of communicating, but once we got older and learned more and more words, the majority of us never quite adapted to being fluent in both our emotional and verbal languages. Maybe we never learned the right words to explain how we were feeling, or maybe certain feelings haven’t always been safe to express in our family or relationships.
We might not cry or coo anymore to express our emotions, but one way or another, we do let them out.
Sometimes adult emotions look more like getting road rage when someone cuts us off on the freeway, slamming the door after having a fight with your spouse, or feeling a pit in our stomach when someone cancels plans on us for the third time. These reactions are not random. They are coming from underlying emotions that are trying to communicate with you.
So how do we develop the ability to get in touch with our emotions so we can understand the needs they are communicating to us?
…and can we communicate our emotional needs to other people in a healthy way, so they can help us meet those needs?
How do we know who is safe and who is not safe to share those emotions with?
Emotion-Focused Therapy (EFT) is a therapeutic approach formulated on the theory that emotions are key to identity, decision making, and relationships. EFT therapists believe that in order to understand the important information emotions provide, we need our focus to be more on an awareness and acceptance of our emotions rather than attempting to suppress and control our emotions.
In order to manage our emotions, we have to understand where they are coming from.
Frequent questions about EFT Therapy…
How does EFT work?
EFT therapy offers a wide range of insight on how to understand our identity, our relationships, and the world around us. An awareness of our emotions leads to the ability to transform our emotions and better use the information they provide to keep us from harming ourselves or others in the process of getting what we need and forming the type of relationships we want to have.
What will I learn in EFT therapy?
You’ll learn the five steps to practicing EFT.
ONE
Identify the trigger: Where did the feeling come from?
i.e. “My partner just slammed the door after a fight”
TWO
Identify the emotion: What am I feeling?
i.e. “I’m feeling scared”
THREE
Look at the deeper emotion: Why do I feel this way?
i.e. “My dad used to slam the door, and then he would get really violent”
FOUR
Understand your needs: What do I need?
i.e. “I need to feel safe in my home.”
FIVE
Communicate your needs: How can others help me feel better?
i.e. To my partner: “When you slam the door, it makes me feel scared because it reminds me of a time that I didn’t feel safe. I need to feel safe in my home, so if you need to leave the room when we’re fighting, can you please not slam the door behind you?”
Are there issues EFT isn't right for?
Some disorders such as post-traumatic stress disorder, panic disorder, or personality disorders can be disproportionate responses with one's respective feelings toward their internal experience. Experiences that include intrusive thoughts, impulsive behaviors, or bodily sensations might be triggered while working with an EFT therapist. It is important to exercise caution and be honest with yourself and your therapist if an emotional experience becomes too overwhelming to handle- especially if you suffer from any of the issues mentioned above.
Is EFT well-researched? Is it science-based?
EFT was mostly developed by Sue Johnson Leslie Greenberg as a humanistic approach to psychotherapy. It is an empirically-based approach to person-centered therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, problem-solving therapy, and gestalt therapy. EFT was formulated through the scientific study of the human emotional experience.
Several scientific studies over the years have provided us with information about how emotions are produced, how emotions are related to thoughts and behaviors, and the importance of emotions to how humanity functions.
How is EFT unique?
EFT examines how we experience our emotions internally, rather than focusing too much on how we think and respond to our emotions externally.
Although that idea might sound simple, emotions are extremely complex and can bring us into exploring several categories in our life at once. This aids in creating a better framework for our identity and relationships than perhaps focusing all our energy on one event/circumstance through the therapeutic process.
Next Steps
If you’re interested in receiving EFT or you want to learn more, schedule a FREE 20-minute consultation call to see if EFT is the right fit for you.
