Love consists in this, that two solitudes protect and touch and greet each other. 

--Rainer Maria Rilke

For a long time I did not try to practice couple’s therapy because I could not find an approach that fit my style of therapy and one that really helped couples develop a secure bond.  A few years ago, I discovered Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) as developed by Dr. Sue Johnson. Extensive peer reviewed research indicates that EFT has by far the best results, as compared with any other approach to couples therapy. As a result of my immersion in this approach, I now have come to deeply value my extensive couples therapy practice.

EFT is an approach to therapy that is based on several fundamental principles supported by a growing body of scientific knowledge. Human beings are wired for connection. From the beginning until the end of our lives we need each other to thrive. We also know that from the earliest of ages when connections seem to be endangered we become fearful, and if these connections begin to appear utterly absent we panic. Young children make their desperation known in obvious ways.  Adults suffering troubled relationships are also protesting the absence of connection, but for a variety of reasons they are not able to let each other know of their distress in ways that can be understood by their partner.  Instead, they find themselves in an endless fight with each other.

The first step in EFT couples therapy is to help the couple see that there is a recognizable pattern to their fights, that each one of them is playing a role in keeping this destructive cycle in place and that fueling this cycle are feelings struggling to find expression but not able to do so in a way that makes sense to either partner. As soon as the couple finds the language of these feelings and begin to grasp the nature of this cycle and the attachment fears and longings that drive it, the fights become far less hurtful and long lasting.

That allows us to enter the second stage of our work which is to literally restructure the bond between two people so that a profound sense of secure attachment can keep growing throughout ones life.  When it becomes safe to speak about ones deepest attachment fears and longings with one’s partner a whole new world of possibilities opens up—a world freer of debilitating anxiety, a world where it is possible for one to be more fully oneself, a world where “two solitudes protect and touch and greet each other.”

To make an appointment, please call 617-232-3458 or email me at rongoldman@comcast.net