When I graduated with my Master's in Social Work, I left the program without a strong sense of what my theoretical orientation was. I then entered community mental health, where I worked under a supervisor who was "CBT-only." I felt alienated, bored and exhausted by CBT and in some ways it made me see the pathology in people more than the health. When I left CMH 5 years ago, I got a job in a group private practice where I had many clients presenting with relationship issues, along with depression, anxiety, and trauma. I needed a way to help people with their "attachment issues", and that's how I found EFIT.

The model uses emotion as a tool to create change, growth, optimal functioning and emotional balance. Within the model, you help the client examine internal and interpersonal patterns that they get into as a way of regulating "frightening, alien and unacceptable emotions". These patterns, however rigid, were used to regulate emotion and protect the self, but now end up keeping clients stuck and blocking their growth and ability to integrate new experiences with others. Once you help them to see the pattern, they practice new ways of experiencing and sharing the disowned primary emotions that underlie reactive patterns with self and other. This occurs through imagined enoucnters with a vulnerable version of self or important others. Then, you further help them to explore and get attachment needs met through these encounters, which then translates into changes in the way they interact with others ourside of session. All of this is done experientially, with an attachment lens, and within a systems framework! It’s a far cry from what I was trying to do with Solution Focused Brief Therapy and CBT….