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Emotion-focused therapy (EFT), sometimes called emotionally-focused therapy, is a type of therapy that focuses on gaining and improving emotional awareness, regulation, acceptance, and expression in order to heal and facilitate powerful therapeutic change.
EFT is often used to treat eating disorders among other psychiatric conditions like depression and anxiety.1
Emotional-focused therapy is a therapeutic approach that focuses on the role emotions play in psychotherapeutic change. It's designed to help patients develop more awareness and acceptance around their emotions, as well as facilitate expression, utilization, regulation, and the transformation of emotions.1
Essentially, EFT treats emotions, such as fear, sadness, and anger, not as "negative feelings" but as essential information about ourselves and our thoughts, behaviors, and perceptions. Therapists who use EFT are often viewed as emotion coaches who help people tune into and make sense of their emotional experiences.2,4
EFT is commonly used to treat many different types of mental health conditions, such as eating disorders, depression, social anxiety, and trauma.7
Eating disorders like anorexia nervosa (AN), binge eating disorder (BED), and bulimia nervosa (BN) are frequently associated with severe emotional disturbances and fraught relationships with food, eating behaviors, and self-image.3 Emotion-focused therapy may be especially beneficial for those with eating disorders because it helps these patients deal with these emotions in a more positive and helpful way.
Indeed, disordered eating behaviors are often thought of as unhelpful coping mechanisms for dealing with unpleasant thoughts and emotions.
But by utilizing the techniques taught in EFT, including methods like the emotional freedom technique, or "tapping," patients learn to identify and change emotional states. This is not only helpful on its own, but also gives patients a broader perspective of what they're experiencing, as opposed to solely focusing on disordered eating behaviors without offering alternative means for managing distress.4
Some specific strategies and tools eating disorder patients may learn and use during emotion-focused therapy include:
A central aspect of emotion-focused therapy is helping participants learn to differentiate when they should work to change unhelpful emotions, regulate overwhelming or stressful energy, or listen to their emotions as a guide.1 This can offer more cognitive balance and help patients better process their current situation and emotional state.
Once they can effectively sit with their emotions and determine when to use what skill, then they can begin to make a powerful and healing change.
The three main types of emotion-focused therapy include:
Like all types of therapy for eating disorders, emotion-focused therapy has its strengths and limitations, and what works for one patient may not be as effective for another.
Some strengths associated with emotion-focused therapy include:4
There are some limitations to emotion-focused therapy, including:3,4,5
Research indicates that EFT is an effective form of treatment in healing eating disorders. One study focusing on EFT and binge eating disorder found that this type of therapy decreased binge eating episodes and improved binge eating symptoms compared to those who didn’t receive this therapy.5
A systematic review of the effectiveness of emotion-focused therapy for eating disorders found that EFT leads to improvements in eating disorder pathology and affective, or mood-based, symptoms, like emotional distress. However, more research is needed to confirm its efficacy.6
Since eating disorders often co-occur with other mental health disorders like depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), it’s important to understand the EFT’s effectiveness in treating these conditions as well. Research indicates that emotion focused therapy is highly effective in treating depression, with similar effectiveness to cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and client-centered empathic treatment.4 It has also shown promise in treating social anxiety and trauma.7
Moreover, emotion-focused therapy helps people resolve interpersonal issues, promote interpersonal forgiveness, and reduce overall relationship distress.4
Disclaimer about "overeating": Within Health hesitatingly uses the word "overeating" because it is the term currently associated with this condition in society, however, we believe it inherently overlooks the various psychological aspects of this condition which are often interconnected with internalized diet culture, and a restrictive mindset about food. For the remainder of this piece, we will therefore be putting "overeating" in quotations to recognize that the diagnosis itself pathologizes behavior that is potentially hardwired and adaptive to a restrictive mindset.
Disclaimer about weight loss drugs: Within does not endorse the use of any weight loss drug or behavior and seeks to provide education on the insidious nature of diet culture. We understand the complex nature of disordered eating and eating disorders and strongly encourage anyone engaging in these behaviors to reach out for help as soon as possible. No statement should be taken as healthcare advice. All healthcare decisions should be made with your individual healthcare provider.
Emotion-focused therapy is a therapy that aims to improve emotional awareness, regulation, and acceptance when treating conditions like eating disorders.
Emotion-focused therapy centers on a patient’s emotions and emotional experience in order to facilitate therapeutic change. It helps them develop healthier coping mechanisms to manage unwanted, painful, or distressing emotions.
Emotion-focused couples therapy focuses on the relationship, bond, and attachment of a couple to break rigid interaction patterns, improve emotional connection, and resolve relationship distress.
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