Accuracy and Bias in Vulnerability Perceptions of Partners Undergoing Emotion-Focused Therapy for Couples.

The primary mechanism of change in emotion-focused couples therapy (EFT-C) is described as one partner accessing and expressing vulnerability, with the other partner responding affiliatively, with compassion, acceptance, validation, and support. These interactions are assumed to restructure the negative, rigid interactional cycle that usually brings couples to therapy and helps build a positive emotional bond. The primary aim of this study was to test whether for this process to occur, partners need to accurately perceive their spouse's experiences of vulnerability during therapy.

Working with identity and self-soothing in Emotion-Focused Therapy for Couples.

This paper will outline new developments in Emotion-Focused Therapy for Couples (EFT-C) (Greenberg & Goldman, Emotion-focused couples therapy: The dynamics of emotion, love, and power, Washington, DC, American Psychological Association, 2008). People are seen as primarily motivated by their affective goals and the regulation of emotional states. The three motivational systems of attachment, identity, and attraction/liking, viewed as reflective of the core concerns people bring to therapy, are briefly outlined and elaborated.

Maintenance of gains following experiential therapies for depression.

Follow-up data across an 18-month period are presented for 43 adults who had been randomly assigned and had responded to short-term client-centered (CC) and emotion-focused (EFT) therapies for major depression. Long-term effects of these short-term therapies were evaluated using relapse rates, number of asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic weeks, survival times across an 18-month follow-up, and group comparisons on self-report indices at 6- and 18-month follow-up among those clients who responded to the acute treatment phase. EFT treatment showed superior effects across 18 months in terms of less depressive relapse and greater number of asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic weeks, and the probability of maintaining treatment gains was significantly more likely in the EFT treatment than in the CC treatment.

Depth of emotional experience and outcome.

Abstract The relationship between theme-related depth of experiencing (EXP) and outcome was explored in experiential therapy with depressed clients. The study sought to investigate whether depth of EXP predicts outcome, whether change in depth of EXP over therapy predicts outcome, and how these factors compare with the therapeutic alliance as predictors of outcome. The sample consisted of 35 clients, each of whom received 16 to 20 weeks of therapy.

Emotional processing during experiential treatment of depression.

This study explored the importance of early and late emotional processing to change in depressive and general symptomology, self-esteem, and interpersonal problems for 34 clients who received 16-20 sessions of experiential treatment for depression. The independent contribution to outcome of the early working alliance was also explored. Early and late emotional processing predicted reductions in reported symptoms and gains in self-esteem.