Thinking back over the years to my own relationship history, and those of so many of the couples I have seen in therapy, I am struck by a paradox. It is falling in love that draws us to our partner, and leads us to have positive intention in so many ways towards our partner. At the same time, the deep emotional intensity of loving someone comes from such a deep internal place within, based upon our individual histories of love, it is inevitable that this very positive energy that draws us to our partner will also partially blind us from seeing how our partner’s individual history makes them love differently than we expect. Hence we come towards our partner with such wonderful hopes and yet at the same time we do not accurately see our partner.
EFT’s focus upon revealing underlying positive intention of partners to each other, with the goal of unpacking what is really going on with and between partners, is absolutely crucial to couples healing. A long term goal of eft couples treatment is to help the couple into the dance with underlying positive intention rather than the dance with surface disappointment.
