I am really interested in the interaction between body and mind on mental health and how that helps to make EFT more effective. I draw on my Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Training in this and my mission has been to integrate this embodied way of thinking and working into EFT.

I want to do three things in the presentation:

1. Look at non verbal cues in the clients in EFIT and work with that very slowly and delicately
2. Look at our own inner bodily experiences as source of information
3. Look at bodily informed interventions in EFCT.
   
   

Emotionally Focused Individual Therapy  (EFIT) and Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy relies on using language and emotion. However, some people cannot easily express their emotions in words. For these clients, therapy may benefit from using nonverbal bodily signals, as expressed through movement, gestures, and posture. For example, skin coloration and tension in posture are unconscious indicators of the client’s emotions.

In this workshop, I will argue and show (in video material of my own sessions) that EFIT can be more effective if the therapist attunes to the client’s current emotional state as expressed bodily.  If the therapist can use these bodily signals of the client to get a better understanding of the emotional world then attunement will get stronger.  It  is an extra layer we add to the work, especially with traumatized clients where the body knows but the brain doesn’t.

In doing this, therapists need to be aware of our own bodily signals too, and we must choose how to use them: the bodily self of the therapist is an important tool to use. What we feel in our own body is often a sign of over-involvement or under-involvement with the client. Being aligned with yourself, and being able to use your own bodily self as a therapist, and being attuned with the client too, will provide the optimal context for therapeutic change in EFIT and EFCT.

I also want to show how bodily awareness in the client can be ameliorated and used in couple sessions. My mission has been to integrate SP techniques into my EFT work, since they are both based on attachment theory and are very complementary. This is still work in progress and I hope to exchange thoughts and ideas about how to do this more effectively.

This will be an interactive day, with theory, play, roleplay, and clinical material.

At the end of the day participants will have more insight and knowlegde of:

1. How to look for nonverbal embodied signals of the inner emotional world of the client
2. More insight in their own inner embodied sensations and how to use them
3. How to use bodily interventions in couple sessions