EMOTIONALLY FOCUSED FAMILY THERAPY

EFT for Families (EFFT)

EFFT follows the principles and practices of Emotionally Focused Family Therapy: to restore connection and promote resilience in family relationships. Communication problems often intensify when families are facing a crisis - either relating to a difficulty in a child’s life, a serious medical emergency or ongoing health concern, or a significant loss impacting the family. When serious life issues interfere with communication, the closeness and security in a family, is eroded or breaks down leading to isolation and loss of connection. The principal goal of EFFT is to re-establish more secure family patterns; with a focus on strengthening or repairing damage to the emotional bonds holding a family together. Loving family relationships flourish when families can face challenges from a secure and connected base.

Certain key life stages involve higher levels of change and stress that lead couples to seek couples/family therapy:

When you Become New Parents…

Stepping into new Mom and Dad roles can be happily exhilarating and bonding for a couple. It also thrusts them into a world with new daily (and hourly) tasks related to caring and providing for their marriage and growing family.

Increasing responsibilities with sleep deprivation, loss of intimacy, loss of personal time, along with the added pressures at work, can cause strain and tension in the relationship and lead to conflict.

When fights intensify and do not end well, couples can resort to withdrawing or shutting down, causing a loss of closeness and connection. The distance then leads to feelings of isolation and loneliness. EFT Couples Therapy helps couples stay connected; while navigating the added responsibilities of a growing family.

Parenting Adolescents and Young Adults

It can be challenging for a couple to be “on the same page” during the years of parenting teens and young adults.

Conflict can relate to different or opposing perspectives about the attitudes, decisions, and life choices of their teens and young adults.  Or, they have differing views about how best to address a concern or difficulty. Often there are particular relationships in a family that are more distressed and those create tension in the family as a whole. EFFT Family therapy helps families overcome repeating negative patterns, estrangement or conflicts and build a greater sense of partnership and unity.

“When my partner or co-parent sides with our child, it feels invalidating.”

“We are not addressing parenting decisions from a unified place”

“I feel overwhelmed with all the responsibility on me.”

“I feel alone and concerned my partner doesn’t care about parenting as much as I do.”