Emotion Focussed Therapy
Emotions are deeply intelligent signals that help us understand our needs, experiences, boundaries, longings, relationships, and inner world. Yet many people have learned to suppress, fear, intellectualize, disconnect from, or feel overwhelmed by their emotions in order to survive.
Emotional work in therapy involves developing greater awareness, regulation, compassion, and understanding of our emotional experience. This includes learning to recognize, name, tolerate, express, and move through emotions in ways that feel safe, authentic, and connected rather than reactive, shut down, or overwhelming.
Influenced by Emotionally Focused Therapy, attachment theory, affective neuroscience, and interpersonal neurobiology, this work recognizes that emotions are deeply relational, embodied, and central to healing and transformation. Emotional regulation is not simply an individual skill, but something shaped through nervous system safety, attuned relationships, and our earliest experiences of connection.
Together, we may explore emotional patterns, protective strategies, unmet attachment needs, inner conflicts, and the ways emotions live within both the body and relational experience. Through greater emotional literacy and self-awareness, therapy can support deeper connection with yourself, others, and your authentic emotional life.
This work is influenced by the teachings and research of:
- Sue Johnson
- Dan Siegel
- Daniel Goleman
- Jaak Panksepp
- Candace Pert
- Allan Schore