I’ve recently started learning Emotionally Focused Individual Therapy (EFIT) after a pretty long time practicing in some other models. I really believe in it and I’m eager to apply it with all my clients but I’m struggling with slipping back into the groove of the other interventions I know really well versus risking to stick with the EFIT interventions that are still so new to me. The harder I try, the more overwhelmed I feel. Any advice?
- ‘indescisive’ in indoroopilly
I really feel your pain and understand your longing to apply a new model faithfully. As therapists, it can be so hard to shift out of our well-worn grooves. Yet, when we’re indecisive or inconsistent in our application of interventions, it can be unsettling for us and our clients. A bit like this toy:
And sometimes, as you wrote, the harder we try to change this, the more unsettled we become.
You’re reflecting a parallel process we see our clients experience: when we make their emotional cycles clear in therapy and our clients begin to gain awareness of their own default patterns or ‘well-worn grooves’ they too tell us about the difficulty of changing these through behavioural effort alone.
So, with our clients, we help them out of these default patterns by first exploring the underlying emotions, fears and needs that drive the well-worn groove behaviour. We can do this for you too: If you take the time to get very still with yourself and be in your body, what are the thoughts, sensations and emotions that arise around applying EFIT with your clients?
Maybe there are fears about getting the new interventions ‘wrong’ (or at least being less confident executing these than the ones you know well)?
Maybe concerns about how your clients, used to the ‘old’ ways, will react to this change?
Maybe even fears about success: if the EFIT interventions work really well and clients’ emotion comes alive in the room, what then?
Maybe so much more…take some time to feel into what comes up for you.
Acknowledging these fears, making space for them and meeting them with compassion can help them lose some of their power to wobble you. When you turn toward these primary process fears with acceptance, given that fear and need are two sides of the same coin, you also often become aware of what you need to neutralise that fear. For example,
Do you need to have a process conversation with your client about changing your approach to ensure you have their enthusiastic agreement and maintain your alliance?
Do you need some supervision focused on practicing your new EFIT interventions so you can raise your confidence in these?
Another thing we do in EFIT when helping our clients overcome primary fears and have corrective emotional experiences is slice the risk thinner for them. Maybe you can do this for yourself too? Instead of setting yourself the mammoth task of switching to an EFIT approach immediately with all your clients, why not take the pressure off and just choose one? Commit, with that client’s collaborative consent, to applying EFIT faithfully with them and see how that goes. As you gain confidence and competence you can gradually increase the number of clients with whom you use EFIT until you hit your sweet spot.
Hope this helps!
