Emotion-Focused Therapy - Coursework Example

Emotion-focused therapy Emotion-focused therapy (EFT) is a psychotherapy approach designed to work with individuals, families and couples over a short period. It involves person-centered therapy, systemic therapy and also constructive therapy. EFT helps individuals accept, regulate express and to transform their emotions. EFT aims at changing clients problematic emotional states (Bradley & Furrow 2013). It creates the ability to manage their emotions and express them in the right acceptable manner. EFT approach focuses on improving emotional intelligence that will help to protect relationships among individuals. EFT gives individuals an opportunity to learn how to tolerate and regulate, reflect on emotions in order to make sense of them and mostly transform them. It systematically meant to help clients be aware and make their emotions be of a productive use. Emotion-focused therapy has its principal of change that it mainly works on Clients have to change after going through EFT. It makes people who attend the session to discover their past experiences and takes through a process of change. Some clients who go for EFT have had past painful experiences that arouse emotions. The therapists use experimental methods to teach clients to make health contacts with physical sensations, memories, feeling and thoughts that have been ignored in the past. EFT provides resources to that can transform maladaptive emotions developed from traumatic experiences (Greenberg, Carlson, American Psychological Association, & Governors State University 2007). EFT has been noticed to work for different individuals and populations. Initially, it was meant to advise couples. EFT primary goal over time has been to reorganize and expand emotional responses. EFT outlines emotional responses that are classified into four types: primary adaptive responses that are initial emotions to a given stimulus. They include sadness, anger, and fear. Primary adaptive emotions are expressed to help solving problems. Primary maladaptive is an emotional response to a stimulus that is from an experience that was traumatic in the past. Treatment, in this case, will aim to transform the individual’s emotions through taking them through new experiences (Power, Philippot, Hess, & Wiley InterScience (Online service) 2010). The third response is secondary reactive emotion response that responds to past emotional responses and replaces it. It is associated with a feeling of hopelessness, desperation, and even helplessness. The therapy will help increase awareness and address primary and adaptive emotion responses. The forth emotional response is instrumental which is as a result of learning from the experience of others. Therapy is conducted to make the clients aware of their personal function (Power, Philippot, Hess, & Wiley InterScience (Online service) 2010). Emotion-focused therapy originated from psychotherapy research that collected ideas from emotional theory, constructivist psychology and attachment theory. The ideas were integrated to create the EFT. It was developed by Dr. Leslie Greenberg; Ph.D. EFT was developed out of contemporary psychological beliefs .it primarily developed to deal with emotions of people (Greenberg, Carlson, & American Psychological Association 2004). Dr.Susan with her other colleagues later formed The International Center for Excellence in Emotionally Focused Therapy (ICEEFT) 1998. The center provides training of therapists and enhancing research studies. The success of EFT is always achieved through an empathic relationship between the client and therapist The EFT was originally meant for couple issues. It was concerned with helping individuals handle depression and distress out of relationships. EFT on its establishment, it focused on changing emotional expression and promotes interactions productive in a relationship. The recommendable performance on restoring relationships resulted in it into dealing with personal therapy and also family therapy.EFT is 70-75 percent effective in couple therapy, and the results have been stable over time. The success of EFT is also witnessed in family and individual therapy. The EFT is now fully established and should be used for treatment of emotion related problems among individuals (Greenberg, Carlson, American Psychological Association, & Governors State University 2007). Research Carl Rogers (1902 – 1987) came up with an approach to psychotherapy that has been called “non-directive”, “person-centered” as well as “client-centered”. His early on years are trailed by several authors like Barrett-Lennard, 1998, Kirschenbaum 1979, 2007, and Thorne, 2003. Writing in 1936 Saul Rosenzweig employed the expression the „Dodo bird verdict‟ (which he derived from Lewis Carroll’s 1865 Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland in which the Dodo bird when told to judge a race asserted “Everyone has won, and all should have prizes”. He said this to imply that general factors like the therapy connection shared amid diverse types of psychological therapies lead to different therapies to be equally effective (Greenberg, Carlson, & American Psychological Association 2004). Rogers would make an imperative addition to the “common factors” thought in his 1957 hypothesis paper, and as setting out the main theoretical declaration for what would turn out to be “person-centered therapy” in the 1959 hypothesis paper. In the meantime, also in 1930s America, Rogers carried on to write concerning “The Clinical Treatment of the Problem Child” (1939). This was based on his realistic experiences of working with children along with their parents. Latest years have led to the significant development in the field of psychotherapy. The assistance got the person in a sequence of interviews is no longer an indistinct mystery unfeasible of serious examination. The time is possibly ripe for diverse workers to make an effort to formulate and illustrate the primary aspects of this course, in order that descriptions of this type may serve as theories to be tested by the study. Emotion-focused therapy is an emotion-centered humanistic approach. It is a theory focus on human functioning based on the adaptive role of emotions and in a therapeutic practice based on the idea that emotional change is the centre for enduring change. This kind of therapeutic approach insists on the awareness, acceptance understanding and transformation of emotions. It also proposes that emotions have a potential to adapt to change if activated. It helps clients experience their emotions in the safe and trusted environment for therapy. It allows clients to learn to use their emotions to guide them to what is important in their lives rather than controlling or avoiding them (Greenberg, Carlson, & American Psychological Association 2004). Emotionally focused therapy is usually short term and takes a minimum of 8 sessions and a maximum of 20 sessions. It is important in the treatment of anxiety, depression and eating disorders, and they achieve through the formation of an empathetic relationship between the client and the therapist. It is a very useful kind of approach to therapy, and it has its advantages. For example, it is based on precise, explicit conceptualizations of all distress supported by empirical research. Like emotionally focused therapy in marital distress; the therapy can provide clear and precise concepts of marital status and adult love that are supported by empirical research and on the nature of marital distress and detachment. In addition, it is a collaborative and respectful way to clients since it combines experiential Rogerian technique with structural, systematic interventions. The changing strategies and interventions in this kind of therapy are specified thus easy to apply an advantage hence. It is advantageous as well since it fosters the creation of a secure bond between individuals, for instance, a couple (Greenberg, Carlson, & American Psychological Association 2004). It is vital since it creates a shift in partner’s interactional positions and initiate new cycles of interaction that improves relationships. The critics say that focusing on the emotions as an aspect of change towards a particular goal is challenging since some people may fake about their emotion. Emotion-focused therapy is also important because it plays an active and vital role in building a stance that allows clients to be open and open up to their core pain (Gilbert 2010). The client is helped to manage the pain through empathetic expression by the therapist. The main criticism against Emotion-focused Therapy is that it is not be appropriate for all people concerned; the therapist can be seen acting as an expert. Furthermore, it can be seen as clinical by initially identifying the crisis then prescribing a treatment course to correct the dysfunction. If the customer has a definite difficulty in associating with their emotions, perhaps they are too distressing for them to experience. As a result they have a learned behavior in which they manage their feelings. It can therefore be problematic for them to take on with this process. Besides, gender may also deter the engagement inside Emotion-focused Therapy as it is usually felt that men can be more insistent and removed from their emotional reactions while women are usually more in-tune with their felt emotions on an compassionate level and are keen to discover these with no such anxiety. Experiential therapy involves actions activities and movements as compared to the talk therapy. It encourages patients to identify and address hidden issues through activities like role play guided imagery, use of props and other activities. Emotions play a greater role in this kind of therapy since they allow for therapeutic change. Recognizing the experience of intense emotions, helping clients access adaptive emotions and need self-soothing strategies and psycho education regarding these emotional experiences are useful in determining change. The fundamental idea of experiential therapy is facilitating customer emotional intelligence through expressing; exploring understanding and restructuring emotions within a genuinely empathetic relationship (Johnson et al. 2009). It is sometimes tricky especially if the client is not ready to unravel their emotions. Working effectively and efficiently with the client requires a therapist to adopt an approach that is client based in that the client is allowed to present their problems to the given session. It can be tricky sometimes since the client may not be as open as such to state the problem. Anxiety outcomes NICE reviews have referred several papers of anxiety related conditions. These papers are discussed in the work below and the impact they have on the research question of the thesis ‘what is the clinical effectiveness of the person-centered psychotherapies. ‘In their work, Borkovec & Whisman (1996) investigated in eight studies on the generalized anxiety disorder in a mental analysis. The two found out that Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is not beyond any treatment and pill placebo conditions. In the meta-analysis, Borkovec & Whisman (1996) established that CBT does not show any superiority over some non-specific treatment like the non-directive therapy. This research showed that person-centered therapy is an effective intervention for anxiety, and hence more research needed to be done on the anxiety outcomes from person-centered therapy. In 1997, Goud et al. reviewed CBT-based studies in addition to the work of Borkovec & Whisman (1996).They reviewed a CBT-based study with a control group in a meta-analysis for a generalized anxiety disorder. Their conclusion was that CBT (ES (d) =70) is as effective as pharmacotherapy (ES=61).Just like Borkovec & Whisman (1996), they conclude that CBT does not demonstrate any superiority over non-specific treatments such as non-directive therapy. Therefore, this called for further research on the anxiety outcomes from person-centered therapy and the impact of therapeutic relationship from anxiety outcomes. Thirdly, Bryant, Harvey, Dang & Basten (1998) compared CBT with supportive counseling that is given following civilian trauma for instance road traffic collision. These therapists provided that the active treatment condition should be attention control condition to prevent therapists from being lead to treatment unwillingly, research question or therapy allegiance., Mitchell, et al (1977), Luborsky, et al.(1999). Conclusively, the researchers established that CBT was more effective than supportive counseling. To the questions of this thesis, it was not clear the extent of the findings of the clinical effectiveness of person-centered psychotherapy and the impact of the therapeutic relationship. Depression outcomes Out of four controlled trials on review of primary care counseling, Rowland et al., (2000) noted some slight improvement in symptoms and satisfaction in patients who received counseling as compared to those who used GPcare. Further research using randomized non-directive counseling, cognitive-behavior therapy (CBT) and GP was carried out by Ward et al., (2000).They found out that the two treatments were equivalent and unrivaled to GP. However, all forms were had the same outcome at the end of one year. A research carried out by Watson et al., 2003 found out that there was no significant difference between the use of process-experimental therapy and CBT to treat depression since the results indicated a minimal variation in the symptoms. However, patients grouped into the process-experiential group had a higher reduction in interpersonal problems. It is obvious that both treatment forms have their own advantages and when correctly used they produce efficient results in the therapeutic setting. With an emphasis on Emotion-focused Therapy it makes an individual to increase their own consciousness of their felt emotions as well as give them the ability to reconnect with them along with the guided aid of the therapist. The relationship values required in an Emotion-focused therapeutic connection are an empathic understanding, the expression of the Rogerian central conditions in addition to the creation of a working coalition (Greenberg, 2010). References Baker, N. (2008). The Experiential Counselling Primer. Ross-on-Wye: PCCS Books Ltd. Borkovec, T. D., & Whisman, M. A. (1996). Psychosocial treatment for generalised anxiety disorder. In M. Mavissakalian, & R. Prien (Editors), Long-term treatment of anxiety disorders. Washington DC: American Psychiatric Association. Bradley, B., & Furrow, J. (2013). Emotionally focused couple therapy for dummies. Mississauga: John Wiley & Sons. Bryant, R. A., Harvey, A. G., Dang, S. T., Sackville, T., & Basten, C. (1998). Treatment of acute stress disorder: A comparison of cognitive-behavioural therapy and supportive counselling. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology , 66 (5) 862-866. Cooper, M., O’Hara, M.,sSchmid, P. F., & Wyatt, G. (eds.) 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