The goal of Emotion Focused Therapy, whether for couples or individuals, is to grow the capacity for “secure attachment.” In large part, the accomplishment of this goal depends upon the acquisition of “object permanence.” Object permanence is the ability of a child to know that an object continues to exist despite being out of sight. The parallel in emotional development is to internally experience that one is loved in a relationship even when the evidence of love is not right before you. When emotional object permanence is uncertain it is difficult to sustain secure attachment. In these situations fears of abandonment and difficulties in emotional regulation are common. The expression of these struggles can be both overt or covert. In the case of pursuers the expressions of overt distress are commonly evident on the surface as emotional escalation. In the case of avoiders the expressions are covert and hidden, commonly expressed as withdrawal or inhibition of attachment reaching. How does one grow the capacity for object permanence or secure attachment where it has been missing?
The growth of attachment security is a natural by-product of the eft process. More specifically, it follows from the work of the eft tango. The eft tango begins with unpacking instances of the negative cycle in the marriage. In a highly granular way, we reconstruct the steps of the conflict… “he said this, you said that, and in turn they reacted in this way, and in turn you reacted in that way, etc”. We then inquire depth-fully into these moments of reactivity. We look to discern the underlying emotions from the reactive emotions. To separate out the surface fight from the vulnerable feelings underneath. We begin to clarify how the reactive behaviors on the surface are understandable defensive attempts to protect from imagined vulnerable injury underneath. This process drops the interaction from the fight-flight reactive behaviors on the surface down to the true vulnerable feelings underneath. Communication from underlying “vulnerable feeling to vulnerable feeling” opens out the sense of positive attachment feeling within the couple. Paradoxically, the marital fight becomes the doorway into the marital attachment. (rewrite this)
