Emotion-focused therapy (EFT) is a therapeutic approach that aims to help clients to become aware of, viscerally experience, accept, express, utilize, regulate, and transform emotion. It argues that other forms of psychotherapy have overemphasized conscious understanding and have underemphasized the roles of emotional change. It is informed by humanistic therapy, and by emotion and cognition theory, affective neuroscience, and dynamic and family systems theory (Greenberg, 2017).
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emotion is an innately adaptive system that has evolved to help people to survive;
EFT proposes that ‘I feel therefore I am’ and that feeling precedes thought;
people possess an innate tendency toward maintenance, growth, and mastery;
emotions motivate behavior and influence thought, but can become problematic due to past traumas, skill deficits, or emotional avoidance;
emotional change is necessary for cognitive and behavioral change;
conceptual and experiential knowledge are different—‘people are wiser than their intellects alone.’
Greenberg, L. S. (2017). Emotion-focused therapy. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.