Emotionally Focused Therapy: What It Is And What Problems It Is Applied To
The affective-emotional sphere is probably one of the most important when considering our level of well-being.
How we feel and how we react to the situations and people around us affect the way we see reality (and also ourselves, others, and the world itself) and our behavior. But it is not always easy to manage and manage our emotions and the way we structure them and link them to events.
Sometimes severe conflicts may appear that may make it necessary to use some type of therapy focused on these factors. Although there are a wide variety of therapies that act on the emotional sphere, there is one that acts on them in a very specific way: emotion focused therapy
The name emotion-focused therapy or emotion-focused therapy is a type of psychological therapy or treatment that, as its name indicates, is characterized by specifically work on emotional processing of situations observing emotion as an adaptive reaction that allows survival and reaction to the environment as well as making us see our needs.
The therapy itself is deeply experiential, since the presence of changes depends largely on exposure to situations that generate emotions, and this appearance is sought in order to introduce changes in the schemes that we use to confront situations. Furthermore, this theory is largely based on the humanistic paradigm and client-centered therapy, seeking the development and optimization of the patient’s potential. In fact, originally emotion-focused therapy It was called Greenberg’s experiential therapy
The professional must adopt an empathetic and collaborative attitude, always accepting the reactions, emotions and motivations of the client or patient and trying to help detect emotions, focus and develop the subject’s own autonomy, making him or her responsible for himself.
Therapy focused on emotions considers that emotion involves the emergence of physiological changes derived from the capture, interpretation and processing of external or internal information and our previous learning. Based on experience, we are generating a series of unconscious emotional schemes that lead us to a specific way of reacting or feeling situations, these schemes being what we plan to work on during therapy.
The objective of this therapy is to contribute to making patients capable of identifying, experiencing without blocking, attributing meaning, communicating and adaptively managing their emotions. In summary, efficiently manage your emotional sphere and thereby achieve a good capacity to adapt to the environment. This is very useful in a wide variety of situations, such as for example in relational problems or after the presence of unwanted or traumatic experiences.
Main mechanisms for change
Emotionally focused therapy aims to achieve a change in emotional schemas, in the way of capturing, processing and expressing one’s own emotionality. To do this, it is necessary to activate a series of mechanisms, highlighting the following.
1. Awareness
This is a factor that may seem logical and simple, but it is decisive and is the basis when it comes to being able introduce a change in emotional schemes Becoming aware of or being able to distinguish, identify and name one’s own emotions is the most basic and fundamental step.
Once one’s own emotion has been identified, it will be necessary to know and be able to express the emotion, especially when we talk about negative emotions. It is rather a matter of coping with emotion, with the fact that live it without introducing an avoidance that protects us against it
3. Emotional regulation
In addition to identifying and experiencing them, another of the mechanisms necessary to introduce changes is the fact of regulating emotion. Regulating does not mean not feeling it or repressing it but rather being able to put a brake on them or make them adaptive to the situation we are in.
4. Reflection
Although there are cognitive aspects and components previously in the processing of emotion, it is worth mentioning as another mechanism the ability to operate with information and give meaning to the experience.
5. Transformation
The last of the great mechanisms necessary for the change of emotions is transformation, that is, manage to modify the emotional experience to make it adaptive An example may be the search for experiences that generate emotional responses incompatible with the initial emotion.
Situations in which it is usually applied
Therapy focused on emotions is usually used in specific situations and is especially linked to the treatment of relational problems, although it can be applicable to a large number of problems.
1. Couples therapy
One of the main contexts in which emotion-focused therapy is usually applied is in the world of couples. And it has been shown that this type of therapy can allow work on emotional conflicts present in each of its members and on the relationship per se.
And this modality allows you to work on aspects such as attachment (not in vain is it based in part on attachment theory) and to identify, express and share your emotions and emotional needs. In this way, this type of work can allow an improvement in the situation of each component of the couple and improve existing communication, strengthening the existing bond.
In a similar way to the previous one, therapy focused on emotions could become applicable in the family context, in order to be able to rework emotional schemes and communicate them efficiently.
3. Socialization problems
People with socialization problems derived from emotional problems can benefit from this type of therapy, learning to transform their sensations and fears and accept them in such a way that they do not interfere with their relationships. In addition, communication is favored
4. Eating disorders
Therapy focused on emotions has been used in the case of patients with eating disorders, due among other aspects to the high presence of negative emotionality regarding their own self-concept. It seems to be useful both on an individual and group level aiming to identify, naturalize and modify the emotions that maintain the eating problem.
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
Emotionally focused therapy could be useful when working on the emotional sphere in cases of post-traumatic stress disorder. Sexual abuse, bullying, gender or domestic violence are examples of situations in which it could be applied.
Depression
Depressive disorders have as one of the main and most frequent characteristics the existence of emotions such as sadness or hopelessness Working on the processing of emotions and situations and on the variation of schemas (both cognitive and emotional) will help the subject present an improvement in their situation.
