Do you worry you might be depressed?
It may be time to talk to a professional if you:
- feel down for days on end,
- find it harder, for a period of two weeks or more, to get moving and do things that used to feel simple or enjoyable,
- notice sustained changes in appetite, sleep or sex drive without any underlying changes in physical health,
- feel excessive guilt or irritability in your life.
In the city of Toronto and across Canada, millions of people struggle with symptoms of depression each year. While there are various treatment approaches available, one approach that has gained significant recognition is Emotion Focused Therapy (EFT). This therapeutic modality offers a unique and effective way to treat depression by helping individuals explore, understand, and transform their emotional experiences. In this blog, we will delve into the essence of EFT and explore how it can bring light and healing to your life.
Emotion Focused Therapy is a comprehensive and evidence-based approach that helps you become more aware of your surface and deeper emotions, helps you to face and feeling difficult emotions in a supportive and non-judgmental environment, and helps you sift through and transform old stuck patterns into fresh new feelings that better help you understand what you need in your present-day life. Developed by Dr. Leslie Greenberg and Dr. Robert Elliott, EFT emphasizes the importance of emotions in our lives, highlighting their role in shaping our thoughts, behaviors, and relationships. Unlike other forms of therapy that focus solely on cognition or behavior, EFT places emotions at the center of the therapeutic process.
Three Principles Underlying Emotion-Focused Therapy for Depression
- Emotions are helpful. When you work with an EFT clinician, you are working with someone who understands that the human emotion system has evolved to be an adaptive signalling system, guiding attention to critical elements in our environments. Emotions provide valuable information about an individual’s experience including what is most needed in a given moment. Emotion theory teaches us that emotions should be acknowledged, explored, and processed rather than avoided or suppressed. Of course, this is most true for what we call ‘adaptive emotions.’
- We need to lean into (the right) emotions – not avoid them. Although it might feel counter-intuitive if you are suffering from symptoms of depression, an Emotion Focused therapist can help you tune into and make meaning of the ‘right’ emotions. Together, you will gently move beneath the surface feelings of depression: hopelessness, lethargy, guilt, and irritability. Underneath, we you will find another layer of emotion – a layer that will help you better understand needs you have learned to deny and shut down. When we deny or give up on our basic needs for love, safety, and a sense of purpose and accomplishment, depression often follows. When we learn to identify and meet these unmet needs…symptoms of depression often begin to lift. Remember, while emotions themselves can not seriously injure you, some of the behaviours commonly used to avoid them can. Let us help you feel better.
- We can create new emotional response patterns to the world around us. Have you ever found yourself worrying (or believing!) that you will never feel better? Every day, Emotion Focused Therapy is used to help people move into painful feelings and then, feel something new. Much like blending blue and yellow paint, the result is something qualitatively brand new and different. If you are ready to take the risk of showing your true feelings, a trained emotion focused therapist can guide you towards a qualitatively new experience of life.
How Does EFT Help?
Emotion Focused Therapy for depression offers specific strategies and techniques to help individuals who are struggling. These include:
- Emotion Awareness: EFT emphasizes the importance of increasing emotional awareness using techniques like focusing, mindful awareness, and guided imagery. These strategies can help you better identify and label your feelings.
- Emotion Regulation: You will learn to identify triggers for various feelings, to better manage overwhelming emotions, and to cultivate self-soothing techniques. All of these skills may also help you connect more deeply with others increasing your changes at receiving the love and support you need to feel better.
- Emotion Transformation: Using empathic exploration and enactments of key relationships and forms of self-talk, EFT aims to transform maladaptive emotions into adaptive ones. A good EFT therapist will support you in processing and healing the underlying hurts that have led to depressed mood in the first place. Typically, clients may begin to experience emotional relief, new energy, enjoyment, or self-compassion, and greater resilience in the face of future stressors.
- Relations hip Exploration: EFT recognizes the significance of relationships in emotional well-being. Exploring patterns in your most important relationships such as addressing emotional conflicts and unresolved issues, learning to open up and say how you really feel, and learning to better identify when it’s time to let go can all lead to improved mental well-being.
How will I know if Emotion Focused Therapy is right for me?
Results vary from person to person. If it is very hard for you to know what you are feeling, results may be a bit slower, and if you are generally unaware of your feelings at all, cognitive therapy may be a better fit to help you to explore the data that is accessible to you: your thoughts! Having said that, Emotion Focused Therapy has demonstrated significant benefits for individuals struggling with depression. Research has shown that EFT can lead to improved emotional awareness, reduced depressive symptoms, enhanced self-compassion, greater assertiveness, and greater overall well-being. Furthermore, EFT has been found to have lasting effects, promoting long-term emotional well-being.
Emotion Focused Therapy provides a transformative approach to treating depression. By placing emotions at the core of the therapeutic process, EFT can empower you to explore your emotional experiences, live your life in a more regulated way, and transform negative feelings into healthy and adaptive ones. If you or someone you know is battling depression, check out our team page to find a therapist that feels right for you.
Further reading:
https://www.camh.ca/en/health-info/mental-illness-and-addiction-index/depression
A short video on emotions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJOjpprbfeE
