The Use of Recursive Frame Analysis on an Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy Session

Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy (EFT) is an evidenced-based therapy model. During the last three decades, researchers have divided the EFT theory into a sequence of stages and steps to help therapists make the leap from theory to practice. This article begins by explaining the EFT model and Recursive Frame Analysis (RFA). RFA is here used as a qualitative research method to analyze a selected EFT session lead by Sue Johnson, one of the originators of EFT. Specifically, the study focuses on the interventions and techniques of EFT while analyzing the EFT session process from an RFA perspective. Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy (EFT) Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy (EFT) was founded by Greenberg and Johnson in the early 1980s based on systemic theory, humanistic and experiential therapy, and attachment theory (Greenberg & Johnson, 1985). First, systemic theory views the couple as a system in which they affect each other's behaviors (Bateson, 1972). Johnson (2004) believed that a couple's distress results from their negative interactional cycle. Second, the humanistic experiential approach is based on Rogers' client-centered therapy (Rogers, 1951). The humanistic approach focuses on the growth of clients and believes that change happens in the present moment and the now-experience. Last, EFT therapists view attachment needs and emotional bonds within a couple as the source of a healthy relationship. Couples' attachment theory was generated from Bowlby's attachment theory based on caregivers and children (Bowlby, 1969). Researchers have since expanded on attachment theory between children and their caregivers to understand couples' emotional bonds (Collins & Read, 1990; Levy & Davis, 1988). The three theories are combined to conceptualize relationship distress and integrated to develop EFT stages, interventions, and techniques for treatment (Moser & Johnson, 2008). In the three decades of EFT's model and practice development, EFT has been viewed as "one of the most empirically supported models of couple therapy" (Denton, Johnson, & Burleson, 2009, p. 226). It shows effective outcomes of 70 to 73 percent in couple recovery (Johnson, 2003). It is also viewed as an empirical approach to couple therapy and it has lasting treatment effects (Greenman & Johnson, 2013). According to Johnson (2004), EFT has three tasks: monitoring the alliance; engaging, exploring, and expanding emotional responses in an attachment context; and reconstructing positive interactions. In practice, she divides the tasks into three stages and nine steps. The first stage has four steps: creating an alliance and directing conflicts issues into the attachment struggle, identifying the negative interactional cycle, assessing primary emotions underlying interactional positions, and reframing the problem by using primary emotions and attachment needs. The goal of the first stage is to de-escalate the negative interaction. The second stage is to change interactional positions. It has three steps: promoting identification of attachment emotions and needs, and then integrating into relationship interactions; promoting acceptance of each other's experience and validating new interactional responses; and facilitating the expression of needs and wants and creating bonding events. The third stage is consolidation and integration. It has only two steps: facilitating new solutions and consolidating new positions and new cycle of attachment behavior. The three stages and nine steps have guided therapists to connect theory to practice. Johnson (2004) also developed interventions and techniques for delivering EFT effectively. The interventions are based on the three theories: experiential therapy, systemic theory, and attachment theory. For example, systemic interventions include the tracking and reflecting process, and reframing partners' interactions in the context of the negative cycle. Experiential interventions include empathic reflections/attunement, validation, evocative responding. …