STRONGER CONNECTIONS, HAPPIER LIVES.
Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy (EFCT)
Most couples don’t arrive in therapy because their relationship is broken, they arrive because a pattern has set in that neither of them can shift alone; one pursues, the other withdraws, both feel increasingly unheard, and the distance between them keeps quietly growing. They still care, that’s usually why they’re seeking help.
My work with couples is grounded in Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy (EFCT), developed by Dr Sue Johnson and now one of the most extensively researched approaches in the field. The evidence is genuinely compelling: 70 to 75 percent of couples move from significant relational distress to meaningful recovery, and crucially, those gains hold. Research consistently shows improvements are sustained for months and often years after treatment ends.
What the Work Involves
EFCT is built on the understanding that beneath most relational conflict is an attachment need that isn’t being met. When we feel emotionally unsafe with the person we love most, we don’t simply feel unhappy; we become dysregulated. We protest, pursue, withdraw, or shut down, not out of hostility, but out of fear. These are not character flaws. They are the entirely human responses of people who need connection and aren’t sure they can trust it.
My role is to help you both slow down enough to find what is underneath the cycle. The hurt beneath the anger, the longing beneath the silence. When those deeper feelings become visible and voiced, something genuinely shifts; partners begin to respond to one another differently, and a more secure, emotionally
engaged bond begins to form.
Situations I Work With Regularly
The pursuer and the withdrawer
The most common couple dynamic I see: one partner tries to reach for connection, but goes about it in a reactive way, the other pulls back, and both end up feeling alone. Understanding what drives each position, and learning to step out of the cycle together, is at the heart of this work.
Recovering after an affair
Processing the aftermath of infidelity is hard, courageous work, but for couples who commit to the process, what emerges on the other side is often a relationship that feels more honest, more intimate, and more deeply connected than ever before.
ADHD in the relationship
When one or both partners have ADHD, the relational impact is often profound and frequently misread. Patterns that look like indifference, avoidance, reactivity and irresponsibility are often something quite different. I bring personal as well as clinical understanding to this work.
Cross-cultural relationships
When partners come from different cultural backgrounds, the gap between them is often not about values but about the invisible assumptions each carries about how love, family and commitment should look. I have developed particular expertise here, through both clinical practice and personal experience.
Considering separation
Not every couple arrives wanting to save the relationship. Some come needing help to think clearly about whether to stay. That is equally valid work, and I hold no investment in the outcome; only in helping you reach greater clarity about what you actually need.
For further information about EFT and its effectiveness please visit https://iceeft.com/what-is-eft-public/