Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) is an empirically supported approach to couples therapy grounded in attachment theory. It is based on the understanding that individuals seek close, secure relationships and that they also try to protect themselves from emotional vulnerability. When they do feel vulnerable, partners may withdraw or seek reassurance in ways that, over time, give rise to recurring and painful patterns of interaction – what EFT calls “negative cycles.”

In EFT, the work begins by helping partners identify these cycles so that they can develop a shared understanding of how each partner’s perceptions and reactions contribute to these cycles’ persistence. As the couple’s understanding deepens, each partner begins to realize that the other person is not the principal cause for their relationship distress but that the problem is this painful interpersonal cycle which the two of them have unwittingly co-created.

With this increased clarity and therapist facilitation, partners begin to practice engaging with one another differently—expressing needs more directly and responding to each other with greater openness. Over time, these new interactions can extend into daily life, gradually replacing the painful cycles with communications that foster more safety and closeness.