Couples Therapy
Couple life can be a harbor of safety where we find comfort, sensuality, companionship, humor, and shared work and play. A healthy and balanced relationship can be a shock absorber for life’s stresses and can literally enhance our immune system and give rise to increased ability to take risks, and be open to new experiences.
Distressed relationships, on the other hand, are not only painful, but can also be deadly. Research has shown that emotional isolation is a more dangerous health risk than smoking or high blood pressure, while distress in a primary relationship adversely affects the immune and hormonal systems, slowing healing. And the latest brain imaging science has found that rejection and exclusion trigger the same circuits in the same part of the brain as physical pain.
Couple therapy, in particular Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy (EFT), focuses on the importance of the emotional bond—exploring and promoting ‘effective dependency.’ The power of EFT is that it uses the emotions in and between the partners as a resource to understanding what is being experienced and what is needed. Unlike couple therapy which focuses on communication, conflict styles, reviving a sexual life, or problem solving, EFT explores the importance of the connection which makes any of these possible.
It is the secure relationship which allows the couple to have the difficult conversations and face the challenging situations which are a regular and necessary part of contemporary couple life.
I encourage couples working with me to read Dr. Sue Johnson’s latest book, Hold Me Tight as a companion to the therapy. Her book ties together the ideas supporting EFT therapy and provides many examples of couples, their conversations, and the underlying dynamics. Most couples find themselves and their struggles described somewhere in the book, and take comfort in knowing there is a name for what is going on, and there is something that can be done about it.