An Emotionally Focused Workbook for Couples

The Two of Us

Veronica Kallos-Lilly, Jennifer Fitzgerald

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• eBook ISBN: 9781000513158
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Mental Health in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

The second edition of this essential and newly updated workbook is intended for use with couples who want to enhance their emotional connection or overcome their relationship distress. It closely follows the course of EFT treatment and allows clinicians to easily integrate guided reading, reflection, and discussion into the therapeutic process.

Incorporating new developments in EFT and decades of research in the field of attachment, Veronica Kallos-Lilly and Jennifer Fitzgerald include chapters that explore concepts such as attachment bonds, the three cycles of relationship distress, how to make sense of emotions, relationship hurts and more. The workbook follows the familiar and accessible format of the first edition, Read, Reflect, and Discuss, and weaves fresh, illustrative examples throughout, with updated content considering the impact of gender, culture, and sexual orientation on relationship dynamics. Added reflections on these topics and an expanded section on sexuality dispels constraining popular myths and frees partners up to express themselves more openly.

This book is essential reading for partners looking for helpful steps to improve the quality of their romantic relationships as well as marriage and family therapists, couple therapists and clinicians training in EFT to use with their clients.

CHAPTER 1

Introduction

Who is This Book For?

DOI: 10.4324/9781003009481-1

If you are content in your couple relationship, needing help with your relationship or recovering from a relationship breakup, then this book could well be beneficial to you. This book is for people who want to understand and experience how to build a secure bond with a relationship partner. We have written this book for couples, because love relationships are the central focus of our professional lives. As therapists we have been invited inside the lives of many, many couples; in so doing, we’ve witnessed the anguish of broken relationships, the hard work involved in repairing relationships and the joy of healed relationships. We want to help you make your relationship as happy and secure as possible.

We are reaching out to people of all ages and identities relating to gender, sexual orientation, culture, ethnicity, race and social position in romantic relationships of all stages. While it has been suggested by others that men and women are inherently different, maybe even coming from different planets,¹ we honor the ways that our shared humanity transcends our various identities. We believe people from all over planet Earth need each other to live well and typically seek romantic partnership for love, belonging, sexuality, closeness, security, companionship and/or comfort. These core needs for love, safety and acceptance cut across all of our identities. Although how we express our basic emotions and needs is unique and influenced by many factors, including our temperament, family rearing, social position and experiences, religion, culture, coping patterns, and our previous love relationships. Have you been invited to show vulnerability and ask for comfort in your life? Have you been socialized to shut down your emotions or to be ashamed, forever feeling vulnerable or helpless? In couple relationships that are working well, partners are able to tune into, respect and respond to their own and each other’s emotions and needs. So, whether you are newly committed or in a relationship of long standing, whether you are straight, lesbian, gay, bisexual, two-spirit, transgender, queer, intersex, asexual, pansexual or other nonconforming identities (LGBTTQIAP+), and whether you feel quite satisfied or very dissatisfied within your love relationship, we expect you will find something in this book that will be useful for you.

Whether your problems are about money, in-laws, children, sex or pretty much anything else, this book will help you, not by giving you advice about managing money, dealing with in-laws, raising children or fulfilling sexual desires, but by helping you to go deeper into understanding yourself and your partner and what happens between you when problems in these or other areas occur. This book aims to assist you to understand and influence the dynamics of your relationship so you can find lasting solutions; solutions that will keep your relationship strong no matter what challenges you face now or in the future.

If you are content in your relationship, but it’s lost some of its spark, you and your partner may be able to use this workbook on your own to enhance your relationship. However, you may already be working with a therapist who has recommended this book. If your relationship feels troubled, it may be best to work with a therapist trained in Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) for couples and use this workbook to complement your therapeutic process. If you picked up this workbook on your own and are finding it difficult to use independently, you can locate EFT therapists around the world by visiting www.iceeft.com.

What is Emotionally Focused Therapy for Couples?

The principles we will recommend in this book are drawn from an approach to couple therapy called Emotionally Focused Therapy, or EFT for short. The approach was developed in the 1980s by Dr. Susan Johnson (Emeritus Professor at University of Ottawa; Founder of the Ottawa Couples and Family Institute and the International Centre for Excellence in EFT) and Dr. Leslie Greenberg (Emeritus Professor at York University, Toronto).^2,3 These researchers developed the first EFT manual following many, many hours of watching and analyzing recordings of couples therapy sessions, all the while asking questions and delving into the whys and wherefores of the change process. Much research and training continue all over the world, to expand knowledge and awareness of the principles of using EFT to help couples change their distressed relationships into relationships of security and safety.

Earlier approaches to couples therapy had focused on helping partners change their own behaviors or thoughts; other approaches focused exclusively on the interactions between partners.⁴ Individual approaches to therapy had often targeted individual emotions and needs without paying attention to the impact of interactions between partners. It took these two gifted and dedicated clinician researchers to open the way to a unique approach that neatly integrates a focus on who we are as individual emotional beings and how we interact in relationships that matter the most. In other words, EFT helps partners tune into their important feelings and needs and then put those feelings and needs across in ways that draws the other closer and invites a positive response.

EFT is an approach to couples therapy that works. Not only do couples usually like the approach, they usually experience substantial change, even in relationships that have been characterized by significant distress and heartache. Research has established that 86 to 90 percent of couples undertaking a course of EFT report significant improvement and 70 to 75 percent of couples recover from their distress.^5,6 These changes have been found to last over time, even in conditions of high stress such as having a seriously ill child,⁷ as well as betrayals like affairs.⁸ The approach and its related educational programs have been tested in a range of different populations, including with couples where one partner is depressed,⁹ experiencing sexual difficulties¹⁰ or health problems such as heart attack¹¹ or cancer.¹²

The initial model of EFT therapy was later strengthened by Dr Johnson’s integration of knowledge about attachment and bonding in close relationships. This influential theory of close relationships will be described in more detail throughout the book. No longer do emotions need to be swept away under the carpet; instead, and none too soon, in this model of therapy, each partner’s emotional experience is respectfully acknowledged, understood and worked through. Together, partners learn how to live in their relationship so as to create the closeness and security they desire. They learn to recognize their emotional needs for safety and connection and learn to ask in soft and non-blaming ways for their partners to help meet their needs. Emotions, as EFT founder Sue Johnson says, are “the music of the attachment dance.”¹³ As emotions are understood and responded to, the dance changes; couples are then able to move from turmoil and struggle on the “dance floor,” to movements of grace, harmony and closeness.

How Will This Book Help You?

We draw on extensive research with happy and unhappy couples, as well as our clinical experience and wisdom gained from treating hundreds of distressed couples over the years. Our aim is to support you to achieve relationship success through three important steps: First, we want to help you discover how you and your partner react to each other when your important relationship needs are not being met; second, we want to help you gain a deeper understanding of your own, and your partner’s emotions; and third, we would like to help you talk to each other about your emotions, needs, hopes and longings in ways that strengthen your relationship.

Hence, this book will offer you a framework for personal reflection and meaningful conversations with your partner. These reflections and conversations will help you to heal past hurts, strengthen trust and develop a relationship that could look and feel very different from the relationship that has been troubling you in the past.

In this edition we have attempted to build in more content and reflections on the impact of one’s culture and experiences of discrimination on relationships. Our hope is to speak more directly to the range of lived experiences among our readers. Throughout this edition we have consciously adjusted our language and pronouns to be more inclusive. For instance, you will see “they” or “their” at times to replace he/she and his/her. As two cisgender, heterosexual, white women, we do not see ourselves as experts on the experience of racial trauma or know what it is like to be a target of discrimination or to feel a lack of belonging because of not being a part of the dominant culture. We only wish to make space and acknowledge the tremendous impact of these experiences and help open up deeper conversation between partners, especially partners who may come from different backgrounds. Others may have similar life experiences but have coped with them in different ways. As attachment therapists we know that these conversations can be powerfully connecting. When we feel a topic is outside the scope of this book or our own expertise, we will provide ideas for additional reading.

How to Use This Book? What Can You Do to Help Yourselves and Your Relationship?

We have presented our material using a simple, recurring format: Read, Reflect, and Talk. There are extra copies of the worksheets at the back of this book, so there is a copy for you and your partner. We would like to suggest that you take the book in small bites, digesting each piece before moving on to the next. We encourage you to read and reflect on each piece (perhaps with some written notes) before you share with your partner. Alternatively, you may prefer to read the chapters aloud to each other, reflect on the exercises quietly, and then ask each other the questions with genuine curiosity, even if you have discussed some of the same subjects in the past. The reflection time will help you to slow down and give space for ideas to take shape and for feelings to become clearer or for new feelings to emerge, before you discuss together. Don’t forget to pay attention to the love tips along the way—keep your eye out for the heart symbol.

Talking about feelings, disappointments, needs, hopes, longings, and other important aspects of your relationship is likely to stir up a range of emotions for you. These stirred-up emotions will need to be handled with care. Recognize that if you have decided to work through this book together, there is a part of each of you that is invested in connecting with each other in a new way. Building on that assumption, we offer conversation guidelines that provide a framework for sharing your personal reflections with one another.

L-O-V-E Conversations

To have a loving relationship, you will each need to communicate in a sensitive, loving way. You may feel very far from being able to do that right now, but we have come up with a way of approaching your conversations, called L-O-V-E conversations, that will give you a platform for creating some safety in your discussions. You may like to make a flash card of the following simple words to help you stay focused on keeping your conversations “L-O-V-E conversations” throughout the discussion activities of this book.

When we communicate with each other, remember to

Listen with an

Open heart and mind

Validate and acknowledge each other

Express our thoughts and feelings softly, simply, and slowly.

Let’s look at the L-O-V-E conversation guide more closely.

L-O-V-E: Listen: It is not by chance that L-O-V-E conversations start with listening. So often we want to do the talking, fixing, pleading or controlling. Necessary as it is to express our feelings and points of view, effective communication starts in the heart with a willingness to listen to the other (be it partner, child, colleague or stranger). Listeners tune into words, but they also tune in to feelings; for what is said in words, but also for what is said by facial expression and body “language.” So, while opening your ears and heart to listen to your partner, keep a careful eye on their face as well. Some readers may be inwardly groaning by now, because you have received many messages from your frustrated partners about your lack of ability to tune into feelings. To you, we say, “Don’t give up. We would like to help you with simple steps to discover that you probably are better at understanding your own and your partner’s feelings than you realize. Please read on.” Tempting as it may be to interrupt your partner while...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Tables
• List of Reflections
• List of Figures
• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• Chapter 1 Introduction: Who is This Book For?
• Chapter 2 Attachment Bonds: The Best Chance of Survival
• Chapter 3 My Partner and Me: What Influenced Who We Are and How We Are in Close Relationships?
• Chapter 4 What Happened to Us? Three Cycles of Relationship Distress
• Chapter 5 Emotions: How to Make Sense of Them
• Chapter 6 More About Emotions: What Are We Both Feeling?
• Chapter 7 The Road to Security Is Paved With Good Intentions
• Chapter 8 Socially Useful Emotions: Hurt, Shame, Guilt and Jealousy
• Chapter 9 Rebuilding Our Bond
• Chapter 10 Relationship Injury: How Can We Repair the Damage?
• Chapter 11 Stories of Change
• Chapter 12 Maintaining Intimacy and Revitalizing Our Sex Life
• Chapter 13 Looking Ahead: Anticipating Life Transitions
• Final Words
• Appendix A: Reflections
• Appendix B: Our Relationship Dance
• Index