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Message from Sue Johnson:
"I am busily working on a new book that will provide an integration of attachment theory and emotions for psychotherapy. Love Sense continues to sell like hotcakes which helps get this new understanding of romantic love out to the public. Thank you for supporting these efforts in all you do."
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A Master Class in E.F.T.
A 2-Day Workshop about Getting to and Doing Stage 2 Work
Find the "One Thing" that Every EFT Therapist ought focus on from the first phone call through Consolidation.
Explore deliberative practice and habit formation in Stage One work that helps move couples to Stage Two more consistently.
Gain a deeper understanding of Stage 2 as the Trainer shares video clips of his work with 4 or more couples who are doing Stage Two work.
"This is an excellent workshop. If you are able to take it, you will not leave disappointed. Jim's energy and authenticity helped me move my work with couples to a new and deeper level." Kate Pickett
Details and Registration InformationClick Here
For Feedback about the Workshop from Recent Evaluations, click here
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CONGRATULATIONS
Pam Semmler and Misti Klarenbeck-McKenna, Colorado's Newest ICEEFT Certified Supervisors!!!
Jonathan Zalesne, on obtaining Certification as an EFT Therapist
Well done all.
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Core Skills Group:
We will start a new group in early 2016. If you want to attend and want to participate in selecting dates for the first weekends, please contact us to get on the list for this event. For information and to be added to the wait list for Core Skills please e-mail to registration@
coloradeft.com
with Core Skills Wait List in the subject line - let us know if you prefer a Boulder, Central Denver or South Denver area location
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ICEEFT Newsletter, Special Issue and Summer Issue are available now at
www.iceeft.com for all ICEEFT Members
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EFT Tip: When we get lost or dysregulated with a couple, we can be transparent and go back to the last place in session where we felt attuned to one or both partners, "John and Bob, I think I got lost in your cycle with you. Actually, it makes me a bit anxious. But I remember a few minutes ago that Bob, you started to tear up. Can we go back to those tears?"
Sometimes we can laugh too at our situation with a couple. Channel Yogi Berra who said, "We may be lost, but we are making good time." Getting lost and found is part of the dance in a marriage and in our work with couples. Embrace getting lost and it's a bit less scary.
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Emotionally Focused Family Therapy
The Center in conjunction with the University of Colorado at Denver is proud to present Gail Palmer, Ph.D., EFT Trainer, December 7, 2015 - a one-day workshop on EFFT.
Dr. Palmer brings over two decades of experience training therapists and working with families through an EFT lens. She is part of the Trainer working team that developed a cogent, concise application of Emotionally Focused Therapy with Families known as EFFT.
If you or a colleague you know works with families in your private practice or agency, then this workshop is for you. Gail is a beloved trainer and her wisdom about EFT with families is invaluable. Join us on December 7th, to register click here
Location: EDU, 999 18th Street, Suite 144, Denver
Registration is through UC-D
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With a wait list of over 50 clinicians eager to take this 4-Day Training in EFT, we anticipate the 2016 Externship will sell out. Super Early Bird rates are available for a short time,
click here for more information or to register.
We are grateful to the EFT Therapists who provided support at last year's Externship and look forward to working with the EFT Support Team again in 2016.
The Externship provides a didactic overview of the model with live couples therapy session demonstrations, video examples of EFT in action, discussion and role-play activity.
If you are ready to integrate attachment-theory with an emotional-focus using an empirically-validated therapy approach, join us May 4 through 7, 2016.
If you have completed core skills training, and have interest in being on the support, resource team for this training, please e-mail us with subject line "Externship Helper" to [email protected] Priority consideration given to those who can attend all or most of the 4 day training to build community and foster cohesion. Thank you!
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Working with Substitute Attachments in EFT
Growing evidence indicates that many
addictive substances work in areas of the brain associated with attachment, attachment emotions and needs. Flores, in Addiction as an Attachment Disorder, describes the process in which a person begins to rely on alcohol or other substances to indirectly meet their attachment needs. Unfortunately, this process inevitably leads to further distance and intensified negative emotional cycles for couples. The growing dependence on alcohol for example over partner foster a more chaotic or intensified pursuit-withdrawal cycle.
Emotional affairs function much the same way. An emotional pursuer, lets say, turns towards a work colleague at first innocently. The attention is nice. We have similar interests. Flirtation may be mild or non-existent. But at lunch one day, I share some of the distress in the marriage. My colleague responds to my vulnerability in a soothing manner. My attachment system turns towards this person saying, "It's safe here." And the unmet needs surface. It may take time, but I find myself fixating on my chances to talk to my colleague. Like the alcoholic above, I may lie or omit information about the depth of my connection with this person. We never kiss or get sexual, but my heart is with another.
Substitute attachments that serve to either meet unmet needs for contact, comfort and connection or to help numb, distract or release uncomforable attachment needs abound. Rather than calling these out as bad behaviors, EFT Therapists might explore them as part of a couple's negative cycle. "When he drinks, what happens to you?" "It starts when I hear the fridge open in the late afternoon. I can hear the pop top on the beer can being released. The sound sends shivers down my spine. I recoil at first. I want to shout "no, don't go away again tonight," but I know it will only make things worse." And we might turn to the drinker, "Can you help me understand what the beers do for you at night." They share and we explore.
Substitute attachments can be doorways in to the attachment lens. If we meet people where they are, exploring the gambling, shopping, working out compulsion, the need to go to every comic book convention, etc, we can uncover unexpressed attachment emotions and needs. "At home, it's all about what I don't do, how I let her down. With my friends at comic-con, they are excited to see me. We talk without me getting in trouble. I don't have to get all in to processing, talking and feeling. It's just fun." One can see the openings here in to this person attachment experience. It can be seen too as a move in the dance, a withdrawal, which triggers the partner. The attachment significance of going outside the relationship to get relief, attention or distract can be uncovered and explored.
Attachment substitution may be a natural survival move, driven by attachment emotions, that develop sometimes over long periods of time (or in childhood). Other times, people may stumble on to one, like a partner last year in my practice who felt very alone and isolated in his marriage. Out at a bar for happy hour, after many months of no emotional intimacy, this male pursuer started talking to a woman. She gave him lots of sympathy and praise. Later, he found himself in a car in the parking lot kissing. Then she invited him to do some meth. Something he'd never imagined doing. "An hour later, I was gone on this meth high. I didn't come home until six in the morning. I lied. Said I got sick and stayed at my friends." Months later, he opened up in therapy, "I think I am in trouble," to his wife, as he broke down in tears, "I am hooked on something really bad."
The attachment lens serves as well in understanding the behaviors of partners in insecure attachment dances. Attachment substitutes is a way of looking at habitual, compulsive behaviors that get in the way of closeness, fuel the cycle, and indirectly and perhaps harmfully meet or numb attachment needs (and emotions). Copyright, 2016
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Announcing a Master Class in EFT, 2016
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Mark Your Calendar
New Master Class with Jim Thomas, EFT Trainer
February 26 and 27th, 2016
"Beginning Sessions in EFT"
Lessons from the Front Line of EFT Work on How to Start Well with Couples in Early Sessions. An integratiive experience for those who have taken or are taking core skills training in EFT.
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