Emotion-Focused Therapy

Emotion-focused therapy (acronym EFT) or Process experiential therapy is currently the most famous therapeutic approach dealing primarily with emotions. It is used in couple therapy (Greenberg, Johnson, 1988) as well as in individual therapy (Greenberg et al., 1993) and it is empirically supported treatment. Emotion-focused therapy was developed by Greenberg and his colleagues in the 1980s on the base of empirical research on process of change in psychotherapy (Rice, Greenberg, 1984; Greenberg, Johnson, 1988). Overview study outlines the theoretical background of this therapeutic approach, which is relatively little-known to Slovak and Czech therapists, and its distinctive features. The author explains the markers, micromarkers and tasks in EFT therapy, six fundamental empirically supported interventions for emotion processing in therapeutic relationship, that serve like goals in therapy and process of change. In conclusion, the paper provides an overview of current research findings regarding EFT that summarize research of the therapy effectiveness for different population samples and people in specific situations. EFT has been showed to be effective therapy mainly for depression treatment (Greenberg, Watson, 2006) and it has promising results concerning also other diagnosis.

Júlia Halamová, Department of Psychology and Pathopsychology, Faculty of Education, Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovak Republic e-mail: julia.halamova@gmail.com