ABSTRACT

Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy (EFT), an attachment-based couple therapy, views emotion as being central to the process of therapeutic change. As affect arousal of emotion is a somatic reaction, the purpose of this study was to focus on therapists’ interventions classified as noting and commenting on clients’ somatic cue of emotional experience, such as their facial expression or posture, in relation to depth of emotional experiencing demonstrated by clients in EFT couple therapy sessions. The sample included 13 therapists, each treating one couple during a single EFT training demonstration session. We coded therapists’ interventions (i.e., commenting on one partner’s somatic cue of emotion). Immediately prior to and following such therapist interventions, we rated the partner’s depth of emotional experiencing. The results of multilevel modeling demonstrated a significant linear increase in terms of depth of partner’s experiencing throughout the session. Furthermore, partners demonstrated a significant immediate increase in the depth of experiencing following somatically focused interventions. These findings suggest that interventions focusing on somatic experience of emotion may facilitate deeper experiencing for clients in EFT sessions.

摘要

以情感为中心的夫妻疗法（EFT）是一种基于依恋的夫妻疗法，将情感视为治疗改变过程的核心。由于情绪的唤起是一种躯体反应，本研究的目的是关注治疗师的干预，这些干预被归类为注意和评论客户的情绪体验的躯体线索，例如他们的面部表情或姿势，与情绪深度有关客户在 EFT 夫妻治疗课程中展示的体验。样本包括 13 名治疗师，每人在一次 EFT 培训演示课程中治疗一对夫妇。我们对治疗师的干预进行了编码（即评论一位伴侣的躯体情感线索）。在这种治疗师干预之前和之后，我们评估了伴侣的情感体验深度。多层次建模的结果表明，在整个会话期间合作伙伴的体验深度显着线性增加。此外，合作伙伴表现出在以身体为重点的干预措施后，体验深度立即显着增加。这些发现表明，专注于情绪的躯体体验的干预措施可能有助于客户在 EFT 会话中进行更深入的体验。