208: Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) with Dr. Sue Johnson
Every voice is named by two or more agreeing sources.
“I read all his books and I asked him if I could go and sit in the back of his supervision. He said, no, go away.”
Neil Jacobson rejected Sue's request to observe his supervision.
“I would watch tapes, you know, 10, 12 times. I'd watch it from the female client's point of view. I'd watch the male client. I'd watch— because I only got heterosexual couples in those days.”
Sue repeatedly reviewed therapy tapes from both partners' perspectives to identify patterns.
“EFT is the only approach to couples therapy that gets the kind of results we do, and that gets results that last over time.”
Sue believes EFT uniquely produces durable therapeutic outcomes.
“the follow-ups that we've done, admittedly they're only about 3 years long because it's very hard to get people to fill in questionnaires after 3 years.”
Long‑term follow‑up studies for EFT typically only reach three years due to low questionnaire response.
“But it's, it's about how social interaction is a biological variable. It impacts your biology.”
Social interaction is fundamentally a biological variable that affects our biology.
“I can pick up that safety in 5 seconds.”
Sue feels safety with a dance partner almost instantly, showing how attunement works.
“And I said, well, let's close your eyes. And let's have a conversation with Jesus about that.”
In individual therapy, Sue guides a client to imagine a dialogue with Jesus to explore self‑worth.
“He said, oh, I feel my mother's love.”
The Dalai Lama answers fear by recalling his mother's love, illustrating accessible compassion.
“You know, Neil Jacobson always used to say, the change happens when people do homework, and the trouble is people won't do it.”
Neil Jacobson believed change depended on homework, but clients often avoid it.
“Change happens in session, in new emotional experiences, and those experiences are so powerful They don't have to practice them.”
Sue asserts that therapeutic change occurs in‑session through powerful emotional moments, not through outside practice.
“When people start doing these hold‑me‑tight conversations, as we call them in our couples therapy, they keep doing them.”
She predicts that couples who adopt hold‑me‑tight dialogues will continue using them.
“I always show this little clip of grebes doing this mating dance, and you watch it, it blows your mind.”
Sue shares a vivid example of grebes' synchronized mating dance to illustrate natural bonding.
“You have to move, you have to tune into people and allow them to take the steps the size they want.”
Therapists should let clients set their own pace while staying engaged.
“If you listen, people always fight and only fight about disconnection.”
All relational fights are fundamentally about emotional disconnection.
“people use those things like parenting, money, sex to distract themselves from the vulnerability of what would happen if they thrust themselves into that emotional conversation.”
Surface topics are used to avoid the fear of deep emotional dialogue.
“I have 70 trainers who go all over the world and take this stuff into Egypt, Iran, Finland, the slums of South Africa.”
EFT is taught globally by a large network of trainers.
“And the protection that they create for themselves becomes a prison, and they get stuck in this one way of dealing with their vulnerability, one way of dealing with their emotion, and then as adults it doesn't work.”
Protective coping can become a restrictive prison in adulthood.
“We have Hold Me Tight. We translated it into an online program, www.holdmetightonline.com.”
Hold Me Tight has an online program available at the given URL.
“I think it's like $299. You can do an online course with your partner.”
The online Hold Me Tight course costs about $299.
“Attachment is a biological approach to who we are as human beings and how we relate to others.”
Attachment theory views humans as bonding mammals with universal wiring.
“I say, yeah, I’m going to retire the day before I die.”
Sue jokes that she’ll retire just before she dies.
“All right, thank you so much to Dr. Sue Johnson, and not just for this interview obviously, but to all of her work that she's done over the last 30 years for the field of couples therapy.”
Highlights Dr. Johnson’s thirty years of contributions to the field.
“And I'm just so sorry and want to send my regards to her family and to all of you who trained with her personally, had personal relationships with her.”
Expresses sorrow and sends condolences to Dr. Johnson’s family and colleagues.