Talk:Emotionally focused therapy

What is the structure that this process follows?
Is every experience unique to each individual or are there patterns of success and failure in employment and social relationships that one can read and learn about? Does each "therapist" have guru status to adequately guide any person that presents him/herself with questions? Are there authors/books and researchers/journals to be cited?

Is success achieved when you establish a multi-month "relationship" with the guru and you are able to make positive statements? What happens if the relationship is rocky or the information, concepts discovered, or readings observed are uncomfortable? Is there ever any objective criteria that identify clearly the specific components of learning and improvement? What does improvement look like? Are there authors/books and researchers/journals where one can learn about the internal structure (which presumably could speed understanding and improvement)?

Is every experience unique to each individual or are there patterns of success and failure in employment and social relationships that one can read and learn about? Does each "therapist" have guru status to adequately guide any person that presents him/herself with questions? Are there authors/books and researchers/journals to be cited?

Is every experience unique to each individual or are there patterns of success and failure in employment and social relationships that one can read and learn about? Does each "therapist" have guru status to adequately guide any person that presents him/herself with questions? Are there authors/books and researchers/journals to be cited? 75.34.95.53 (talk) 19:52, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

A concern has been raised
Please see Talk:Emotion-Focused Therapy for details. Thanks! ··· 日本穣 ? · 投稿  · Talk to Nihonjoe 00:32, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Much of this article is directly lifted from the commercial web site http://www.eft.ca/ This article appears to primarily be an advertisement.

This article also uses information published in "Creating Connection: The Process of Emotionally Focused Therapy" and countless articles published in peer-reviewed journals. The article is stub-class in my opinion, but offers a decent beginning description of what is probably the most significant empirically supported treatment for couples today (recently adopted by the US Army for post-deployment work with soldiers and their partners, the VA, the NYC Fire Department, etc.) and an emerging EST for families. I don't have the time right now to add more citations or expand the article but it's a fair start on an important topic. 12.149.202.9 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 21:35, 2 August 2010 (UTC).

Lacks web-verifiable footnotes; existing footnotes all from "for sale," non-web sources, hence whole article is an advertisement
The failure to cite web-verifiable sources undercuts the usual ability of editors to verify, question, or dis-verify e.g., the claims of efficacy of the claim of superiority over other therapies.

Wikipedia had a better article here before that cited web-verifiable sources. Those sources should be re-instated.

Much of the writing here is quite good, and if open source, should be kept. However it is incomplete, in a way that leaves the reader the impression that the way to learn more is to buy the books; there are only 3, and 2 are books sold on Johnson's site.

Ocdnctx (talk) 15:59, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Has it been validated?
Are there reviews, or at least peer-reviewed publications comparing results from EFT to other martial therapy? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ocdnctx (talk • contribs) 17:20, 24 February 2013‎
 * "martial therapy" or "marital therapy" ? --195.137.93.171 (talk) 23:45, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Merger proposal
I propose that Process-experiential therapy be merged into Emotionally focused therapy, because these are synonyms for the same approach to psychotherapy, as is clearly explained in authoritative texts such as: and.

Because these two articles describe the same approach to psychotherapy, editing both of them will be a waste of effort and they should be merged. Moreover, the Process-experiential therapy article is currently no more than a stub, very little effort has put into it, and only one other article links to it, therefore its content can easily be merged into Emotionally focused therapy. The Emotionally focused therapy article is of a reasonable size that the merging will not cause any problems as far as article size or undue weight is concerned. Biogeographist (talk) 20:26, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

✅ — No objections after a month. I merged them a few minutes ago. Biogeographist (talk) 12:34, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

Pseudoscience
This stuff is pseudoscience at its best. 93.172.230.5 (talk) 15:49, 26 July 2016 (UTC)


 * Exactly which claims in the article are you labeling "pseudoscientific"? You should be more specific, otherwise it's impossible to discern whether your complaint points to a legitimate problem or is pseudoskepticism (or pseudorationalism). It seems obvious to me that everything in this article is a provisional, pragmatic heuristic (more or less rationally and empirically established—see the cited sources) and nowhere claims to be a scientifically established law. As Robyn Dawes pointed out in his 1994 book House of Cards, a rigorously scientific basis for any form of psychotherapy could hardly be found. Psychotherapy has always been, and remains, more art than science, although many psychotherapy researchers have been working to establish principles for better outcomes with different populations. See also: Common factors theory. Your comment evinces no familiarity with the research literature on psychotherapy or with the relevant debates, so it's impossible to take your comment seriously as it stands. Biogeographist (talk) 22:09, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

Article title
There are two ways of spelling this topic, used primarily by two groups of researchers: "emotionally focused therapy" (used primarily by S. Johnson et al.) and "emotion-focused therapy" (used primarily by L. Greenberg et al.). This article covers both groups of researchers, but uses the spelling "emotionally focused therapy" throughout (except in the lead sentence, which contains both spellings, and except in direct quotations and references) because the article title has to be one or the other, and due to historical circumstances "emotionally focused therapy" was chosen. This does not imply any prejudice for or against either term. Biogeographist (talk) 13:20, 3 January 2017 (UTC)


 * I appreciate your tenacity in reserving the site as you designed it. My response here is to suggest that there are distinctions between emotionally focused therapy and emotion-focused therapy which extend beyond a different spelling as you suggest. I agree that "emotionally focused therapy" is used by S. Johnson et al. and "emotion-focused therapy" is used primarily by L. Greenberg et al. who as you have pointed out also use process experiential therapy. I am hoping you will read the examples which I share below and reconsider the need to not conflate emotionally focused therapy and emotion-focused therapy. I do understand your reasoning that for historical reasons you want to use the name emotionally focused therapy to describe both the Greenberg and the Johnson approaches, however, I feel it does a disservice to the public and leaves them uninformed and confused.
 * Emotionally focused therapy and emotion-focused therapy, while originating from the same roots, and continuing to have much in common, have evolved into two separate approaches with distinctions that are substantial.
 * Originally emotionally focused therapy approach was developed, formulated tested and validated by Johnson and Greenberg (Johnson, S. M., & Greenberg, L. S. (1985). Differential Effects of Experiential and Problem-Solving Interventions in Resolving Marital Conflict. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 53(2): 175-184; Johnson, S. M., & Greenberg, L. S. (1985). Emotionally focused couples therapy: An outcome study. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 11(3), 313-317; Johnson, S. M., & Greenberg, L. S. (1988). Relating process to outcome in marital therapy. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 14(2): 175-183; Greenberg, L., & Johnson, S.M. (1988). Emotionally Focused Therapy for Couples. New York: Guilford Press.)
 * However since its original formulation, they have diverged in significantly different ways and I feel that it would be more accurate for both approaches to make this distinction clear to the public. Significant differences described below include a different emphasis upon attachment and co-regulation of emotion prior to self-regulation (one of Johnson’s foci); a different emphasis upon maladaptive emotion, and changing emotion with emotion (one of Greenberg’s foci).
 * For example, Greenberg and colleagues went on to develop and extensively research his approach as pertains to individuals. (The primary texts include the following and countless research articles as well: Elliott, Watson, Greenberg & Goldman, 2004; Greenberg, L. S., Rice L. N., & Elliott, R. (1993). Facilitating Emotional Change: The moment by moment process. New York: Guilford Press. Paivio, S. C., & Pascual-Leone, A. (2010). Emotion-focused therapy for complex trauma: An integrative approach. Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association.) The emotion-focused approach is based on changing emotion with emotion (Elliott, R., Watson, J. C., Goldman, R. N., & Greenberg, L. S. (2004). Learning emotion-focused therapy: The process experiential approach to change. Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association; Greenberg, L. S. (2010). Emotion-focused therapy: A clinical synthesis. Focus, 8(1), 32-42.). In emotion-focused therapy, emotion is categorized into four types to guide therapists in knowing how to respond to a client at a particular time, it uses six principles of emotion processing, a set of therapeutic tasks in EFT for individuals and it promotes 3 major principles of emotional change (Greenberg, L. S. (2002). Integrating an emotion-focused approach to treatment into psychotherapy integration. Journal of Psychotherapy Integration, 12(2), 54-189).
 * Johnson’s emotionally focused therapy does not categorize emotion into maladaptive and adaptive emotion. Her approach to working with emotion has diverged in slightly different directions with a focus upon attachment and systems theory remaining equally prominent to the experiential (Rogerian, Gestalt therapies, that are prominent in emotion-focused therapy). References to support this include the following:
 * Johnson, S. M. (2009a). Attachment theory and emotionally focused therapy for individuals and couples. In J. H. Obegi & E. Berant (Eds.), Attachment theory and research in clinical work with adults (pp. 410-433). New York: Guilford; Johnson, S. M. (2009b). Extravagant emotion: Understanding and transforming love relationships in emotionally focused therapy. In D. Fosha, D. J. Siegel & M. F. Solomon (Eds.), The healing power of emotion: Affective neuroscience, development and clinical practice (pp. 257-279). New York: W.W. Norton & Company; Johnson, S. M. (1998). Listening to the music: Emotion as a natural part of systems theory. The Journal of Systemic Therapies, 17, 1-17; Johnson, S. M., & Best, M. (2003). A systemic approach to restructuring adult attachment. In P. Erdman & T. Caffery (Eds.), Attachment and family systems: Conceptual, empirical, and therapeutic relatedness (pp165-189). New York: Routledge.
 * Another example of the current differences (albeit some similarities remain) between Greenberg’s emotion-focused therapy and Johnson’s emotionally focused therapy can be seen in the difference in couple therapy. In Greenberg, L. S., & Goldman, R. N. (2008). Emotion-focused couples therapy: The dynamics of emotion, love and power. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, they are very clear about how emotion-focused couple therapy is different from the original 1985 approach, and from Johnson, S. M. (1996, 2004). Creating connection: The practice of emotionally focused couple therapy (2nd ed.). New York: Brunner/Routledge). Johnson has retained the original three stage, 9 step model from 1985,1988.
 * Greenberg and Goldman (2008) emphasize that they do not see attachment as having the prominence Johnson and other attachment researchers (Mikulincer and Shaver, 2015, 2016) give it, but rather than attachment is only one of one of three motivational systems in couple therapy (in addition to identy/power and attractiveness). They also expand the original 9 step model into 14 steps to make more space for individual self-regulation work before restructuring the couple’s bond.
 * That is a significant difference from Johnson’s approach emotionally focused couple therapy (1996, 2004) that is increasingly grounded in attachment theory as a theory of emotion regulation where in co-regulation is focused upon prior to self regulation. In fact self-regulation is seen as a by-product of co-regulation, as supported by neuroscientist Coan (Coan, J. A., & Maresh, E. L. (2014). Social baseline theory and the social regulation of emotion. In: J. J. Gross. (Ed.), Handbook of emotion regulation (2nd edn) (pp. 221-236). New York: Guilford.). Coan has also collaborated with Johnson on fMRI outcome research of emotionally focused therapy’s impact on the brain’s response to threat. (Johnson, S. M., Burgess Moser, M., Beckes, L., Smith, A., Dalgleish, T., Halchuk, R., Hasselmo, K., Greenman, P.S., Merali, Z., & Coan, J. A. (2013). Soothing the threatened brain: Leveraging contact comfort with emotionally focused therapy. PLoS ONE 8(11): e79314. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0079314).
 * References alluded to above which support attachment as a theory of romantic relationships and a theory of emotion regulation have expanded exponentially in the last 25 years. They include: Mikulincer, M., & Shaver, P. R. (2016). Attachment in Adulthood: Structure, Dynamics, and Change (2nd edn). New York: Guilford Press. Mikuliner, M., & Shaver, P. R. (2015). Boosting attachment security in adulthood: The “broaden-and-build” effects of security-enhancing mental representations and interpersonal contexts. In: J.A. Simpson & W. S. Rholes (Eds.), Attachment Theory and Research: New Directions and Emerging Themes (pp. 124-144). New York: Guilford.)
 * My hope is that you will support the endeavor to separate 1) emotionally focused therapy from 2) current day emotion-focused therapy / process experiential therapy so that each approach can be clearly presented and not confused with the other.
 * For example your presentation of Johnson’s couple approach on the current site, leaves Greenberg and Goldman’s approach under represented. If this site was exclusively emotion-focused therapy/process experiential therapy, you could make their uniqueness prominent in couple therapy as well. Caro Wpg (talk) 04:03, 4 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your cordial response. Judging by your very short edit history, you appear to be new to Wikipedia, so first of all, welcome to Wikipedia! If you have not already read them, you will want to read the introduction to Wikipedia, the core content policies, and the article about citing sources. The style guide is Wikipedia's manual of style.


 * Your first sentence includes some false assumptions: "I appreciate your tenacity in reserving the site as you designed it." I didn't create this article; it was [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Emotionally_focused_therapy&oldid=141055337 created in June 2007] and I didn't begin contributing to the article until September 2014, over seven years later. Please do not refer to this article as "my" article; I have no interest in preserving the article as it was created or as it currently stands. The article certainly needs improvement, but any improvements should follow Wikipedia's core content policies, namely neutral point of view, verifiability, and no original research.


 * By the time I started editing this article, Emotion-Focused Therapy had already been redirected to this article, and there had already been some discussion (see Talk:Emotion-Focused Therapy) about whether the two terms should be separate articles or a single article, but no resolution (and little participation in the discussion). When I said that "the article title has to be one or the other, and due to historical circumstances 'emotionally focused therapy' was chosen", I was referring to the article's edit history on Wikipedia. My edits have been aimed at trying to make sure that both "emotion-focused therapy" and "emotionally focused therapy" are represented within this article, since the article is currently supposed to represent both. (In practice, this meant that I added most of the existing content about the "emotion-focused" principles of Greenberg et al., since before my edits the article was entirely about the "emotionally focused" principles of Johnson et al.)


 * I am not opposed to more clearly differentiating between "emotion-focused" and "emotionally focused" therapy with the aim of preventing confusion, but [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Emotionally_focused_therapy&diff=prev&oldid=757960224 your previous edit] did nothing to reduce the confusion. On the other hand, the differences between them should not be overemphasized. Ideally, the common factors between them should be as clear as the differences. Making them seem more different than they are also "does a disservice to the public and leaves them uninformed and confused". Again, the key principle here that all Wikipedia articles should follow is neutral point of view. Wikipedia is not a platform for evangelizing or marketing a particular ideology or partial point of view. (I don't mean to imply that's your intention; I am just pointing out that it is a danger in this situation.)


 * If you would like to work on dividing the article into two separate articles, you could create drafts of the two new articles in your sandbox and I would be happy to review them. It appears that you've already started a literature review. Thanks for your contributions, Biogeographist (talk) 18:13, 4 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Thank you for your reply. I will respond in due course. Caro Wpg (talk) 04:52, 5 January 2017 (UTC)


 * I have added Template:Split to the article to reflect the suggestion that this article be split into two articles. I think that drafts of the proposed two articles should be prepared in a sandbox first, as a lot of work needs to be done prior to the split to reflect all of the information and concerns in the discussion above. In this case, it would be especially important to avoid turning this split into a POV split, which Wikipedia's guidelines say is an unacceptable type of splitting. That means that the split should be based on verifiable facts from reliable sources and not merely based on a disagreement between editors. I think we agree that there is a factual basis for the split, so it is just a question of executing the split skillfully enough so that it is an improvement over the current state of the article, and not a worsening of the problem (or exchanging one inadequate article with two inadequate articles, which would merely double the problem rather than resolve it). Biogeographist (talk) 18:22, 5 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Thank you. I feel that a description of the similarities and differences between the two approaches, including their shared beginning, and then the divergence in the 90's - again retaining aspects in common, but expanding in different directions and different areas of research, will be important as a prelude to the split. I am preparing something and will put it in my sandbox for you to have a look at early next week. Thank you for your collaborative spirit.Caro Wpg (talk) 05:24, 6 January 2017 (UTC)


 * I just added my distinction between emotions-focused therapy and emotionally focused therapy to the sandbox. I hope you can see it.Caro Wpg (talk) 01:41, 16 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Thanks for writing the draft that is in your sandbox. I have not read it in detail yet, but it looks like you have done an excellent job of contrasting the two approaches. I like the way you have structured the article as a sequence of contrasts. I will edit it to conform more closely with Wikipedia's Manual of Style and with the citation style of the existing article. Biogeographist (talk) 14:22, 16 January 2017 (UTC)


 * I very much appreciate your willingness to edit it to inform are closely to Wikipedia's Manual of Style as well as maintaining the APA citation style I have used. Clearly I am new to Wikipedia formatting. I read somewhere that the sandbox is cleared every 12 hours - i hope this doesn't disappear. I welcome your help in eventually making this live. Caro Wpg (talk) 17:29, 16 January 2017 (UTC)


 * The sandbox that is cleared regularly is the global Sandbox. Your own user sandbox should exist forever, until the end of Wikipedia, unless you request that your account be deleted. I have copied the text from your sandbox and I am editing it in a text document on my computer. Biogeographist (talk) 18:02, 16 January 2017 (UTC)


 * I thought I had written to you in the past week to see how you are progressing on this, but I see it is not showing up here -- so perhaps I didn't enter it properly. I am trying to learn how Wikipedia works --  so in the meantime, until I hear more from you, I am experimenting with a small edit on the current Wikipedia emotionally focused therapy page. Hope to get your response!Caro Wpg (talk) 15:14, 23 January 2017 (UTC)


 * I have been working on it every day for the past week; it is a lot of work. Merely to make the style conform with Wikipedia's manual of style and with citation templates is a lot of tedious work, but I am also (re)reading sources and integrating some of the material from the present article into your draft. I have been wishing for someone like you to come along and contribute as much as you have done, so I am taking this very seriously and putting a lot of effort into it. The only problem I see with what you have written (and this is also true of the existing article) is that there is too much of an emic perspective on the material, as opposed to an etic perspective (I am guessing that you are closely involved with EFT—actually, given your choice of a username and the sources that you've cited I think I may know who you are) and too much reliance on primary sources. So I am also adding references to secondary sources, mostly psychotherapy survey textbooks, that discuss EFT. I expect to be finished soon. Biogeographist (talk) 16:47, 23 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the update! I appreciate the amount of work you are investing. You are right in that I may have poorly chosen my user name - unaware when setting up a Wikipedia account that my user name would be public as it is. Nevertheless - thank you for all the work you are putting into this. While you are correct in wanting to balance emic and etic approaches, I hope you are aware in citing psychotherapy survey textbooks that discuss EFT, that many times the two approaches are conflated, not fully doing just to the differences of the two streams. My intention is to boldly make the distinction, helping to alleviate the confusion amongst academics, and practitioners alike. I suspect therefore that referencing some textbooks, additional commentary will need to be added. Thank you again for your work. I could have referenced according to Wikipedia footnotes (but having read that one could also use APA (author, date) references I thought it was adequate to do this. --  Forever learning about a new means of communicating! Caro Wpg (talk) 19:54, 23 January 2017 (UTC)


 * I'm on board with your agenda to boldly make the distinction. I'm not adding content from the textbooks, only adding references to them where appropriate so that there is more of a balance of primary and secondary sources. The majority of the textbooks only cover one EFT approach or the other, but I've found a couple that briefly cover both in different sections, and none of the ones that I am citing makes the mistake of conflating the two EFT approaches, as far as I can see. I don't fault the textbook writers, because in the helping professions the range of theories, models, methods, approaches, assumptions, results and findings (to quote the title of a book by artist Damien Hirst) is so vast that it's probably impossible to be comprehensive in one book. Biogeographist (talk) 20:43, 23 January 2017 (UTC)


 * OK, I have updated the article with edited material from User:Caro Wpg/sandbox. I put the claims about effectiveness and efficacy into a separate section (Efficacy) because research on psychotherapy efficacy is contentious (for the skeptics) and I would rather report that research all in one section so that the skeptics can more easily improve that section and so that they don't have to comb through the entire article for efficacy claims. I think the rest of the article can accurately report the aims and methods of EFT regardless of whether those methods are effective in any particular case or extraordinarily efficacious in general. Biogeographist (talk) 20:22, 25 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Considering the very close relationship between emotionally focused therapy and emotion-focused therapy, I support merging the two into one article. FuriouslySerene (talk) 23:25, 25 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Somebody already merged the two EFT articles back in January 2010, and then I merged process-experiential therapy into this article in October 2014, since emotion-focused therapy had already been merged into this article, and process-experiential therapy is synonymous with emotion-focused therapy. Twenty days ago I applied Template:Split temporarily to indicate that we were in the process of better differentiating between the EFTs within the article, not necessarily that we were going to split the article into two separate articles. Perhaps Template:Split was not an appropriate template for that purpose, but the template is now gone. For the backstory, see the discussion above, which we have been engaged in for the past three weeks. Biogeographist (talk) 02:42, 26 January 2017 (UTC)


 * On further reflection, I think that when I applied Template:Split twenty days ago it seemed that the possibility of a split had been raised, but then when I saw the proposed draft in User:Caro Wpg/sandbox, it appeared that what was being proposed was a better differentiation of the two EFTs within one article, which I thought was a much better idea than a split. All of this is a long way of saying that at this point I agree that the two EFTs should remain in one article. I think splitting them would too easily turn into a dreaded POV split (as I mentioned in the discussion above). Biogeographist (talk) 02:53, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

Lead sentence
I changed the lead sentence because the previous version ("Emotionally focused therapy and emotion-focused therapy (both EFT) are two different approaches.") was extremely vague and incomplete: Approaches to what? How different are they? The first sentence should give a concise definition of the subject. Since the word "therapy" has many meanings, the lead sentence should specify what kind of therapy EFT is—it is psychotherapy (the use of psychological methods, particularly when based on regular personal interaction, to help people change) not medical therapy. Both Sue Johnson and Les Greenberg are psychologists, not medical doctors; they are using psychological methods to help people change, therefore both EFT approaches are approaches to psychotherapy. And the article establishes that the two EFT approaches are closely related: Greenberg was involved in the development of both; they share steps and concepts, etc. Of course, "closely related" also implies that they are different (if they were not different, it would not be necessary to say that they are closely related). If you disagree that they are "closely related" we can strike the word "closely". Biogeographist (talk) 13:04, 28 January 2017 (UTC)


 * ok. I have no problem with using "psychotherapy". Yes - please strike the word "closely". Thank you. If the lead sentence is to give clarity of the subject of this page, it seems it needs to say the two approaches to psychotherapy are related and are also distinctly different. You ask in your comments above how they are different and my sandbox material that you worked with clearly explicated how in fact they are different. If the way in which they are different is not clear to you, it is certainly not going to be clear to the average reader and this has been my overall concern the entire time -- that while acknowledging a historical shared beginning and some experiential commonalities, emotion-focused (process-experiential) therapy and emotionally focused therapy are substantially different. Given our misunderstandings I am hoping you are willing to reinstate your proposal that the two pages be split.

I made small edits last night to see if you would immediately respond, and I see you have. In general, it appears we have had an overall misunderstanding. I understood you had told me you were reformatting the material in my sandbox to more closely match Wikipedia formatting, without changing the meaning. I didn't expect you would make subtle little changes that would alter the meaning like you did. E.g., inserting "rarely" twice into a statement where I make a significant distinction between two different psychotherapeutic approaches certainly has the impact of minimizing a difference, for example. Integrating the material already posted with the material from my sandbox, also at times further conflates, not differentiates the two approaches. You speak clearly about Wikipedia's rule to remain neutral and to avoid presenting a point of view, yet the ways you changed my wording do not appear neutral to me. There appears now to be a point of view taken in this posting - i.e., that the two related approaches to psychotherapy can be called the same name – emotionally focused therapy – and that both experiential approaches similarly draw on attachment and systems theories. That statement diminishes writings from both approaches and is misleading.

I appreciate that you may not agree of course. I am just telling you that we have had a misunderstanding. I had hoped to have an article making the distinction to then be followed with your proposal to have two split pages, wherein the material formerly posted could be included under the approach it accurately represents.

The current posting appears to contain theoretical conflation that can best be resolved with your initial proposal to split emotion-focused (process-experiential therapy) and emotionally focused therapy into two pages. For example, the current sentence "Both EFT approaches include elements of experiential therapy (such as person-centered therapy and Gestalt therapy), systemic therapy, and attachment theory" minimizes the different foci each approach places upon these theories. I would like to return to your initial template split proposal. Are you wiling to repost your proposal that emotionally focused therapy and emotion-focused therapy be split into 2 pages? I would also appreciate if you let me know who you are have concluded that I am and would be interested in knowing who you are.

You have clearly show me that one needs to be take the time to become a Wikipedia editor in order to make a contribution. Thank you! Caro Wpg (talk) 19:38, 28 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your response. I agree with you that the previous version of the article did not differentiate well enough between the two EFT approaches. Perhaps I was confused about why you wrote one article in your sandbox if what you really wanted was two articles. I see that I misunderstood. But at this point I think that Wikipedia's policy of neutral point of view (NPOV) is best served by keeping the two EFT approaches in one article. I do not see any conflation of the two approaches in the current version; on the contrary, I think they are now well contrasted. If you disagree, you will have to specify where exactly you think the two approaches are conflated in the current version.


 * Now, I do not claim that the article as I edited it (that is, in its current state) is a "neutral point of view". NPOV is the ideal that we aim for as we edit an article. The way that the process of reaching consensus (and something approximating NPOV) proceeds is that you change or remove the claims that you think are unjustifiable, justifying your changes with reliable sources. This is exactly what I did when I inserted the word "rarely", as you mentioned above. I saw that you had written that emotionally focused therapy "does not distinguish between adaptive and maladaptive primary emotions", and then I found that Johnson did in fact make such a distinction, in the introduction to The Heart of the Matter (pp. 13ff.): "Emotion in a distressed couple can be viewed as basically a maladaptive response to past traumas and conflicts and interpreted on a conceptual level to create insight..." [etc.]. Therefore it cannot be true that emotionally focused therapy NEVER distinguishes between adaptive and maladaptive primary emotions, so I inserted the word "rarely", justifiably. (Of course, it's important to know what "maladaptive" means in the context of EFT, which may not be clear enough in the article. I think you would agree that "maladaptive" certainly does not mean "pathological" since EFT, like other humanistically inspired therapies, is nonpathologizing.)


 * The spirit of Wikipedia is well summarized in an article by Christian Vandenthorpe in Scholarly and Research Communication:


 * "Thanks to a vibrant community united by a few core principles, plus detailed policies and safeguards against trolls and vandalism, Wikipedia has already become a piece of the knowledge ecosystem. Like science, its aim is to propose a synthesis of existing knowledge and conflicting interpretations of reality. It also changes the way people interact with knowledge thanks to its extensive use of hyperlinks, portals, and categories.... The main criticism against Wikipedia is that it is a free-for-all domain without any professional standards. Yet even if Wikipedia has to be used with caution, it is not a free-for-all. On the contrary, the Wikipedia community has developed a consistent set of principles, rules, policies, and guidelines that have helped build consensus among a community of thousands of contributors (Jemielniak, 2014).... Wikipedia encourages contributors to edit articles, and to reach consensus by engaging in discussion on the 'talk page' in case of a disagreement. The process is typically Hegelian in nature: make an edit, then wait for the next change, and if there is opposition, seek a compromise. A variant of this policy is the BOLD, revert, discuss cycle: bold editing is openly encouraged in the policies, as it leads to discussion, which helps make articles better. This collaborative culture, which is unique to Wikipedia, makes the community a living organism, growing continuously, adapting to its environment and answering its critics.... Wikipedia is also a part of the ecosystem of knowledge, since it helps to build 'a consensus of rational opinion over the widest possible field,' which is the goal of science, according to John Ziman (1968, p. 3).... One should remember that encyclopedias were never at the forefront of science, with its goal of producing new knowledge, but were always in the business of presenting a synthesis of existing knowledge and conflicting interpretations.... In principle, every statement in a Wikipedia article should be referenced by a source. Not any source will be considered as valid. In that respect Wikipedia standards are as high as in the scientific community. According to its policies and guidelines: 'All content should ideally be supported by a reliable source, but content that is controversial or likely to be challenged will definitely require them! Unsourced material may be removed at any time and it is the obligation for the editor adding material to provide a reliable source' ('Help,' 2015, para. 2).... Someone who tries to push their own point of view will see their edit reverted with the mention NPOV (neutral point of view). A third principle is that no original research will be accepted: '[A]rticles may not contain previously unpublished arguments, concepts, data, opinions, or theories. This includes any new analysis or synthesis of these facts. Basically, Wikipedia is a record of human knowledge, viewpoints and summaries that already exist and are expressed elsewhere' ('Wikipedia: No Original Research,' 2015).... By converting the syntagmatic discourse typical of traditional articles into paradigmatic series, they allow readers to find common characteristics and intellectual companionship between very different authors, or surprising variations in the productions of creators from different periods, different nations, or different cultures.... —"


 * Regarding your identity, I don't think I should say who I think you are because if I'm correct then my statement would constitute "outing" you, which is bad. Although I think I know who you are, I don't care who you are and you shouldn't reveal your identity here if you don't want to (although you can if you really want to; some people edit under their real names). See WP:How to not get outed on Wikipedia: number eight in "the 14 ways not to get outed" is: "Don't edit any articles related to your job, home, known activities, or known relationships, or anything directly related to you; but if you must, don't do it with any tone of an 'insider'. Act like it's unrelated to you. Hide your possible interest in the topic." If I'm correct you've already done the opposite of that.


 * I am not in the helping professions, so I have no connection at all to this subject. If I have any bias, it is this: in general, I prefer to emphasize the common factors among different approaches to psychotherapy. (I contributed much of the current article on common factors theory, for example.) But this fact may make me a good editor for counteracting any bias you may have toward (over?)emphasizing the differences among different approaches to psychotherapy. Biogeographist (talk) 22:46, 28 January 2017 (UTC)


 * One more stray point regarding the "in press" article that you cited in your draft: We can't cite unpublished papers in Wikipedia because they are not verifiable. Biogeographist (talk) 23:16, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

A concern about NPOV and Verifiability
I'm concerned that this article is misleading, and not inline with the NPOV requirements. Reading the talk page above, it seems like the article was structured to establish that there are two different psychotherapies called EFT that need to be distinguished. This wasn't my understanding, so I've been looking through the literature, and the references on this page to see if this is verifiable. As far as I can see, this distinction doesn't exist in the published literature, and may be best considered original research.

So it seems that: The two prominent developers being differentiated in the article (Sue Johnson and Les Greenberg) developed the EFT couples therapy together. I did a quick search and it seems like almost all of Sue Johnson publications were on couples therapy and co-authored by les Greenberg up until 1999, suggesting that they continued to develop the couples therapy together for a long time. Although, Les greenberg was also separately publishing a lot on individual therapy.

The developers themselves don't make a distinction between themselves from what I can see. In one of the references on this page, Sue Johnson in the first line cites "emotionally focused  therapy  (EFT;  Greenberg,  Rice,  &  Elliott,  1993;  Johnson,  2004)" clearly using the term Emotionally-FT to refer to the individual therapy manual Les Greenberg authored, as well as her 2004 manual for couples.

Similarly, in Les Greenberg's recent texts when he cites the EFT couples, he lists both developers work. In one of the more recent texts he authored he cites the couples therapy as: "Emotion-focused couples therapy (EFT-C; Greenberg & Goldman, 2008; Greenberg & Johnson, 1988; Johnson, 2004)" And in another very recent text on 'Emotion Focused Therapy' he lists Sue's Couples book as under the heading 'Suggested Readings: MAIN TEXTS', suggesting he considers Sue Johson's book to be a main text of 'Emotion Focused Therapy'

Likewise other prominent EFT theorists don't consider them different therapies: such as in the history and overview of EFT by Robert Elliott

The naming differences of Emotion vs emotionally also don't seem to be intended to distinguish different therapies. Les Greenberg used 'emotionally focused therapy' to described his individual therapy in the book 'working with emotion' 1997 before switching to emotion-focused with his 2002 book. And then again used Emotionally focused therapy on his 2007 DVD.

Outside these developers, I also haven't been able to find a reference that considers these to be different therapies. Recent meta-analyses seem to view the therapies by both developers as the same: Wood, N. D., Crane, D. R., Schaalje, G. B., & Law, D. D. (2005). What works for whom: A meta-analytic review of marital and couples therapy in reference to marital distress. The American Journal of Family Therapy, 33(4), 273-287.

Recent reviews of the couples therapy by other authors don't make a distinction between the developers: Furrow, J. L., Lee, N., & Myung, H. S. (2017). EMOTIONALLY FOCUSED COUPLE THERAPY. Constructivist, Critical, and Integrative Approaches to Couples Counseling.

Text books listed in the references here don't seem to make the distinction (e.g., Barlow, Oxford Handbook), and some of them explicitly list both developers together (e.g., Gehart, Diane R. (2014). Mastering competencies in family therapy)

So I tried following up some of the referencing on this page to see where this was coming from, and it seems misleading in some points. I wasn't aware of Sue Johnson publishing on individual therapy at all, so following the references in that section I noted that most of them are to descriptions of couples therapy, not individual therapy. The second reference is by Sue Johnson, on both couples and individuals. But here she cites Greenberg, Rice,  &  Elliott,  1993; as the reference for the individual therapy. This makes this section of the wiki very misleading; the wiki clearly states that this is a distinct approach to individual therapy, whereas the citation used clearly shows that this is not the case.

Please let me know if I've missed a reference stating that these are different therapies. Otherwise, I think that the current page should be considered original research, which is defining a new distinction between the two theorists that has not previously been made. Awkturtle (talk) 09:49, 28 November 2017 (UTC)
 * And there's another recent text book chapter by another author, that also considers both the same therapy Awkturtle (talk) 09:07, 29 November 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments, which I've moved to the end of the page for chronological clarity, since it has been ten months since the last comments on this page and I think this important topic deserves a level-two heading. Also, please note that there should be no spaces before or between ref tags as there are in your comments above.

I wish you had been part of the conversation back in January when User:Caro Wpg and I were having the conversations that you can see above, and when I was integrating the material from User:Caro Wpg/sandbox into this article. It would have been nice to have had another participant in the conversation. To see what the article looked like before then, see, for example, Special:Permalink/758096900. At that point (before User:Caro Wpg), the article made no, or little, distinction between two EFTs. Then User:Caro Wpg came along and argued that two EFTs needed to be better differentiated. I feel that User:Caro Wpg and I came to have a difference of opinion on this, as you can perhaps see in the discussion above. I was eager to improve the article, so I incorporated many of the suggestions of User:Caro Wpg, who apparently opined that I hadn't gone far enough. For example, in the lead sentence I had written: "Emotionally focused therapy and emotion-focused therapy (both EFT) are two closely related approaches to psychotherapy with individuals, couples, or families." Then User:Caro Wpg deleted the word "closely" from that sentence. I think the word "closely" was justified, but in a spirit of compromise I let it go.

I think it would be delightful if we could show that EFT is one unified thing—"one big happy family"—but I am doubtful that we can show that. First of all, there do seem to be two separate "schools" of EFT on the Web: there is the [//www.iceeft.com/ International Centre for Excellence in Emotionally Focused Therapy] (ICEEFT) which has two photos of Sue Johnson on its home page but no apparent involvement of the other major EFT theorists, and then there is the separate [//www.iseft.org International Society for Emotion Focused Therapy] (ISEFT) with no apparent involvement of Johnson. In fact, none of the [//www.iseft.org/boardmembers board members] of ISEFT (Greenberg, Elliott, Goldman, & Watson) are listed among the [//www.iceeft.com/index.php/iceeft-trainers certified EFT trainers] on the ICEEFT web site. So there appears to be a real split here. This is even reflected in the sources that you cite above, which do not clearly show that that these two groups are doing the same thing, even when they use the same phrase to refer to themselves. Yes, they often cite each other's work (especially the early work on couples therapy coauthored by Johnson & Greenberg), but many of the sources you cited are clearly only referring to one of the two EFTs: Gehart's Mastering Competencies in Family Therapy (2nd ed. 2014), for example, presents Johnson's model of EFT for couples, not Greenberg & Goldman's model; Greenberg & Paivio's Working with Emotions in Psychotherapy (1997) uses the term "emotionally focused therapy" but is not talking about Johnson's model of EFT for couples; Timulak's 2017 chapter briefly mentions that "the area of couples work was mainly furthered by Sue Johnson (2004) and her collaborators" but then devotes his article to EFT for individuals with no presentation of Johnson's model of EFT for couples; likewise, Elliott's 2012 chapter on EFT focuses on the model of EFT for individuals developed without Johnson and states that "with somewhat different emphases, EFT has been used successfully in a group modality (Daldrup, Beutler, Engle & Greenberg, 1988) and extensively in a conjoint format (e.g., Greenberg & Johnson, 1988; Johnson, 2004)"—note the phrase "with somewhat different emphases". I suspect that User:Caro Wpg would want to strike the word "somewhat" from that sentence!

In conclusion, the evidence just mentioned shows that the idea of two EFTs is not original research. Unfortunately, we don't have a published ethnography of EFT equivalent to James Peter Davies' ethnography of psychoanalytic psychotherapy, The Making of Psychotherapists: An Anthropological Analysis (2009). But there is enough evidence to state that EFT is not one unified thing. The unanswered question is how we could get closer to WP:NPOV. I would love to see the phrase "closely related" reinserted into that first sentence instead of "related but distinct", but that's my POV.

One of your suggestions that I think deserves closer scrutiny is your question of whether Johnson really teaches a model of EFT for individuals that is sufficiently distinct from the model of Greenberg, Elliott, et al. as to deserve its own section. (This section came from User:Caro Wpg/sandbox.) I too would like to see more evidence for this, and if there is not sufficient evidence then the article would need to be modified on this point. Thanks, Biogeographist (talk) 03:19, 30 November 2017 (UTC)


 * thanks for your cordial reply. Pitty I missed the previous discussion! Oh well. From the link you shared, it does look like the previous version is more in line with what I've seen in the literature than the current version. I can see the history of the discussion about this too, and I see that you were concerned at the time about over-emphasizing differences. And I appreciate the efforts you made through that discussion to both stick to justifiable editorial decisions, and to work in a spirit compromise. I also looked at the User:Caro_Wpg/sandbox and it is interesting to see the article there starts with "The purpose of this article is to distinguish between emotionally focused therapy developed and researched by Dr. Sue Johnson (2004) and emotion-focused therapy developed and researched by Dr. Les Greenberg (Elliott, Watson Greenberg & Goldman, 2004)." Clearly the intention was right out front.

I do want to say that I don't necessarily want the article to conclude it's "one big happy family", I just want to make sure that whatever the article says matches the evidence in the world. If there was evidence of "one big happy family", then that would be fine; and if there was evidence that that's not the case, then that's fine too. But you are right, we don't have an ethnography to do this.

But importantly, my argument wasn't about whether or not they were a happy family, it was regarding the assertion that there are multiple psychotherapies. These are different points. It is interesting that there are multiple organizations, and that they don't overlap members. So that is a real organizational split. That doesn't necessarily mean that there are different therapies though.

To me the biggest evidence that they should be considered the same is that 1) they developed it together. And 2) that they both cite each other as examples of the therapy, which really does indicate that they think its the same therapy. 3) Finally, other sources do this too. So it seems like the published evidence points to it being commonly understood to be one therapy. Albeit that they have multiple organizations.

It is interesting, we're reading the same things in the literature and seeing them differently. I read the Gehart's Mastering Competencies in Family Therapy (2nd ed. 2014) and saw that on pg451 it had big pictures and bios of both developers, and thought 'it's listing them both as the developers of the 1 therapy'. Then when you wrote, but they only mentioned Sue Johnson's therapy, I thought 'but that's the same therapy'. Our assumptions carry through it would seem.

I also read the quote you gave from the Elliott chapter differently. I assumed that "with somewhat different emphases" referred to group and couples modalities being a 'somewhat different' to individual therapy. It doesn't seem to be referring to a difference between Johnson's couples and Greenberg's couples. What is clear in that chapter is the history, and that the references under the heading EFT for couples lists both the Johnson 2004, and the Greenberg and Goldman texts. It is also interesting that that chapter lists both organizations under the websites heading. This does look like this author thinks that there is 1 therapy with multiple organizations.

It's true that in most of the sources we have discussed focus on either individual therapy or couples and not both. But do note that when those sources that focus on the individual therapy (the Elliott 2012 chapter, the timulak chapter; greenberg and Paivio's book, greenbergs 2017 book) mention the couples therapy they don't refer Sue Johnson's work as a different school from Les Greenbergs. And the same the other way around, in the one time I have seen Sue Johnson mention individual EFT, it was a reference to Greenberg's book.

So my question really is: Is there anything written that says that these are different therapies?

In wiki article currently, it says that the "differences revolve around the different prominence that attachment theory has in each approach". Clearly in all three books (Greenberg & Johnson 1988, johnson 2004, greenberg and goldman 2008) make a strong point of attachment being important. The quote in the first book (p18) "In understanding the origins of emotional life, the need for attachment is of primal importance. Other needs or drives such as mastery and curiosity are important, but attachment is particularly significant in couples therapy." This really isn't that different to the position in the either of the other books that followed. But more importantly than whether we think it is, is that I see no evidence in the literature that other people have made this distinction between them on this basis. Are there articles saying that the therapies differ in prominence in this way and that this means that they aren't the same therapy? Are there published commentaries where one author says that the other author is wrong and therefore their therapy should be considered different? If not then the assertion that the difference in emphasis makes them distinct therapies is original research.

So how to get closer to a WP:NPOV? My suggestion is to stick close to the published sources, and not infer to much. We have brief histories in some of these sources (timulak ch, elliott ch) that could be a basis for the history (I don't know if there is a history written by Johnson anywhere for comparison). If it was important to note the different organizations, then we could say that they have different organizations - without inferring more from that. Finally, I think unless there is a reference published saying that Johnson has developed an individual therapy, then that section should obviously be removed. The question here is not does "Johnson really teaches a model of EFT for individuals that is sufficiently distinct" but rather does "Johnson really teaches a model of EFT for individuals at all". I would support basically reverting to Special:Permalink/758096900. Awkturtle (talk) 13:50, 1 December 2017 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your response, and I hope it's clear that I'm sympathetic to your argument. I personally don't think of the EFTs as different psychotherapies. That's part of why I ended up standing against User:Caro Wpg's proposal to split this article into two articles.


 * However, I would be against simply reverting to the pre-User:Caro Wpg version because a lot of valuable information was added since that version. I think a better approach would be to rename sections and change any wording that goes beyond the evidence in the current version, and delete the section on Johnson's purported EFT for individuals. For example, the heading "Shared beginnings" could be changed to "History", the heading "Divergence of the two EFT approaches" (and subheadings) could be deleted and the section content merged into "History", the heading "Comparison of the two EFT approaches" could be changed to "Features", and the words "Differences in" could be struck from the next three level-two headings so that they simply say "Individual therapy", "Couples therapy", and "Family therapy".


 * Any change of wording would have to be nuanced. The wording of the first paragraph could change from the current version, which is (citations omitted)...


 * "Emotionally focused therapy and emotion-focused therapy (both EFT) are two related but distinct approaches to psychotherapy with individuals, couples, or families. Both EFT approaches include elements of experiential therapy (such as person-centered therapy and Gestalt therapy), systemic therapy, and attachment theory. EFT is usually a short-term treatment (8–20 sessions). Both EFT approaches are based on the premise that human emotions are connected to human needs, and therefore emotions have an innately adaptive potential that, if activated and worked through, can help people change problematic emotional states and interpersonal relationships. The approach now called emotion-focused therapy was originally known as process-experiential therapy, and it is still sometimes called by that name."


 * ...to (notice that the words "two", "distinct", and "both" are omitted):


 * "Emotionally focused therapy and emotion-focused therapy (EFT) are related approaches to psychotherapy with individuals, couples, or families. EFT approaches include elements of experiential therapy (such as person-centered therapy and Gestalt therapy), systemic therapy, and attachment theory. EFT is usually a short-term treatment (8–20 sessions). EFT approaches are based on the premise that human emotions are connected to human needs, and therefore emotions have an innately adaptive potential that, if activated and worked through, can help people change problematic emotional states and interpersonal relationships. The approach now called emotion-focused therapy was originally known as process-experiential therapy, and it is still sometimes called by that name."


 * Part of the problem here is that the definition of "a psychotherapy" is so often so subjective: Is self psychology really so different from relational psychoanalysis for example? In the case of those (and other) psychoanalytic psychotherapies, at least we have published accounts of theorists/practitioners arguing about their differences of perspective, and others commenting on the arguments. In the case of EFT, we have at least one person—namely User:Caro Wpg—who feels strongly that there are big differences between two types of EFT. I am fairly certain that User:Caro Wpg is one of those "certified EFT trainers" listed on the ICEEFT web site, so User:Caro Wpg's view may be more than a mere personal idiosyncrasy and may reflect a general attitude among members of the ICEEFT. But we don't know because strangely the EFT community (for lack of a better term) does not seem to be discussing their differences "on the record" as clearly as the psychodynamic community has.


 * Regarding Gehart's Mastering Competencies in Family Therapy (2nd ed. 2014), what I meant is that Greenberg & Goldman's (2008) model of EFT for couples, which is different from Johnson's version that was originally developed with Greenberg, is not mentioned. So Gehart is not acknowledging the published variations in EFT for couples. This does not appear to have changed in the 3rd edition (2017). This lack of acknowledgment of the variations in EFT for couples in Gehart's textbook may be due to what I mentioned above about the EFT community not doing a good job of discussing their differences openly. It invites confusion, misunderstanding, and miscommunication (which is ironic given that therapists are supposed to be experts in remedying such things). Biogeographist (talk) 15:40, 1 December 2017 (UTC)


 * Yeah, my suggestion to revert was overkill. There is a lot of extra valuable information now that I shouldn't have dismissed.
 * I also like the change in headings that you mention.
 * I think if we are sticking to what is published, and therefore verifiable, then they are the same therapy, and the name changes weren't meant to distinguish between them (as stated in Greenberg and Goldman, preface pg. x). Thus I think the previous intro sentence still works best 'Emotionally focused therapy (EFT), also known as emotion-focused therapy and process-experiential therapy'.


 * I don't really see there as being a problem with the definition of what "a psychotherapy" is - I think we just need to stick to what is presented in the literature, since that's what we can verify. And what is published is that they all refer to each other as the same therapy. So I think that's what needs to be in the article. User:Caro Wpg has made an argument that they should be considered different, and raised a lot of points - but making that distinction that these differences mean they should be considered different therapies was novel to this page; and the published authors aren't doing that so I think that needs to be stayed away from. Similarly, User:Caro Wpg might be a trainer - or not, we don't really know. Their view might be the view of a larger community, but you are right we don't know. That's all speculation, and I don't think we need to know. We just need to present it in a way that represents what the current understanding in the broader literature is. You could say that they are inviting confusion; or you could think that they are saying things how they think that they should be presented.


 * Having said that; there are differences between the various couples therapy texts. And I went back over some of the texts, and there are two places that I see the differences between Johnson and Greenberg referred to - in the Greenberg and Goldman 2008 book, and the Greenberg 2017 book (I don't know of anything written by Johnson on that). So that could point us in the direction of how to present it. So in Greenberg and Goldman, the distinctions are presented on pgs 4-5. They described their additions to the model as being an addition ('We thus expand the initial EFT-C framework" pg3). Then the discussion of the difference says "Johnson (e.g., see Johnson, 2004) has written extensively on the importance of attachment and on its role in EFT-C, and we fully endorse its importance in couples therapy. Although we still view the attachment bond and the security it provides as a central concern in most couples, we see this bond as a key form of affect regulation governing emotional arousal and approach and avoidance rather than as a set of styles of interaction or as love. We will not further discuss attachment here, as it has been so clearly explicated in prior work on EFT-C (Johnson, 2004), but rather we will focus more on how to work with identity issues and dominance. This in no way implies that these latter issues are more important than attachment. Clearly, an individual needs to be close and involved with a partner before issues of dominance and validation become an issue, but we do feel that we need more than attachment to explain human and couple functioning and will elaborate on this in the next section"
 * So my reading of that is that they are saying that they are adding to Johnson 2004, not suggesting an alternative. So I suggest that in line with that, In the history section we could say something like: "Emotionally focused therapy for couples (EFT-C) was originally developed by Greenberg and Johnson (1988). To develop the approach, Johnson and Greenberg began reviewing videos ..." (as it is in the current section on shared beginnings)
 * Then we could add a little section that says,: "Subsequently Johnson (2004) further developed the model by elaborating on the centrality of attachment to EFT-C, and further integrating Bowlby's Attachment theory into the model." "In a further addition Greenberg and Goldman suggested that while Attachment is fundamental, it can also be important to consider and work with issues of dominance and validation, and provided elaborations of the model around working with these issues." - Or something to that effect, that does acknowledge the developmental trajectory and each authors' contributions, without emphasizing the differences to a greater degree than is in the literature. Does that sound sensible? Awkturtle (talk) 13:48, 5 December 2017 (UTC)


 * You wrote: "I think if we are sticking to what is published, and therefore verifiable, then they are the same therapy, and the name changes weren't meant to distinguish between them (as stated in Greenberg and Goldman, preface pg. x)." I think you are jumping to conclusions in this sentence. It's good that you are advocating (in accordance with Wikipedia core content policies) that we stick to what is published, but it's not good that you are advocating that the EFTs are the same therapy; that latter claim is not clear in the literature, as much as we may want it to be. We've already shown above that what is published is ambiguous or multivalent: it can be interpreted in various ways. (When I said that the literature "invites confusion" I didn't mean that the authors are intentionally trying to confuse people, only that ambiguity can unintentionally lead to confusion.) If we're going to stick to what is published, we can't say that EFT is one thing, "the same" therapy, or that they are two things, "different" therapies.


 * The biggest problem with the lead in the earlier version, which said "Emotionally focused therapy (EFT), also known as emotion-focused therapy and process-experiential therapy, is a usually short-term (8–20 sessions) structured psychotherapy approach to working with individuals, couples, or families", is that, as far as I know, the term "process-experiential therapy" (PE therapy) has never been used to refer to EFT for couples. (And even if we could dig up one counterexample somewhere, that wouldn't justify presenting PE therapy as a synonym for EFT for couples if a preponderance of the literature suggests otherwise.) The rough timeline, if I'm not mistaken, is this: Johnson & Greenberg published a manual on emotionally focused therapy for couples in the 1980s; Greenberg, Rice, & Elliott published a manual on PE therapy (for individuals) in the early 1990s; by the mid-1990s Greenberg et al. were using the term "emotion-focused therapy" as a synonym for PE therapy (and, as you pointed out, Greenberg & Paivio also used "emotionally focused therapy" as a synonym for PE therapy in 1997); in 2008 Greenberg & Goldman published their manual on emotion-focused couples therapy. Johnson never retroactively used PE therapy as a synonym for EFT for couples, and she never adopted the term "emotion-focused". So there needs to be some way to accommodate this complexity in the lead without implying that they are universally considered to be a single therapy or two different therapies (although some people may think they are one or the other). Biogeographist (talk) 20:02, 5 December 2017 (UTC)


 * I've edited headings and rearranged some text in the article according to what was discussed above. The only thing I haven't yet done is delete the section on "emotionally-focused therapy for individuals" because I think we still have to consider Brubacher's article (see below). I'm sure that further changes will be needed, but I hope this edit addresses many of the problems identified above. One of the biggest problems with the previous version is that we can't characterize two different approaches to EFT based on a clear distinction between emotionally focused and emotion-focused, since Greenberg & Paivio (1997) used the term "emotionally focused therapy" to refer to what is also called "emotion-focused therapy" for individuals. Biogeographist (talk) 15:44, 6 December 2017 (UTC)


 * I've also added Brubacher's 2017 article to the section on "emotionally-focused therapy for individuals" since that section is basically straight out of Brubacher's article. Biogeographist (talk) 15:51, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

Redundant text
In, the new user User:Primalstrength contributed the following text, which I am reverting and pasting below for several reasons: First, the basic idea of this contribution is redundant, since the idea that there are two models that diverged is already stated elsewhere in the article. Second, the citation style does not match the article's citation style (see WP:CITEVAR); we don't just put full citations in the midst of body text. We are currently discussing the future direction of this article (see above), especially the question of how "separate" the EFTs are, so the new user User:Primalstrength is welcome to join the conversation here on the talk page. Notice that the formerly "in press" article by Lorrie L. Brubacher titled "Emotionally focused individual therapy: an attachment-based experiential/systemic perspective" that User:Caro Wpg cited in User:Caro Wpg/sandbox (and that I warned could not be used because it was not yet published) has also been cited (in its now-published version) in the text below by User:Primalstrength. It's quite a remarkable coincidence that two different single-purpose accounts are eager to cite that article by Brubacher! Thanks, Biogeographist (talk) 19:34, 5 December 2017 (UTC)

"Inspite of their shared beginnings, there are distinct ways the two models have diverged. For example: Publications that verify the differences between Emotion-focused therapy and Emotionally focused therapy include:

RE couples: Greenberg, L. S. & Goldman, R. N. (2008). Emotion-focused couples therapy: The dynamics of emotion, love, and power. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Emotionally focused therapy (EFT) is to be distinguished from EFT-C (Emotion-focused therapy for couples): Meneses, C. W., & Greenberg, L. S. (2011). The construction of a model of the process of couples’ forgiveness in emotion-focused therapy for couples. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 37, 491–502. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1752-0606.2011.00234.x

Both in the above book and in the article, the authors distinguish between emotion-focused couples therapy (EFT-C) as advanced by Greenberg and Goldman (2008), where the motivational systems of attachment, identity, and attraction are considered to influence the couple’s interactions (i.e., each partner’s efforts to regulate emotions and fulfill adult needs) and the original approach of emotionally focused therapy developed by Johnson and Greenberg. Emotion-focused therapy proponents - Greenberg and Goldman and Meneses clarify that they do not see attachment theory as a defining feature of adult love as Johnson promotes in the current emotionally focused therapy.

Meneses and Greenberg (2011) create a new model for the process of forgiveness for emotional injuries (EI) to be distinguished from the Attachment Injury Resolution Model (AIRM) developed in emotionally focused therapy (Makinen, J. A., & Johnson, S. (2006). Resolving attachment injuries in couples using EFT: Steps toward forgiveness and reconciliation. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 74, 1055–1064 and Zuccarini, D. J., Johnson, S. M., Dalgleish, T. L., & Makinen, J. A. (2013). Forgiveness and reconciliation in emotionally focused therapy for couples: The client change process and therapist interventions. Journal of Marital & Family Therapy, 39, 148–162.)

Re Individuals: Here is a published article which distinguishes between emotion-focused therapy and emotionally focused individual therapy. Brubacher, L. L. (2017). Emotionally focused individual therapy: An attachment-based experiential/systemic perspective. Person-Centered and Experiential Psychotherapies, 16(1): 50–57."

- User:Primalstrength

Furthermore, User:Primalstrength claimed in this text that "Greenberg and Goldman and Meneses clarify that they do not see attachment theory as a defining feature of adult love" but Greenberg and Goldman in their book on EFT for couples say that they do indeed see attachment theory as an important part of EFT for couples; they just don't talk about it as much because Johnson and others have already written about it so extensively. This appears to be a mere division of intellectual labor, not a big holy war between radically different belief systems. Biogeographist (talk) 15:56, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

For an integrative explanation of the deeper conceptual unity underlying the various perspectives on the role of attachment theory in psychotherapy, see, for example: Biogeographist (talk) 03:14, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

The terms "adaptive" and "maladaptive" in EFT refer to emotion responses not to emotions
I have edited the title and content of the section (it used to be "Maladaptive emotions vs. negative patterns of interaction") because, as Robert Elliott reminded us in a recent blog post, the terms "adaptive" and "maladaptive" in EFT refer to emotion responses not to emotions. In theory, all the so-called "basic emotions" (see ) are adaptive in an evolutionary sense. This is not a new idea; Elliott's blog post is simply a reminder. As he wrote, "This is why in EFT we don’t talk about maladaptive emotions (except when we are speaking carelessly), but only about maladaptive emotion responses". See: Biogeographist (talk) 18:52, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

I also changed "vs" to "and" in the heading because these are two aspects of therapy, not mutually exclusive competing theories. Biogeographist (talk) 19:54, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for speedy deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for speedy deletion: You can see the reason for deletion at the file description page linked above. —Community Tech bot (talk) 10:23, 26 July 2020 (UTC)
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Copy editing
Which parts of the article need to be copy edited, per the copy edit tag that was recently added? Biogeographist (talk) 02:45, 2 September 2020 (UTC)
 * I've removed the tag due to lack of discussion here: It's unclear what needs to be fixed. Biogeographist (talk) 15:08, 1 October 2020 (UTC)