Emotionally Focused Therapy
The fight is rarely about the dishes, and somewhere underneath, you both already know that.
Attachment-based work on the cycle underneath the argument. EFIT Level 1 trained, for couples and for individuals.
What It Is
In plain language
One of you moves toward the problem and wants to resolve it tonight. The other one goes quiet, or leaves the room, or answers in the flattest voice available. Both of you experience the other person as the reason it is impossible. What is actually happening is that each move is triggering the other, in a loop that neither of you designed and neither of you can stop from inside.
Emotionally focused therapy treats that loop as the client. Not you, not your partner, the cycle. I am EFIT Level 1 trained and I use it in couples work and, in an individual form, with people whose relational patterns keep repeating across different partners.
EFIT Level 1 rests on attachment: the idea that adults, not only children, need to know that someone is there and will respond. Underneath most recurring fights is a question that has never been asked directly. Do I matter to you. Will you come if I need you. Are you going to leave. When those questions do not get a clear answer, people protest, and protest looks like criticism or like withdrawal depending on how you learned to do it.
The most common shape is pursue and withdraw. The pursuer escalates because silence reads as abandonment. The withdrawer shuts down because intensity reads as an accusation they cannot win. Each one is doing the thing most likely to produce more of what they fear from the other. It is a good example of two reasonable people building something neither of them wants.
The work has a sequence. First de-escalation: getting the cycle named and slowed so the arguments stop taking days to recover from. Then restructuring: helping each of you say the vulnerable thing directly rather than through the protest. That happens in enactments, which means you turn to each other and say it here, in the room, with me slowing it down. Awkward, and considerably more effective than describing it to me.
At a Glance
- Shelley Davidescu, LMFT, 17 years in practice
- In person in Bankers Hill, San Diego
- Telehealth Monday through Friday across California
- Free 15-minute consultation
Individual sessions are $210, or $325 for 90 minutes. Couples sessions are $225, or $345 for 90 minutes.
All of my methodsIn a Session
What this actually involves
Step through it. This is the shape of the work, not a script we follow line by line.
What happens first, what each of you does next, what you each conclude about the other, and how it ends. We draw it out until you can both see the loop as a third thing in the room rather than as each other's fault.
Fit
Best for, and not for
Worth knowing before you book, so neither of us spends four sessions finding out.
Best For
- Couples caught in a pursue and withdraw pattern that has worn both of you down
- Partners who are functional and polite and quietly further apart than they used to be
- Individuals who keep finding the same dynamic with different people and want to understand the pattern
- People who suspect the argument is really about whether they matter to the other person
Not For
- If there is ongoing intimate partner violence or coercion, joint work is not safe or appropriate and I will help you find specialized support
- If you want strictly practical negotiation and no emotional content at all, EFIT Level 1 will feel like the wrong room.
If you are in crisis, call or text 988. If I am not the right clinician for what you are carrying, I will say so and help you find someone who is.
How I Use It
Where this sits in the rest of the work
In couples work I usually combine EFIT Level 1 with Gottman: the Gottman assessment gives us an accurate map early, and EFIT Level 1 does the work underneath, because the four horsemen are usually protest behaviors wearing different clothes. Which one leads depends on the couple. Some need structure before they can tolerate vulnerability. Some need one honest exchange before any structure will hold.
I also use this work individually, in the form known as EFIT. That matters for people who are not currently in a relationship and are trying to understand why the same thing keeps happening: the anxious pursuit, the choosing of someone unavailable, the going quiet the moment things get close. We work with the attachment pattern directly rather than analyzing your last three relationships. It pairs naturally with the attachment-focused work that runs through my whole practice.
Questions
Answered plainly
Anything not covered here is worth asking on the free 15-minute consult.
Related Reading
Are you certified in EFIT Level 1?
I am EFIT Level 1 trained. I use it in couples and individual work and I do not claim a certification level beyond that.
Can I do EFIT Level 1 on my own if my partner will not come?
Yes, in the individual form. It will not change your partner, but it can change your side of the cycle, and that often changes what the cycle can do.
What is an enactment?
It is when I ask you to turn to your partner and say the thing directly rather than telling me about it. It feels staged for about ten seconds and then it usually stops feeling staged.
How is this different from Gottman?
Gottman is more structured and behavioral, with assessment and specific communication mechanics. EFIT Level 1 works with the attachment need underneath the behavior. I use both, and most couples get some combination.
How long do couples usually work with you?
It varies with what you are carrying and how long the cycle has been running. I do not make guarantees about timelines. We check in regularly about whether this is going somewhere and I will tell you honestly if I think it is not.
Free 15-Minute Consult
Fifteen minutes to find out whether this is the right work.
Tell me what is actually going on. I will tell you honestly how I would approach it, and whether I am the right person for it.
In person in San Diego, and by telehealth across California.