Approach · Emotionally Focused Therapy
The argument is rarely about the dishes.
Emotionally Focused Therapy for couples across Maryland, in English or French, through secure video.
Most couples arrive able to describe their fight in detail and unable to say why it keeps happening. Emotionally Focused Therapy treats that repetition as the actual problem. The content changes from week to week; the cycle underneath it does not.
EFT is used here alongside Schema Therapy and the Gottman Method rather than instead of them. Which one leads depends on what the two of you are caught inside.
The cycle, and why it survives every conversation
One partner presses for contact and is heard as criticism. The other steps back to stop the escalation and is heard as abandonment. Each move is a reasonable response to the other, which is precisely why the pattern is stable and why deciding to try harder does not touch it.
Naming the cycle out loud, as something the two of you are both stuck inside rather than something one of you is doing, changes what the argument is about. That is the first phase of the work and it usually takes several sessions rather than one.
What the sessions actually do
The middle of EFT is slower and more uncomfortable than couples expect. It involves saying the thing underneath the complaint while the other person is in the room: not 'you never listen', but what you are afraid is true about yourself when they look away.
Those conversations are structured and paced deliberately. A couple that has been circling the same argument for years does not arrive there by being told to communicate better.
A few markers before you get in touch.
Where EFT sits alongside the other approaches
Gottman work is more structural and gives couples something concrete to practise between sessions. Schema Therapy reaches further back, into the patterns each partner brought with them. EFT stays with what is happening between you in the room right now.
In practice these blend. A couple might begin with Gottman structure to stop the bleeding, move into EFT once it is safe enough to be honest, then use Schema language when it becomes clear the same trap is being re-run from much earlier.
Practical details
Couples sessions run 75 minutes at $280. The longer session exists because two people need more room than one, and because the difficult part of this work does not fit into the last five minutes.
Sessions run through secure video anywhere in Maryland, in English or in French. Enquiries come back within 24 to 48 hours.
Is this a fit?
Is this the right fit?
A few markers before you get in touch.
You'll likely get the most from this work if you are:
- Couples caught in the same argument on repeat
- Partners considering separation who want one serious attempt first
- Couples who want to work in French, in English, or across both
The work asks for:
- Both of you are willing to attend
- You can tolerate some discomfort in the room
- You want to understand the pattern rather than win the argument
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