As I have commented elsewhere in this blog, eft interventions create not only an improved sense of contact with one’s primary partner, but also an improved sense of differentiated identity within the primary relationship. That is, unpacking the negative cycle down to the the essential feelings underneath, not only reconnects a couple to the attachment feelings that bring them together, It also reveals to each partner where they are with themselves within the relationship. What eft brings to couples therapy is not only a profoundly powerful method/technology for working/bringing down the negative cycle between two partners… but also a process for two people to not only sort out what is happening deeply inside themselves, but even more… to share this vulnerable inside-truth with their partner. To open up rather than fight.
What I wish to emphasize here – is that this process is most healing when partners move back and forth between what is happening between, with what is happening within; that there is a conversation happening not only with ones partner but also with oneself, and that both conversations are evolving. As I have said elsewhere in this blog, with regards to the conversation with oneself, it is most helpful for each in the marriage to conceive of their conversation with themselves as “their personal project.”
To make a “personal project” out of self-reflection implies a “certain taking responsibility” for oneself to do that inner probing and sorting out, irrespective of whether one’s partner clamors for it. This is not where many couples begin eft couples therapy, but it is where the therapy best comes to its close. In a way, the sorting out of oneself – and the sharing of each step along the way with ones partner – this is the biggest gift that one can bring to a marriage.
