As I posted a few weeks ago… I have found it very valuable to encourage both in the marriage to clarify their respective roles in the recurring cycles. This is in addition to opening out each partner’s underlying dynamics in the sessions; it adds to this process each partners recognition of how they are better able or less able to manage their part in the negative cycle situations with their partner. This adds to each partner a degree of responsibility for how they carry themselves in the therapeutic process of healing the negative cycle.
I am aware as I write these words that they are in contrast to a central aspect of eft work; what is wondrous about emotion focused therapy is the way that the therapeutic action of bringing down the negative cycles takes place without involving conscious intent on either partners part. To a degree, all that is necessary is for each in the marriage is to stay open to the therapeutic work of opening and bringing down the cycle. Intent, effort and discipline is largely not a necessary ingredient in these early sessions. Their is no need for either partner to try and “will themselves to want to be in the marriage” in order for these first sessions to work.
However, as the eft therapy progresses, and the couple begins to understand of how their particular negative cycle operates, I find it very helpful to enlists each in the marriage to clarify their own contribution to the negative cycle, and to form a sense/picture/vision of a personal project that serves to guide each in the marriage – making the negative cycle less likely, less intense, and more recoverable. That is, to not only have better understanding of what is happening within each other when the negative cycle occurs, but to also cultivate a sense of how to operate from one’s “better angels” within and between each other in the marriage.
Note that this sense of personal project cannot effectively emerge without first coming into a full understanding of how the negative cycle operates within the marriage. The key driver here is not to avoid shame or being reproached by ones partner – the key driver is the positive attachment motivation that emerges within each partner as the negative cycles are repeatedly taken down… that each in the marriage engage their personal project out of loving caring, not a sense of being right, avoiding shame, or winning in a contest of wills.
