Emotion-Focused Therapy in Practice: Working With Grief and Abandonment

In Emotion-Focused Therapy in Practice , Jeanne C. Watson demonstrates her approach to psychotherapy, which helps to facilitate change in clients psychological, emotional, and interpersonal functioning. Emotion-focused therapy (EFT), the process-experiential approach, is rooted in experiential psychotherapy and emphasises the role of experiencing in the change process. The primary goals of this approach are to promote more effective emotional processing and affect regulation, as well as enhanced differentiation of self and other to increase autonomy and self-care in relationships, and to engender more positive treatment of self. In EFT, the therapeutic relationship is seen as central to the change process — not only as a facilitator of the development of a positive working alliance, but also as an active ingredient of change. This programme features Dr. Watsons work with a young woman who has experienced abandonment and trauma. Dr. Watson demonstrates maximal responsiveness to the client — establishing empathy, acceptance, genuineness, and prizing — to help the client feel safe and to begin to explore her emotional experience and conceptualise her grief.