Although it is true that “emotions underlying attachment” are the prime movers in relationship, “how we think about our relationship” reflects our defensive needs to self-protect in our relationship. Our habitual thinking about our partner reveals our anticipations that “hurt is coming”… “so protect, protect, protect!” Of course, these “self-protective attitudes” are actually what sets up disappointment in our partner and activates their “self-protective attitudes in turn… resulting in one more negative cycle, ad infinitum!

Increasingly, I find it essential to get at how each partner thinks about the other, and the underlying assumptions that support these likely polarizing views. It is my experience that these “conclusions about the other” are partially constructed out of “distorted thinking.” These negative conclusions about the other become underlying assumptions about the other that greatly block the couples healing process.

In the CBT treatment for depression… central emphasis is placed on how the client’s thinking about themselves, and the events of the day, contains cognitive error that sets the client up for a depressive outcomes. Likewise, couples set themselves up for negative cycles in marriage by each partner’s out-of-kilter/distorted/defended ways of thinking about the other. Following the unpacking of the patterns of emotional reactivity in the negative cycle, which is at the core of EFT couples work… it then becomes important to recognize and take apart the negative conclusions each partner makes about the other. Over time, this becomes important because healing moments in the actual couples sessions can quickly be dismantled by these ingrained conclusions in the hours and days following the session.

It is so important that the EFT couples work permeate very deeply into the individual consciousness of each partner. That each partner ask themselves, “how do I contribute the the negative cycle in the marriage?” It is always true that each partner has blockages within, and “blind spots” about how they contribute to the negative cycle process. While many of these blockages can be engaged in the couples meetings, the full understanding of the blockages and how to work them through often requires depthful individual followup by the therapist.

The question is… what is the crucial “additional understanding” that each partner needs to have open-hearted healing interactions with their partner? This insight is arrived at in both the couple’s and individual conversations. An important aspect of this process is that it is felt as a “light bulb going off in the head.” A sense of something new! It is important for long term marriages that they are not only a place of safety but also a source of new self-discovery. As a therapist with couples it important to be able to periodically inquire about this process of fresh discovery in the marriage.

As couples therapy progresses, and two people begin to get along better… each partner, typically, is careful not to say or do things that are going to trigger their partner. At the same time both partners in the marriage work within their own individual selves to manage their own vulnerable propensity to get triggered. This all happens as security in the marriage grows and open communication has come to replace the negative cycle. Negative moments are increasingly taken as “misdemeanors” and not as “felonies.” Partners work both not to offend or to be easily offended. 

There is a particular way each of us wants to be appreciated… a way that is personal to us. This gets so buried in the negative cycle it seldom gets heard. Typically what the other person hears is something negative, something along the lines of how the other fails to appreciate! The desire ends up coupled with criticism, and seldom gets lovingly taken in by the other. This then sets off a negative cycle in place of an important sharing that could bring the couple much closer. As the therapy evolves there are valuable moments when each in the marriage has the opportunity to vulnerably speak the particular appreciation they long for. When this is shared in a vulnerable as opposed to blaming way, the chances of positive reception and significant healing are very high!