Non-verbal Communication in Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy

Abstract

This is the first study to examine therapeutic use of somatic experience of emotion in the context of Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy (EFT). It is an experiential, systemic, attachment-based modality that focuses on emotion as central to change. Somatic cues of emotion are activated in attachment relationships, such as romantic relationships. Somatic cues are important as they mark attachment-related emotional experiences and internal working models that are formed in childhood, such as face-twisting, and are defined as non-verbal communication in this dissertation. The impact of somatically focused interventions on clients' experiencing as well as EFT trainer therapists’ experiences and views on the use of somatic phenomena in couple therapy sessions were studied to gain a broader understanding of this research domain. Both quantitative and qualitative methods with separate data sets were used. Two of the three original publications report on the quantitative study of coded transcripts of 13 couple therapy sessions conducted by 13 different EFT trainer therapists. The first investigated the impact on clients' experiencing of somatically focused interventions by the EFT therapists (therapists’ comments on somatic cues, such as gesture, posture, facial expressions) and the second the impact on clients' experiencing of multiple repetitions of a somatically focused intervention by the EFT therapists with specific focus on withdrawers and pursuers. The third publication reports on a qualitative interview study on the views and experiences of eight experienced EFT trainer couple therapists on the somatic phenomena in their work. The findings suggest that somatically focused interventions are associated with greater depth in clients’ experiencing both after each intervention and throughout the session. Repetition of the intervention was positively impacting experiencing for withdrawers, whereas having an opposite effect on pursuers. As these were the first exploratory results, replication is needed. Three core themes emerged in the qualitative research: They were: (1) the importance and relevance of somatic experiences, (2) therapists’ use of their own somatic experiences, and (3) working with clients’ somatic experiences. The results indicate that this is a promising area in couple therapy which could be used more often in clinical work and which merits further study.

Keywords: somatic experience, emotionally focused couple therapy, EFT