EFT and Trauma
Brief Overview
Jane is the patient, who suffers from the long-term anxiety that has initially appeared half a year ago after she was robbed by a burglar in the street. During the incident, she has lost a considerable sum of money, an expensive new smartphone, a pricy brand purse and a wallet. Jane does not feel well emotionally and mentally. That is why, she has visited a counselor several times during the above mentioned period, but the therapy was not effective. As a result, the husband was involved in order to search for the deeper reasons. The further treatment revealed that the couple often argues about the money. Both Ben and Jane work, but the earnings of the husband are a bit higher. While Jane manages the budget of the family, Ben often accuses his wife in spending money for unnecessary things, too pricy novices and random clothing. He often doubts whether she makes the right choice and puts the robbery, when she has lost very pricy things as the example of her mistakes.
Jane is quite distressed about the critics of her husband and feels constant tense when dealing with money. Jane feels anxious all the time, and as she comes home to her husband, nothing gets changed. Sometimes her worries even transform into fears that someone can break into their home. She does not share these thoughts with her husband. Although they both want to save their marriage and have no intends to get divorced. As for Ben, he seems to be hardly interested to find out her feelings and fears. In the majority of cases, the main method of Jane’s defense is keeping calm and not saying a word. However, sometimes she may give way to emotions, and accuse Ben of being indifferent towards her.
The counselor’s attempt to let the couple talk has led to the following result. At the beginning, Ben accused Jane of being prodigal. In response, she was waiting for a long time first, but, finally, started accusing him of being indifferent to her, and worried only about money. According to his words, she manages the family budget, but never saves money for the issues of the primary necessity: flat payment, community facilities, etc. Finally, he claimed that it is all her fault, and she cannot manage the easiest things, but still, he does not agree to do everything by himself. According to Jane’s words, such situations make her really upset. She feels as if he does not trust her at all. Moreover, she says that he pays no attention to her needs and does not worry about her.
Key Considerations
Exacerbation or attenuation of the effect brought by some disorder is in the power of human relations (Greenman & Johnson, 2012). The current case shows that personal interconnection of the wife with her husband is weakened, and it is essential to bring more mutual understanding of emotions. Drawing a representation of the causal relations between the reactions of the husband and further inability of the wife to get rid of the anxiety are the crucial aspects. The awareness of the husband about his role in the problem can become crucial on the way to recovering as the wife’s attachment to her husband is a significant aspect that can be influenced in order to motivate more rapid recovering. On the initial stage, aggravation of her state caused by the period of the anxiety influence on Jane’s life could be observed.
Client says about us
Goals for Therapy
The goals of the therapy are to find out the liaison between the actions of one partner and their perception by the second one. The primary and secondary feeling of both partners need to be analyzed and shown to one another. The partners have to understand when the misperceptions appear. In this very case, it is important for the husband to analyze the problems of his wife more deeply and get the idea of how he can be helpful in her treatment. It is also crucial to make Jane get rid of the feeling that she is unimportant to her husband. Work in the direction of the husbands’ feelings towards her can also make Jane re-consider her strong worries about money as a key factor for the disputes appearing in their family. In such a way, the main goal of the therapy is to build the strong and solid attachment in between the partners in the couple. Emotional availability and responsiveness of the husband and wife are particularly important (Greenman & Johnson, 2012). To be more precise about the aspects that demand particular attention by the therapy, it is necessary to help Ben to manifest his emotions without fears, but accurately understanding the reasons of his wife worries. For Jane, it is necessary to learn how to understand her husband and try to find consensus instead of perceiving all his criticism as deep assault.
Synopsis of the Overall Treatment Plan
The conversation based on the repetition phrases that would show understanding to the clients are effective to discover their emotions more deeply. Addressing to the wife, it is important to make her feel that the counselor understands her and make Ben see how Jane perceives his actions. Hence, it is important to emphasize that she is upset and even angry because he controls the financial issues but pays no attention to her personal needs. She considers that the timely payments are more important for her husband than she. Accordingly, Ben should listen to the problem formulation and respond to it. However, he tries to escape from the problem and cannot accept what he has heard. The task of the counselor is to provide further questions that will become helpful to make Ben uncover his emotions as initially, he is more reserved than his wife. Lack of the feelings’ manifestation can be defined as a common problem defined by Jane and observed during the therapy. Hence, struggling with this problem is a part of recovering the emotional connection between Ben and Jane. Moreover, it will become a mean to improve the process of Jane’s recovering from her anxiety.
Assumptions
One of the main aims of the therapy is to discover the inner attachment of the couple members to each other. All the further treatment should be based on supporting and strengthening this attachment. The entire body of Jane responds to the anxiety by physical weakness and exhaustion as a result of the emotional trauma (Bicknell-Hentges & Lynch, 2009). The revelation of the details and communication with the couple shows that the anxiety of the wife is deeply related to her inner attitude to money predetermined by the regular cavils of her husband. The anxiety is also worsened due to Jane’s inability to feel safe with her husband, who depresses her by a lack of attention towards her feelings.
Detailed Discussion
Jane has already produced a common reaction on financial questions. She perceives it as the attack, and her pattern of the behavior is correspondent-defense. Such behavior makes the husband perceive the discussion in the same way and activate his defense mechanism, which implies emotional closeness. As a result, both members of this couple feel pain and try to escape from one another instead of communicating or discussing the possible ways to avoid this common problem. As Jane and Ben perceive such communication as assault, the results are feelings such as lonely, vulnerable and not loved. It is reflected especially strongly in the behavior of Jane. She feels fear and can even sometimes lose control. Talks about her guilt in spending or losing money reflects her inner fear to lose her husband.
At the same time, the reaction of the husband and particularly his unwillingness to show his emotions and discuss the problematic issues is predetermined by his fear to lose control and hurt his wife as he is also unwilling to lose her. As a result, the attachment in the couple seems to exist, but they fail to talk about their feelings and emotions. It is important to discuss the emotions they may feel in case they tell the truth to each other about what they feel. Moreover, Ben has to understand that being reserved hurts his wife not less than the emotions he could have shown. In reality, he emphasized that he would feel very anxious and weak in case of discussing his feelings. In reality, it is similar to the emotional state of his wife when he does not share his feelings. The emphasis on such similarity should make the husband and the wife understand the behavior patterns of one another and aim to search for the best alternative solution. It is also necessary to remember that patients’ reaction should not lead to dismissal of the treatment process. Avoiding too intense atmosphere would assist in obtaining successful results.
Termination Process
As the stages of the attachment recovering were provided with the help of emotions manifestation of both sides and offering the better pattern of cooperation, the aim of the final stage is to confirm the result and make the couple be able not to lose this attachment and discuss the problems and manifest the emotions without the counselor’s participation. Such task can be fulfilled by writing down at home the key elements of the therapy and what they have earned from it. Moreover, the counselor can ask each of the partners to tell about the actions that can make the partner feel upset or dismissed. They also should thank each other for everything and learn to focus on the contributions of the partner instead of failures. The main aim on this stage is to avoid making the problem a repeating one according to a cycle.
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Conclusion
Emotional attachment of a person can become a good background for a therapy as it is mostly associated with safety and maximizes the ability to tolerate stress. The above mentioned case can be effectively treated on the basis of the EFT. It can also be practiced as a group event, to make a couple feel relief while discussing a problem and share it with those, who also faces something similar. However, again, this is an individual option. The most common offer is to conduct the therapy solely with a couple. As the EFT lets a therapist consider the state of patients with regard to their habitual interactions, the exploration of the situation and personal worries is more full and objective. The reduction of symptoms caused by the trauma has been observed as well as the improvement in willingness to reveal the internal worries and fears. The establishment of EFT as a way for covering trauma and trauma-related disorders is of significant importance and bears great value for the treatment process. To reach successful results, the counselor and psychologists are expected to be as careful as possible, however, trying to make a patient open his or her mind and reveal the disturbing issue.
