Application of Emotion-Focused Therapy on Clients Term Paper

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Established at the outset of the 80s by Dr. Les Greenberg and Dr. Sue Johnson, emotionally focused therapy (EFT) abides by the way of life that relationships are at the center or essence of human experience. It is founded on the principles that emotionally satisfying relationships are basic constituents of mental and physical health, and that interventions that are emotionally oriented have the authority to create and reconstruct helpful connections and ties between persons. The founders of EFT have the belief that each and every individual can take full advantage of their potential if placed in a fostering social setting (Johnson, 2009). Emotion-focused treatment was advanced as an empirically-cognizant method to the exercise of psychoanalysis grounded in present-day psychosomatic philosophies of working. Emotion-focused therapy endeavors to change the emotional or mental or behavioral sense of balance by putting emphasis on the vital role of the familiarity of adaptive emotion in therapeutic modification (Greenberg, 2004). This paper will discuss emotionally focused therapy with regards to two themes which are helping clients access and accept emotions and helping clients verbally label and identify emotions.

From the emotionally focused therapy standpoint change takes place or comes about by assisting and aiding individuals make sense of their emotions by means of making them be aware of their emotions, express them, regulate such emotions. Thereafter, the clients are encouraged to reflect on their emotions in order to have a transformation and remedial experience of emotion in the perspective of an empathically accustomed connection that simplifies and facilitates these practices (Brenning and Braet, 2013). Enhancing the level of awareness of emotion or identifying and thereafter mentioning what one is feeling or experiencing is the most important general objective of treatment. In accordance to research studies undertaken by Lieberman et al. (2004) it has been revealed that mentioning and specifying a feeling in words aids lessening the arousal of the amygdala. The moment individuals get to ascertain exactly what they feel they connect up to their wants and desires and are the driven and inspired to meet such needs. Becoming cognizant of and signifying essential emotional experience in words offers access both to the adaptive info and the action propensity in that emotion that is identified. It is imperative to take into consideration that being emotionally aware or emotionally cognizant encompasses feeling that particular feeling and simply not just talking about it (Greenberg, 2010). EFT therapists offer assistance to patients in approaching, accepting, bearing and embodying emotions instead of the patients avoiding such emotions. Patients are lent a hand to make sense of what their emotion is expressive them, detect the objective or necessity or worry which it is establishing them to achieve and the action tendency delivered and to make use of or employ these to increase handling. It is imperative to take note that through emotionally focused therapy emotion is employed and utilized to not only inform but also utilized to move (Greenberg, 2010).

This can be seen in the case of Jina who is a female aged thirty eight who sought out therapy due to being depressed. Jina found herself becoming increasingly isolated and also did not have any motivation. In her two years of marriage she had not borne any children and at the outset of the therapy session she had quit her job for the reason that she was unsatisfied with her own work. She sought after therapy with the effort of being able to relieve her depressive symptoms and also be able to better manage her extended family. During her assessment, the female reported of having significantly lost one of her good friend who passed on as a result of AIDS and also her brother in law who died a sudden death and more so was one of her most loving family members. The emotionally focused therapy that Jina underwent enabled and assisted her not only to make an assessment and also the acceptance of her feelings and emotions, but she was also able to verbally mention, state and identify her emotions (Greenberg, 2010).

As is shown in the case study, formulation with this female patient did not encompass the therapist making out or understanding the meaning of the experiences she was going through or the context of a schedule. Instead, it consisted of expanding and developing her present experience to offer the direction and go into detail in her fundamental concerns. By directing the patient on her personal experience in the instant, the therapist was able to assist het to look deep down into her own self and into her inner emotional experience in order for her to be able to perceive and express or communicate exactly what was subjectively the most painful and the most significant to her. This in turn indicates the manner in which a focus is co-created.

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It came to be apparent that away from her wrath and resentment was her hurt that emanated as a result of being abandoned by her significant losses and also feeling invalidated by her family members. In addition, it made Jina realize that it was these feelings that were the most painful emotions and those are the ones that were causal to her depression. Jina's emotions of sadness and embarrassment were able to offer information regarding what was most important and substantial to her and also made her informed and aware that she had the feeling of invalidation and feeling inferior. The scope that directed the therapist's preparation brought him in the direction of following her hurting and agonizing feelings (Greenberg, 2010).

There are a number of ways in which the therapist can assist the client to be able to gain access to new emotions in order to alter or transform their information. For instance, the therapists can assist the client or the patient to gain access to new emotions which are subdominant in the contemporary by an assortment of ways encompassing altering or fluctuating the attention directed towards different aspects of the circumstance or to the emotions that are presently being communicated but are merely on the sideline or margin of the awareness of the client (Greenberg, 2010). Another way is simply by placing emphasis on exactly what is required and thereby marshalling a new emotion is a significant source of triggering a new emotion. The freshly retrieved, different feelings are means in the disposition that aid in altering the maladaptive state. For instance, drawing out or brining implicit adaptive anger to the surface can assist in altering maladaptive panic and distress in a trauma victim. The moment the predisposition to run off or flee as a result of fear is put together with the inclination of anger to thrust forward, it brings about a new interpersonal situation of placing blame or accountability to the abuser for wrongdoing, whereas perceiving oneself as having warranted protection, instead of perhaps having the feeling of guilt and also feeling unsafe. It also is necessary both to signify, discover and distinguish the main maladaptive emotion, in this case anxiety, and standardize it by inhalation and relaxing, prior to nurturing admission to the fresh more adaptive emotion which in this case is anger (Greenberg, 2010).

It has been shown that emotional expression is a distinctive aspect of emotional practice that forecasts alteration and modification to such things as trauma and social or interactive emotional injuries. It is imperative to take note that the expression or communication of emotion during therapy does not encompass expelling or voicing secondary information but instead being able to overcome evasion to experience and prompt formerly restrained primary emotions (Pavio and Pascual-Leone, 2010). Expressive handling aids patients to be able to cater to and shed light on fundamental concerns and encourages quest of objectives. There is a resilient human predisposition to evade communicating emotions which are painful. Therefore, clients ought to be supported to overcome this evasion and tackle these emotional pains in therapy session by catering to their bodily experience, more often than not in minor steps. This might encompass altering categorical philosophies and opinions such as men are not allowed to cry or that having anger is a precarious thing. Thereafter, the patients ought to permit and accept or endure being in real interaction with their emotions (Greenberg, 2010).

A very good example of this aspect can be seen in the second model story of the therapy session between Dr. Leslie Greenberg who is the therapist and Pat who is the patient or client. Dr. Greenberg is able to get Pat to speak out on her restrained emotions and not just venting on her secondary emotions. The secondary emotions being experienced by Pat at the moment is the belittling that she constantly gets from her husband. Pat gets stressed and depressed from the words hurled at her by the husband. As much as she feels as if she is doing her very best that she can, the husband constantly telling her that she is either wrong or whatever that she is doing is not good enough. However, Dr.….....

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