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Experiential Family Therapy (EFT): Historical Information

Emerged from the humanistic wing of psychology

Emphasize immediate here-and-now experience

Popular when family therapy was young

From Gestalt therapy came techniques like role-playing and emotional confrontation

Family sculpting and family drawing were influenced by psychodrama

Focuses more on emotional experience than on dynamics of interaction

After the death of Whitaker & Satir, EFT became dated

Recently, however, EFT has been enjoying a revival

#The Essentials of Family Therapy

EFT: The Basic Model

Founded on the idea that the root cause of family problems is emotional suppression

Parents try to regulate their children’s actions by controlling their feelings

Children, then, blunt their emotions to avoid criticism

Dysfunctional families tend to be less tolerant of unruly emotions

Children in dysfunctional families often grow up estranged from themselves with feelings of boredom, apathy, and anxiety

Symptomatic behavior is a result of family members shadow dancing with the projections of each other’s defenses

Positive change is more likely to be successful in family members first get in touch with their real feelings

EFT, then, works from the inside out, helping family members understand their honest emotions and creating genuine family ties

#The Essentials of Family Therapy

Founder: Carl Whitaker, MD

1912-1995

Leading exponent of a freewheeling, intuitive approach: Experiential Theory

Experiential Theory born out of Atlanta Psychiatric Clinic

Aimed to puncture pretense and liberate family members to be themselves

#The Essentials of Family Therapy

Co-Founder: Virginia Satir, Social Worker

1916-1988

“Mother of Family Systems Therapy”

Started seeing families at the Illinois State Psychiatric Institute

Emphasized communication and emotional experiencing

#Virginia Satir #The Patterns of her Magic #The Essentials of Family Therapy

EFT: Key Concepts

Experiential therapy aims to create a therapeutic environment that allows family members to interact and create an experience together.

After creating the experience, members of the family process the emotions that the experience brought up.

As a result of family members working through suppressed emotions, the family can begin to function as a unit in a more honest way.

The overall goal of experiential therapy is for family to increase their functioning, not necessarily to solve all of the family’s problems.

The assessment utilized in experiential therapy takes place as the therapist begins to understand the family and each individual’s role.

#Family Clay Sculpting The Essentials of Family Therapy

EFT: Techniques/Interventions

Some of the main techniques/interventions of EFT are:

Family Sculpting: One person in the family asks the other members to stand in a particular order or way. This allows the therapist to understand how the person arranging the rest of the family views each member’s place in the family. The therapist also understands how the person arranging the other members views his or her own place in the family unit.

Family Drawing: One family member begins to draw, and the drawing then gets passed to each family member. This results in a picture interpretation of how the family perceives themselves and their family unit.

Family Puppets: The therapist asks the family members to select a puppet and act out a story using their chosen puppet. This often results in the family acting out family disagreements.

Role-playing: The purpose of role-playing is to allow the family members to recall past events or act out future events. Role-playing allows for family members to act out a fight, situation, or event that occurred in the past. After the role-play, connections from the past to the present may be realized by family members.

#The Essentials of Family Therapy

EFT: Role of Therapist

Depending on the intervention or technique the therapist utilizes, the role of the therapist may change.

The ultimate goal of the therapist is to encourage family members to work through emotions and conflicts that may develop during the experience/activity.

The therapist plays an active role in the therapeutic process as the client system works to realize their own potential through the intervention or experience utilized.

#The Essentials of Family Therapy #Experiential Therapy and Family Systems

In the above video, the therapists discuss how they utilize art therapy as their chosen intervention of experiential therapy.

EFT: How the Model Views the Problem

Founders of Experiential Family Therapy view the problem through a theoretical lens of “existence precedes essence” (Piercy, Sprenkle, & Wetchler, 1996). This theoretical view works off the premise that “essence” (thoughts and intellectualizations of the individual) are the person’s effort to interpret meaning through their experiences or “existence” (Piercy, Sprenkle, & Wetchler, 1996).

In this model, it is important to note that the experience of the person is the initial area of the interest (Piercy, Sprenkle, & Wetchler, 1996). A person who lives only in the rational or cognitive state while ignoring the non-rational experiential segment of their lives would not know themselves (Piercy, Sprenkle, & Wetchler, 1996). Therefore, the individual would not have the ability to offer their authentic self to others which could lead to familial difficulties (Piercy, Sprenkle, & Wetchler, 1996). Experiential founders suggest that there is more to life than what could be measured and observed (Piercy, Sprenkle, & Wetchler, 1996). The personal and creative aspects, as well as, the life and breath aspects are essential things to consider when treating the family unit (Piercy, Sprenkle, & Wetchler, 1996).

#FamilyTherapySourcebook

EFT: How Change Occurs

Experiential Family Therapy promotes change through a humanistic approach. The model emphasizes that change and growth happen naturally when not impeded (Everett, 2013). Some contributors to the model believe human beings have an instinctive sense to achieve a higher level of functioning (Everett, 2013). Allowing one to accurately articulate and describe their experiences in a safe place without consequence allows change to happen; thus, improving the relationship within and among others (Everett, 2013). Carl Whitaker notes that change occurs through personal growth, symptom relief, development of character, resolution of dependencies regarding fear of solitude, the ability to experience emotions, and different levels of anxiety, and an increase of spontaneity and creativity (Metcalf, 2011).

Watch part of the change process as Virginia Satir engages a family with abused children:

#virginasatir #Marriage and Family Therapy: A Practice-Oriented Approach #What is Experiential Therapy and how does it help change to occur?

EFT: A Summary of the Literature

Emotionally Focused Therapy is a component of Experiential Family Therapy (Greenman & Johnson, 2012). Emotionally Focused Therapy has shown to be an effective treatment for couples when the dynamics of the relationship is affected by Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) (Greenman & Johnson, 2012). Being that PTSD is a disorder of affect regulation, the ability to enter into or maintain close relationships is impacted by symptoms of the disorder (Greenman & Johnson, 2012).

Additionally, Experiential Family Therapy has proven to be an ideal intervention over conventional sex therapy for couples experiencing sexual problems by focusing on the individual or couple, and not the treatment of the symptom (Kleinplatz, 2007). Experiential Family Therapy led to significant growth in the individual, improvement in the sexual relationship dynamics, as well as, a disappearance of the presenting sexual dysfunction, exceeding the results of conventional sex therapy in many domains (Kleinplatz, 2007).

Researchers Johnson and Greenberg (1985) found that an experiential intervention was superior to a cognitive behavioral intervention when attempting to resolve marital discord (Johnson & Greenberg, 1985). The experiential intervention group showed more improvement in areas of marital adjustment, intimacy, and target compliant level (Johnson & Greenberg, 1985). Furthermore, the follow up martial adjustment scores of the experiential group where significantly higher than the cognitive behavioral intervention group (Johnson & Greenberg, 1985).

References

Andreas, S. (1991). Virginia Satir, the Patterns of Her Magic. Palo Alto, CA: Science and Behavior Books.

Banker, J. E. (2008). Family clay sculpting. Journal of Family Psychotherapy, 19(3), 291-297.

Everett, A. (2018). What is Experiential Therapy and how does it help change to occur? Retrieved from https://www.counselling-directory.org.uk/counsellor-articles/what-is-experiential-therapy-and-how-does-it-help-change-to-occur

Goldsher, H. (n.d.). Experiential therapy and family systems. Retrieved from https://www.theravive.com/research/experiential-therapy-and-family-systems

Greenman, P. S., & Johnson, S. M. (2012). United we stand: Emotionally Focused Therapy for couples in the treatment of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 68(5), 561–569. https://doi.org/10.1002/jclp.21853

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. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-006X.53.2.175

Kleinplatz, P. J. (2007). Coming out of the sex therapy closet: Using Experiential Psychotherapy with sexual problems and concerns. American Journal of Psychotherapy, 61(3), 333–348.

McKenzie, S. & Hoelzer, M. (2015, November 17) The power of experiential therapy [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCzPAO3glJE

Metcalf, L. (2011). Marriage and family therapy: A practice-oriented approach. Springer Publishing Company. Retrieved from https://books.google.com/books?id=pe30M_GWpcQC

Nichols, M. (2014). The Essentials of Family Therapy. (6th ed). Boston: Pearson.

Piercy, F. P., Sprenkle, D. H., & Wetchler, J. L. (1996). Family therapy sourcebook. Guilford Publications. Retrieved from https://books.google.com/books?id=S03tv_kOqjAC

PsychoTherapyNet. (2014, February 27) Virginia Satir therapy video [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLfaNQF7trs

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