Philosophy of Change

We know that change is a process and, if through that process, a person is able (1) to experience his or her emotions with the support and acceptance of another caring individual or individuals (which includes the therapist), (2) to develop an ability to observe and listen to one's 'Self', and (3) to speak from a place where their thoughts are informed by how they feel, then long-term change can happen for people, the beginning of which may occur from the moment they make the call for their first therapy appointment.

Consider Miriam Greenspan's (2003) words:
Change your daily habits. Eat better. Exercise more. Breathe deeply. Take better care of yourself. Speak your anger . . . . Grieve your losses . . . . Affirm your own worth. Make peace with something difficult (my mother didn't love me; my father abused me; my child doesn't respect me; I'm lonely; I don't know who I am.) Find and attend to your spirit.
(Healing through the dark emotions: The wisdom of grief, fear, and despair, pp. 161-162.)

In the process of Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy, emotion is privileged.  As Sue Johnson and Leanne Campbell say in their book, A Primer for Emotionally Focused Individual Therapy (2022), "emotion offers us a compass in life.  It colours our world, orienting us to what matters at any point.  It is a potent bodily felt sense priming the nervous system to ready it for dealing with a perceived reality.  It motivates us, it literally moves us and primes us for action, especially fight, flight or freeze responses.  It also communicates with others and sets up their response to us . . . . Actively engaging with one's emotions is viewed as the royal route to change and growth (p. 59).

In Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy, the first stage of the work helps a couple to notice their emotional responses to the other:  the cue, the emotion, the meaning they make from their partners words or tone of voice, and their response.  Once they begin to slow down and begin to send clearer messages to each other from the heart, they will have fewer arguments and move closer together.  Once more safety is achieved, and the person who typically withdraws is able to express their emotion to their partner from a deeper, more assertive, and more entitled place - followed by the partner who typically blames and criticizes beginning to soften so they hear from their partner differently, these two CHANGE events allow a couple to achieve a long-lasting safe, secure bond with each other.  Without going to the above-described emotionally deeper place, a couple may not be able to hold onto their improvements in the first stage of therapy and, after a time, revert to the stuck, negative patterns of withdrawing and blaming.  

In Emotionally Focused Individual Therapy, emotion is also the target of change, helping to reshape a person's model of Self and habitual responses to others.  Encounters in therapy can be within the parts of one's Self, with an imagined "other", or with the therapist.  Emotionally Focused - whether with couples, individuals, or families in therapy - is the key to change.