Couples Counseling at FSHN

• Are you stuck in patterns of criticism, blame, and emotional distancing?
• Are you and your partner struggling to communicate?
• Do you feel that you and your partner have become distant?
• Do you want to have greater communication and understanding with your partner?
• Has there been a trust violation and you or your partner are having difficulty recovering?

Couples therapy can help!

Our connections with others elicit some of our most important emotions being joy, delight, and love… when we connect or pain, fear, and sadness… when we don’t. Paradoxically, the ways we cope with the pain of disconnection can often move us further away from our partner. Couples counseling helps couples unpack their disconnection and pain to repair and strengthen the bonds of intimacy and closeness and promote emotional safety, trust, and openness. Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) helps clients identify the negative patterns of behavior that led to the loss of the emotional bond. Once the negative cycle is identified, the couple can begin to rebuild the safety and trust necessary to have a deep connection and satisfying relationship.

What is EFT?

Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT)  is a highly effective treatment that helps distressed couples improve their relationship and deepen their bond.

EFT  believes that people are “hardwired” to create strong emotional ties with others. This truth helps us understand how powerfully attached we are to our partners and how fully we rely on them for comfort and support. EFT understands that distress in relationships leads to emotional disconnection that leads to the development of a negative cycle as each partner tries to cope with the loss of connection.  In these negative cycles, couples respond with anger, criticism, distancing, silence, relationship distractions, etc... These negative cycles happen over the slightest issues, and over time are corrosive to the bonds of trust and security in the relationship.

EFT aims to help couples stop these negative cycles by first identifying the cycle and then helping partners identify and state their needs to each other in a way that helps their partner to have greater understanding, compassion, and empathy.

EFT allows couples to experience one another in new ways that powerfully transform their relationships.

How effective is EFT?

The effectiveness of EFT has been well substantiated by more than 30 years of rigorous research. It is now considered one of the most empirically supported forms of couple›s therapy. Studies have found that  70-75% of couples undergoing EFT successfully move from distress to recovery, and approximately 90% shows significant improvements! Studies consistently show excellent follow-up results.

There is also some neuroscience suggesting that  EFT  can actually change some aspects of brain functioning. A short video summarizing this research can be viewed on www. drsuejohnson.com/videos.

Are all couples therapists EFT-trained?

No- Therapists must first meet certain standards in order to qualify as EFT (e.g. have a graduate degree from an accredited institution and a license to practice mental health care). Then, therapists must complete very intensive training according to ICEEFT standards- the international body for EFT.

Only after completing this training, a therapist is EFT-trained. At present, FSHN is the only clinic in Kuwait that has an EFT-trained psychologist.

How many sessions will it take?

EFT  is a brief treatment and typically requires about  20 sessions of weekly therapy. Of course, every couple is different; some report improvement quicker than others do.

What about diversity and multicultural issues?

We recognize and respect that there is a lot of diversity among couples and relationships.

EFT is a humanistic approach that is collaborative, nonjudgmental, and respectful. We create a safe place for people and treat them as persons not problems. EFT is highly sensitive to multicultural differences in relationships types;

it respects diversity and individual differences.

EFT  can also help couples dealing with additional complexities such as one or both partners suffering from mental health disorders, sexual dysfunction, infertility, new parents, problems with extended family, and chronic illness.

What other type of couples counseling services do you offer?

Premarital Counseling: is a type of therapy that helps couples prepare for marriage / committed relationship. It can help partners to have a strong, healthy relationship, giving them a better chance for a stable and satisfying commitment/marriage. The process involves a thorough assessment of the relationship style, personal values, communication styles, and strength of their bond. Typically pre-marital counseling lasts about  5 sessions.

Couples Checkup: it consists of 4 sessions and focuses on a comprehensive evaluation of the relationship including the strengths, growth areas, communication styles, expressions of love, conflict cycles, and the depth of the relationship bond. Couples will be given specific recommendations for improving their relationship. This service is useful for engaged or married couples. Brief Consultations: Individuals and couples can meet with our EFT-trained psychologist for a brief 50 minutes consultation to discuss their relationship concerns and receive specific recommendations going forward.