Love Sense

The world recently has had to say goodbye to a pioneer, in research and practice, in the field relationship psychology. Emotionally Focused Therapy’s (EFT) founder Sue Johnson’s legacy is profound and will continue to expand as her teachings continue to spread and normalize into the people and communities that have been impacted by it. I had the privilege, and what I consider a blessing, of being introduced to Sue Johnson’s Emotionally Focused Therapy in 2011 while working towards my Master’s Degree in Counseling. A few of us went to a 4 day training, all of us still students, not realizing how powerful the experience would end up being for our education in helping others.

The training provided us with a map to understanding how relationships really work, how emotion plays its part and actually is quite rational, while helping debunk the idea that emotional experience were less important than our thinking. In fact, some of the research EFT is based upon revealed examples of reactive emotions occurring before the frontal cortex has time to make its determinations.  Also, while gaining theoretical understanding is extremely important, EFT has practical interventions clients can learn to do in session starting day 1. EFT doesn’t require clients to spend 6 months delving into their upbringing or past traumas, in an attempt to find healing and change. Instead, clients learn to share current/in the moment emotional experience in healthy, effective, and relationally bonding ways almost immediately. After the 4 days of training, I was hooked. Emotionally Focused Therapy made sense to me, and even more importantly it helped bring effective lasting change to those people who put it into practice.

If I had to try to put into words some of most impactful aspects of EFT from my experience helping clients I’d say these 5 things:

• Human beings are wired for safe connection, and once we realize, accept, and honor each other in this space the opportunity for individual human experience flourishes.

• Many clients find themselves feeling more connected, safe, and hopeful in their relationship after even just one vulnerable emotional enactment with their partner or family member. 

• Because the human need for connection and safe attachment is innate, EFT can help most people learn the “how” of healthy positive interaction, regardless of their previous relationship experiences.
• The capability of clients to build new patterns of healthy vulnerable interaction is life changing, influencing not only their primary relationships but most all of their human interactions in a positive manner. 

• EFT at its core is relational, generational, and exponentially contagious. Vulnerability invites others to be less guarded, to feel safe, and to reciprocate from the heart.

It really is amazing how gaining an understanding of how things work, sometimes, can lead to significant improvement in our daily living. We honor Sue Johnson and the contributions she has made to so many people on this planet. At least from a human standpoint, so many aspects of life are relational in nature and Sue Johnson as much as any has helped us understand how to do relationship well. If any of you are interested in digging into Sue’s work a bit more, her book, “Love Sense, “ was written for the non clinician as a way of making what for so long has seemed so complicated much easier to understand and employ. Thank you Sue, we are going to miss you.