Hi there, fellow therapist.
Do you read relevant research?
Do you wish you read more of it?
Do you sometimes feel guilty for not staying on top of it?
Or is that just me?
In each ‘Research Spotlight’ feature, I provide a plain-English summary of an interesting research paper, INCLUDING a statement about its relevance to YOU. I hope this feature is of help to you, whether it inspires you to pick up and read one of these papers in its entirety, or just helps you feel a bit more confident and competent on one of those TLDR days.
Today’s paper is…
Thanks to Lulu Cook (an EFT therapist on the Gold Coast) for putting me on to this one.
In this study, a young, committed heterosexual couple agreed to continuous heart rate monitoring throughout eight sessions of Emotionally Focused Therapy.
Their EFT Therapist was Ryan Rana, of ‘Success in Vulnerability’ and ‘The Leading Edge Podcast’ fame – a very skilled and experienced EFT therapist.
The results were fascinating:
- In half of the sessions, the couple’s heart rates synced up significantly.
- 75% of this significant synchrony happened in the last 4 sessions.
- There was no significant ‘leader’: sometimes he synced to her, sometimes she synced to him.
- The more they talked to each other, especially about attachment injuries, emotional bonds and longings, the more their heart rates synced up.
What does this mean? The researchers suggest:
- The deeper the emotional work became, the more their heart rates synced up (they didn’t sync when talking cognitively about their relationship).
- This heart rate syncing has been found in past research to be associated with increased understanding of, attunement with and empathy for each other: all things that predict better relational health.
Limitations / Future Directions
- Only 8 sessions (would have been nice to follow their data to the end of therapy and see if it validated EFT’s Stage 2 change events)
- Only 1 couple (can’t say whether these same effects would be seen with others)
- I would have loved the researchers to monitor the therapist’s heart rate too and explore its role. As a surrogate attachment figure, were they syncing with him? Was he helping them sync with each other? Was he following or leading the heart rate syncing? Or both? Or neither?
What does this research mean for us, as EFT therapists working with couples?
- It seems to validate a couple of Dr Sue Johnson’s gem-like quotes:
- ‘Follow the emotion’ and
- ‘Enactments [Engaged Encounters] are where the change happens’
- It’s potentially validating research to share with clients in a bottom-up, psycho-educative way as they navigate similar experiences in therapy.
- It somewhat validates the mind-body connection we all talk about.
(P.S. for paper access, check with your collegiate body [e.g. AAPi, APS, ACA, PACFA] or your university – you may have free or cheap access to thousands of journals through them and this may save you forking out on a pay-per-view basis)
