Emotion-Focused Therapy

Emotion-Focused Therapy (EFT) is a type of psychotherapy that focuses on people’s emotions. Throughout this course, we will dive into exploring primary, secondary and instrumental emotions, as well as how to use emotion to transform and resolve painful feelings.

Emotion-Focused Therapy is a humanistic approach that believes emotions are useful and help us plan and regulate our behaviour. However, sometimes we can get stuck in unhelpful patterns. By understanding our emotional state, we can change the way we process emotions so that we can replace these unhelpful responses with more helpful ones.

In this engaging and insightful course, you'll delve deep into the theory, techniques, and practical applications of Emotion-Focused Therapy tailored specifically for individual clients (not couples). Inside this course, you will:

• Explore the foundations: Gain a solid understanding of the core principles, history, and development of Emotion-Focused Therapy, and learn how it compares to other therapeutic approaches.

• Understand the theory of emotion: Dive into the intricate world of emotions, uncovering their significance, and learning how to decipher and work with them effectively. We will explore different types of primary and secondary emotions.

• How EFT transform distress: Learn how EFT practitioners recognise and address various forms of emotional distress, including core pain, emotional avoidance, and unhealthy coping mechanisms.

• Core skills: Understand essential counselling skills and techniques used in EFT, including empathic exploration, emotional attunement, and dialogues, to facilitate deep emotional processing and healing.

• EFT tasks: Discover the specific exercises used in Emotion-Focused Therapy including two-chair dialogues and empty chair dialogues for unfinished business.

• Examine EFT in practice: Explore real-life case studies and learn how Emotion-Focused Therapy techniques are applied to a range of psychological issues, from depression and anxiety to trauma and interpersonal challenges.

• Navigate cultural considerations: Gain insights into the cultural factors influencing emotional experiences and learn how to adopt a culturally sensitive approach to therapy.

The course is thoughtfully designed, featuring video lectures, downloadable resources, quizzes, practical exercises, and a comprehensive course handbook. This course is accredited by the International Association of Therapists. On completion, you'll receive the standard Udemy certificate of completion. If you wish to become a registered member of the BACP, you will require further training.

No prior knowledge of Emotion-Focused Therapy is required for this course. However, we will only briefly touch on basic counselling skills, so we optionally recommend taking our Person-Centred Counselling course first.