Training

EFT is known for its effectiveness in relationships, sense of self, and in improving emotional bonds, making a profound difference in the personal and relational well-being of patients.

Participating in EFT training enriches a therapist’s practice, equipping them with skills that are effective and versatile. It not only improves therapeutic outcomes but also contributes significantly to professional development, helping therapists stand out in their field with a specialized and in-demand skill set. EFT’s focus on emotions and attachment is universally applicable, making it an invaluable tool for therapists looking to deepen their impact and expand their practice.

ICEEFT represents a global network of EFT therapists. A uniquely supportive community, ICEEFT membership offers opportunities for continuous learning and collaboration.

For therapists, EFT offers a clear and structured path to help patients. It focuses on the development of emotional intelligence and awareness, allowing therapists to guide patients to recognize and express their emotional needs more effectively. By fostering a secure attachment bond, EFT enables patients to respond to their partners and family members in healthier and more constructive ways.

EFT is based on attachment theory, offering a solid, research-based framework for understanding human emotions and relationships.

EFT is known for its high success rates, especially in couples therapy, where it consistently delivers lasting positive results. Positive outcomes have been observed for individual symptoms of depression, anxiety, and trauma, as well as the effective management of responses to threats. This effectiveness is driving a growing demand for EFT professionals as awareness of the importance of mental health increases.

Learning EFT not only enhances a therapist’s professional skills but also makes them more versatile, capable of offering specialized services in various settings, such as private practices, clinics, and to diverse populations. The principles of EFT can significantly contribute to a therapist’s personal growth, deepening their understanding of relationships and emotional dynamics. Being an EFT therapist can also mean contributing to a growing body of research, helping to further validate and refine this therapeutic approach.

Beyond these professional advantages, there is a profound sense of job satisfaction that comes from using EFT to help patients achieve meaningful changes in their relationships, making the role of an EFT therapist professionally rewarding and personally fulfilling.

Professional development from EFT for couples (EFCT)

EFT offers a clear path to certification in its various modalities, providing a valuable opportunity for therapists to specialize and excel in this impactful approach. Obtaining certification in EFT signifies a high level of expertise and commitment, enhancing your professional credibility and skill set. This certification journey not only elevates your practice but also opens doors to a community of like-minded professionals and a wealth of resources and support.

EFCT has been used successfully in various settings and with various couples facing challenges such as depression, anxiety, or forgiveness dilemmas. It is used in North America, Europe, and Australia, among others, with traditional and non-traditional couples, demonstrating its broad applicability and effectiveness. Discover how EFCT can revolutionize your work with couples by exploring our courses below.

Trainings

EFCT Externship for couples

It is the basic course, the essential four-day course for the
training in couples therapy.

Basic Skills in EFT for couples

Advanced Training in Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy.

Externship

The training course called Externship in Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy (EFCT), is the introductory training of more than 24 hours in Emotionally Focused Therapy for couples, and the first step towards certification.

This workshop includes observation of live and/or video-recorded therapy sessions, presentations of theory and clinical techniques, skills training exercises, and discussion of specific cases, clinical material, and problems. An externship will provide you with a roadmap for working with your patients’ underlying emotions and facilitate therapy conversations that increase feelings of secure attachment, closeness, and connection.

Usually, in Spain, it is given over 4 days, 9 hours each, with a 1-hour break in the middle and two 15-minute breaks in the morning and afternoon.

more info

An Externship in Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy (EFCT) is a four-day (24+ hours) immersive training experience, fundamental for therapists aiming to specialize in EFCT. Led by certified trainers, it offers a comprehensive introduction to the EFCT model, focusing on attachment science and the systematic approach to couples therapy. This training is crucial for therapists because it equips them with the skills necessary to foster secure and resilient relationships in therapy. It is the first step in formal EFCT training, opening the door to advanced practice and certification, enhancing therapists’ effectiveness and confidence in their clinical work with couples.

How you will gain a clear understanding of the basic experiential and systemic concepts from an “emotionally focused” therapy approach.
You will discover how to observe your patients’ network of interpersonal attachments and conceptualize the distress they may feel, as well as work on repairing the relationship based on attachment and emotion theories.
The Externship focuses on the EFCT model outlined in the 2019 book, Attachment Theory in Practice, and will teach you the model to follow in each couples therapy session.
You will develop skills to share and maintain a committed, open, and collaborative therapeutic alliance with your patients.
You will learn and practice the essential therapeutic skills in the 5 movements of the basic macrointervention, called the EFT Tango. These will assist you in the therapy process to change patterns of affect regulation, models of self and others, as well as strategies for engaging others and patterns of interaction.
You will work on skills in what are called EFT microinterventions taken from experiential and attachment systemic intervention models.
You will strengthen skills to overcome common blocks in couples therapy, and this will shape the therapy itself, through the basic corrective emotional experiences that lead to the constructive expression of emotions.

Essential or Basic Skills

EFCT Core Skills is an advanced educational program that in Spain consists of two modules of 3 days, each focused on distinct steps of the EFT model. Usually, CS1 and 2 are performed and approximately 3-4 months later, CS3 and 4 are performed.

It offers more than 48 hours of intensive instruction, practical exercises, and feedback.

In the general context of the EFT Tango, each 3-day session is dedicated to specific steps of the model and to the therapeutic tasks and interventions characteristic of those steps. The training includes a minimum of 48 hours of in-depth instruction, practice, and feedback, culminating in a crucial step towards EFT certification.

In Spain, they are usually held in two courses of 3 days each. CS1 and 2, which focus basically on the first stage of the model (steps 1 to 4). And later CS 3 and 4, which focuses basically on the second stage of the model (steps 5 to 7) and the third stage (steps 8 and 9).

The Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy (EFCT) basic skills training program is designed for mental health professionals seeking a deeper mastery of EFT for couples therapy. This includes psychologists, psychoanalysts, psychiatrists, registered, as members of a professional mental health organization, and currently working, or in training to work, with couples in their clinical practice. The program equips participants with advanced skills in the application of EFT therapeutic techniques and interventions, essential for those on the path to becoming certified EFCT therapists by ICCEFT.

The EFCT Externship must be completed before taking EFCT basic skills.

Required reading: The Practice of Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy: Creating Connection, 3rd edition, by Susan M. Johnson, 2020. Routledge.

Recommended reading: Becoming an Emotionally Focused Therapist: The Workbook, 2nd edition, by James L. Furrow, Susan M. Johnson, Brent Bradley, Lorrie L. Brubacher, T. Leanne Campbell, Veronica Kallos-Lilly, Gail Palmer, Kathryn Rheem, Scott R. Woolley, 2022. Routledge.

You will deepen your understanding of the EFT model and its application to couples therapy.
You will develop EFT skills for couples through a combination of instructional review, skill demonstrations, and live session observations.
You will participate in the practice of EFT techniques and exercises.
You will receive individual feedback on the development of your EFT skills for couples through case presentations.
You will deepen your understanding of the EFT tango, understanding its application within the different stages of therapy.
You will apply the EFT model for couples through role-playing and discussions, with the goal of certification.

As of January 2024, ICEEFT offers therapist certification in EFCT (EFT for couples), EFIT (EFT for individuals), and EFFT (EFT for families).
More detailed information on how to certify in each modality is available on their summary pages:
– For Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy (EFCT) click here.
– For Emotionally Focused Individual Therapy (EFIT), click here.
– For Emotionally Focused Family Therapy EFFT) click here.

Skills

Learning and integrating the EFT model includes developing the following skills. This list can be used as a guide to help supervisors and applicants assess readiness for certification. Additional specific details and information for certification in each EFT modality (EFIT, EFCT, and EFFT) are available on the ICEEFT members website (https://iceeft.com/).

As an emotionally focused therapist, you will easily demonstrate…

Attunement and empathic tracking of the patient’s experience.
A secure haven alliance (A.R.E.), which includes risk assessment, context, and contraindications.
A focus on reactive patterns and validation of the patient’s attachment strategies.
Engaging effectively with patients in all their diversity, including the negative impact of discrimination along with patients’ strengths and resilience.

As an emotionally focused therapist, you will show the ability to…

Reflect and validate the patient’s experience and identify emotions and relational patterns.
Validate vulnerabilities and coping strategies, normalizing blocks.
Ask evocative and open questions that help identify patterns and elicit deeper emotions and underlying attachment fears and longings, fostering self-reflection.
Make appropriate empathic conjectures that validate and deepen the experience (e.g., self/other).
Use all micro skills along with RISSSSC prosody: slow, specific, soft, etc.
Increase the experience with the patient’s images and emotional managements, when appropriate.
Reframe the experience, mainly in terms of emotions related to attachment.
Evoke emotional experience and choreograph engaged encounters.
Accelerate risk-taking appropriately, keeping the patient within the edge of attack (e.g., window of tolerance).

As an emotionally focused therapist, you will show the ability to…

Movement 1: Identify relational patterns and affect regulation processes that lead to self-perpetuating cycles.
Movement 2: Assemble the emotion – Paint the trigger, perception, body sensation, meaning, and action tendency by focusing on and processing the core emotions. Distill the emotion and engage the current experience in a highly focused way.
Movement 3: Recreation. Establish encounters that provoke new awareness and/or experience of union.
Movement 4: Processing the recreation/encounter of the couple with each of its members.
Movement 5: Summarize the progress of the session, validate the growth, and contrast the new interactions with previous patterns.

EFT Therapist Certification

Click here to download the certification checklist as an EFT therapist

Upcoming events

Below, you can see a list of the events that we are celebrating:

Externship-Basic face-to-face course, in the Canary Islands

¡Welcome to the Canary community!

From Thursday, March 27 to Sunday, March 30, we celebrate the Externship-Basic course Emotionally Focused Therapy for couples. ¡The first edition, held in the Canary Islands!

4 días, in which a wonderful atmosphere reigned at all times.

Everyone: organization, trainers and students, we have received very important learnings, listened to wonderful speakers and enriched our experiences in a beautiful group, with a lotísimas eager to learn and share, coming from various points: Berlín, Barcelona, Madrid, Gran Canarias and Las Palmas.

Close people, with different and varied experiences and approaches. Tod@s, with a común component: knowing how to work with emotions from the lenses of attachment, to accompañar on the path of reconnection and in the repair of attachment wounds.

To all of you, ¡thank you for trusting us and accompanying us!

¡Thanks to @coplaspalmas for the organization and the ilusión put! See you at the next level.