← The Leading Edge in Emotionally Focused Therapy
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- [00:01]
Dr. James Hawkins
Man, I've really been enjoying talking about in these places where we've talked about in past episodes with when things go bad in session. But last week we just came off of. We're in this series now when things are going good or they're de escalated. And so the very last episode, we talked about kind of positivity from that avoidant aspect, where maybe it's a little bit about protectiveness, trying to protect what one client told me, protect the beautiful end. On a good note, I've heard a client say, so there is positivity we need to be able to join them with and even in that protection. But it's more of an avoidant one. But today I'm excited. We're going to talk about the authentic positivity that's coming up because of change that's really happening in therapy. And how do we join our clients there in that place.
- [00:48]
Dr. Ryan Reyna
Welcome to the Leading Edge in Emotionally Focused Therapy with your hosts, Dr. Dr. James Hawkins and Dr. Ryan Reyna. EFT is a dynamic model that humbles even the most seasoned therapists. Together, we want to come alongside you as you continually push the leading edge of your understanding and application of this wonderful model developed by Dr. Sue Johnson.
- [01:16]
Dr. James Hawkins
All right, you all, thank you so again for being here with the Leading Edge podcast. So just to bridge the summary from last week to where we're going to go today, once again, working with that avoidant energy. And even though it's avoidant, one thing I think we made very clear is don't just blow past it and keep trying to find the negative cycle. Meet them there in some of that positivity. Talk about the dog. And Ryan told us about his imaginary dog, Susie, and talk about Susie's collar with Ryan. He needs you to meet him there. And so we need to be able to do that, but recognize that it might not be able to really stick. And so we gave you two practical ways to deal with that. One way is you can enact the positivity. This is so beautiful. Building out and have them turn and share it and see if they can do that. The other one is kind of say, is do a good summary of the positivity that came up in the session and then ask them an assessment question and how confident do you feel you can keep this up? How confident do you feel you can stay here? And so that's working with avoidant energy. But, Ryan, here we are. Now we're going to talk about working with authentic positivity that might come up because of the work we're doing with the couple, and we've gotten some de escalation going.
- [02:25]
Dr. Ryan Reyna
Yeah, I want to do a quick reminder as well, if I could, James. You know, positivity, lack of. Lack of a problem to talk about can be disorienting for a therapist, and which is kind of our problem. But there's also some just truth to it as well. I mean, if you. If you put out a hurdle, a risk that you're asking your clients to take, and they can jump over each one of them easily, you know, you gotta ask yourself, what's going on? Why are they a client? What is happening wrong? If they were this strong, they probably wouldn't be in my office. So I still think that's a good question to ask. You know, there's a pretty good chance that if they can achieve everything you're asking them to do, you're not. You may not be on the leading edge, which is our job, to find out where their growth is needed. You know, so if they, you know, as we've said before, a summary is the enemy of exploration. You know, if someone can summarize these deep conversations, that usually means it's old news. Right. So we want to be discerning through. Is this positivity I'm seeing avoidant, or is this actually change and growth and movement? Does that make sense to you?
- [03:42]
Dr. James Hawkins
Yeah, I like what you just said. You know, as therapists, we do deal with a lot of hard stuff each day. And I think you even said in the last episode you might have had a busy day. You have five rough sessions, and then you get that sixth one. It's like, man, I just need to take a. It feels like you almost need to take a session off. But when you said that you might have worked really good with a couple and it feels like things are de. Escalated. But if it's still staying too positive, you need to watch because we do need. We do have a responsibility, and we push for more places to build those windows of tolerance.
- [04:15]
Dr. Ryan Reyna
Yeah. So let's jump in here. You know, I don't want to be too to. You know, our podcast is really trying to be practical, but doesn't hurt to go back through theory every once in a while. You know, attachment theory in its original form from John Bowlby was about threat mitigation. It's about proximity seeking in the face of threat. And he has these two systems that have this sort of correlation relationship. That's as smart as I possibly sound, by the way. That's. That's high level for me. No But. But the two systems, meaning the attachment system, which is proximity seeking in the face of danger, and the exploratory system, and that when the attachment system is sort of met, in other words, I'm feeling safe enough in the relationship, the exploratory system of motivation and the brain sort of naturally kicks on. And that's what we're talking about here with positivity. I now have access to your curiosity, to your flexibility. I'm willing to just sort of be curious what it's like to be on the receiving end of me. I'm willing to be curious at your protection, which formerly I was so threatened by, but now I'm like, oh, help me understand. And that's a good day when that happens, especially when it's not just avoidance. So the first thing I would want to say, and then you jump in here with me, is, we. We are good at what we practice at. You know, I was just telling you beforehand, I'm reading Scotty Pippen's autobiography, and this is. If you don't know who that is, he's a famous basketball player as a Hall of Famer.
- [05:53]
Dr. James Hawkins
Yeah.
- [05:53]
Dr. Ryan Reyna
And, you know, if you really look at what made him good, there's a lot of things, but one of it is he grew up two blocks from a public basketball. And that's a public basketball court, which wasn't very nice, but he went there every single day and just shooting thousands and thousands and thousands of shots. So one of the problems with a diseased state in a relationship is they just haven't exercised their exploratory system much at all. It's just gone vacant. It's gone. It's kind of atrophied their way of being together in less protected ways. So I think sometimes I think about myself early in my career, when good things would start to happen, I'd start to think, okay, we're good here, and not realize now is the time to go shoot some more shots.
- [06:42]
Dr. James Hawkins
So I definitely want to jump in. I remember we were in Connecticut. It was me, me, you, and George. I hear my wife in my head saying, I end it with I, but love you, honey. But we were in Connecticut, and the couple had just blocked me and blocked me and blocked me and blocked me. And then finally we did get access to vulnerability and positive. And Ryan, you kind of caught it for me. And I was okay. Like, my energy was done. Like, I had did a good job finally flipping the block and getting it open. But then I wasn't ready to work with the authentic positivity. Or vulnerability that was now online. That's what's coming up for me as you kind of say that. And then that's where they need us to help them too. So I had to shift gears out of all this block and protection work to now working with positivity, which I used to think, Ryan, like, oh, this is my eft superpower. I love working with clients open and vulnerable places. And what helped me, what I'm recognizing now, I've spent so much time now focusing on working with blocks and protection, which is about what we say with that stage one de escalation kind of reactivity. That's about 70% of our work. And we can focus so much there that sometimes I found myself like, James, you've got to learn to sit again with people when it does drop and things open up.
- [07:55]
Dr. Ryan Reyna
Yes. And again, I think we're so geared towards working with problems. I'm thinking about one of my cases as you tell that story. And it was one of the hardest couples I've ever worked with. I mean, all the contraindicators were at play, and some of the contraindicators, you know, continued to happen during the session. And it was three years of hard work. And then finally they turned it around and they were so safe. I would just relax too much and like, all right, and we're just hanging out, you know, it felt like stage three. And what I should have done is go, hey, you got space right now, and you got a lot less protection. Let's go. Let's see if we can finish five missions in one session. Let's exercise this new space that we have to where we have this muscles and a way to be together.
- [08:45]
Dr. James Hawkins
Yeah, I like that. And when I think about that, I think about when. Of course, you know, you and I are people who appreciate athletic stuff, but I don't think it's just athletic. You see it with different actors and actresses and things of that nature. They have this ability when they're in a zone, even though there's this tiredness, they can keep pushing and pushing and pushing and staying. So what I'm even seeing here, and I hope to come alongside eft therapist, is you've done so much hard work, and you probably do feel like once you've done a lot of travailed a lot of ground with your clients, then when it opens, this is that place where I think some endurance kicks in. And I like when you said, like, that ability to let's get submissions. I remember, Ryan, I keep going over sessions here, but I think it is important. I was still a new eft and you were doing a live with my couple. And if you listen to success and vulnerability and you watch, it was a clinical example we call Block City. And I remember, like, I was a new efter and I sat in that live with you, and you had dealt with several blocks and validated and did the CPR with it. And then all of a sudden, I felt my body like, whew, all right, I'm ready for this thing to be over. And I checked my watch and we were like, only like, 38 minutes in. And then all of a sudden, you go for an enactment with his younger self, using his younger self. And I'm like, I don't want to go there. I'm tired. That's why I guess I'm saying that really out loud to help validate that for you as EFT therapist, that you might feel that sometimes. I felt that. I find that now the question we're good is we're probably going to get into some practical is like, when that authenticity comes up, when that vulnerability or positivity comes up, that comes from good hard work. How do you get everything from it? Or the term Gail Palmer gave you, but it was more with enactments. How do we go ahead and get all the meat off the bone?
- [10:27]
Dr. Ryan Reyna
Good, let's get practical right after this break.
- [10:32]
Dr. James Hawkins
We just want to take a minute and thank you for being a part of the Leading Edge podcast. We are really inspired and grateful when we hear from you in trainings or through social media about how this content is truly helping you push the Leading Edge of your learning and being able to apply emotionally focused couples therapy with your clients and some of you also in your own personal lives. And so at this moment, we just want to ask you to consider helping us out.
- [11:00]
Dr. Ryan Reyna
Yeah. James, I appreciate you saying that. When we first started this, we had no idea it would take off like it has. We get contacts from all over the world, so it's really cool to think that we're coming through your speakers, into your devices or however you listen to us. We appreciate that. It's really an honor. And like James is saying, we want to ask you to consider helping us make this sustainable. We've gone back and forth on how we want to handle money or if we want to involve that. But the reality is, to make this sustainable, we do need to do some things and make some investments. So we have a Venmo account. We would love to ask you to consider partnering with us and joining us to make this Sustainable to take this to other people who are trying to help others around the world and even the next generation of therapists. So you want to talk about how they can do that?
- [11:45]
Dr. James Hawkins
Yeah. If you want to be a part and you can to support us, you can go to on Venmo.
- [11:52]
Dr. Ryan Reyna
Or on.
- [11:53]
Dr. James Hawkins
Cash app cauclpc with a dollar sign in the front and in the subject line, just to help us know that you're a leading edge listener and you want to support us, please put Leading edge or here's a fun one we're doing with playing with Ryan. Put left in the comment line because you are part of the leading edge and emotionally focused therapy.
- [12:13]
Dr. Ryan Reyna
There you go. So ockhawklpc.
- [12:15]
Dr. James Hawkins
That's correct.
- [12:16]
Dr. Ryan Reyna
Okay. All right. And I want to say one thing really, really quickly. You know, depending on where you are in life, if you're living, check to check if money is tight for you and or if you're somewhere and you're really serving an underserved population, please do not give us money. We do not want your money. We won't take it. We'll send it back somehow, because that's not what this is about. But if you're at a place where you're doing okay or maybe even doing really well and ideas from this podcast, if you use them professionally for which you receive fees for your services, consider partnering with us. We've had people who've donated $300 or $50, whatever it is, for you. We trust that our listeners are going to make the best decision for them. We just want to make this available for you. You're welcome to continue joining us if you don't give foreign welcome back Two things that you can know about a relationship that's lived in a negative cycle for a long time. There's probably many things you can know, but two of the main ones, number one, both people have probably had to disown parts of themselves to survive living in a negative cycle for a long time. That's really, really important. You hear people say in movies and certainly in your office, I lost myself or I got to go find myself. That often is correlated with infidelity, too. But. But there's certain truth to that. You know, it's like you live in a negative cycle for too long. You disown parts of you to survive that lack of safety. The second thing is it's cost you depth. If a couple's unhealthy for a long time, their conversations become more and more and more shallow. More conversations about the weather. Conversations are more Like a negotiation or a mediation, they get stuck at that sort of secondary, more protected way of being together. So when that opens up in our offices, when there's more openness and curiosity, we need to push deeper for that second reason. In other words, they just have probably lost the habits. They have. They have atrophied the muscles of having deep conversations. So we want to push deeper. The reason I bring that up is it kind of sounds like common sense, and yet we often may not be instinctive to do that because it feels a little bit strange to push back into pain when people are feeling positive. So we're using our grounded theory and our research here to say you probably should. So we talk at trainings that I do when you're doing stage two work, especially when you're getting out there towards step seven, which is where we actually might consider asking couples to talk about their attachment needs. Most therapists do that way too early and pay the price. But eventually, with that much safety, we do want to re facilitate what is secure bonding, which is to talk about deeper places and even needs, and ask for them to be met in session. And my favorite metaphor is this. If you think about the depth of a relationship, we want to push as deep as we possibly can in our sessions in the time that we have, and we want to build bridges where they can find each other in their deepest pain. And the reason that we want to do that is because for most relationships, life is going to hurt them at some point in these very deep places. So if in a safe environment, we've been able to practice in organic ways, the ability to feel that level of deep pain and to find a bridge in and out where we can be there for comfort for each other, then that bridge will be there when life hurts them at that level. To me, this is one of the main reasons I'm really drawn to EFT kinds of work. And it's. To me, the reason why the relapse level is so much lower than other approaches is because we're not just trying to create change. We're not just trying to create new skills. We are actually trying to implant in people's bodies corrective emotional experiences in the as deep as we possibly can so that that muscle or that bridge can be used later on.
- [16:55]
Dr. James Hawkins
Okay. And I want to pull forward a line you said from the last episode that hit me when we were listening to it. The part where you say we're trying to do almost like two things at once, maybe not the best word, but it's like we are Trying to organize the negative cycle, that's where we're in that that still escalated place. Organize it so we can show it to them from an attachment frame, allowing them to see what they're doing to regulate the relationship when it doesn't feel safe or when they can't make those reaches that get responded to. But then the other part, I think what we're talking about today help me understand if I'm on the right track here, Ryan. It's the other part we're trying to do where we're building the positive cycle and that deserves just as much of our attention. That is what we're trying to go. Like you said, we actually are trying to get them to talk about positive things. And so what I'm hearing here today, that I like what you're even saying, there is this push now we're talking about. It's not just a push for more like, well, I don't know, this, right. We are pushing to let to to that part that maybe they couldn't go to before to get them to go to enacting the positive cycle. Now whether it is talking about the longings and the hopes for the relationship, the needs. Right. They need us to push for this place because it's the old cycle, the negative cycle would never let them do this before. And so just because we calm the negative cycle down, the work is still not done. This is where you talk about finishing the actual. This is finishing the work here now. This is building the new positive cycle that can speak about those things, right?
- [18:30]
Dr. Ryan Reyna
Absolutely. And it's just as it just as if not more important than all the other work that we've been doing. And a common frustration point or question from new people with EFT and even not so new people is how deep is deep enough? It's not an easy question to answer. It's one that I get at almost every training and you know, early in the process, the short answer is it needs to be new, different and deeper. Again, we're trying to move away from summaries into a bit more of a risky ask. When we ask questions so early on, it's new, different and deeper. As we move through stage two, when there's now tons and tons of space, we want to go as deep as possible and really continue to do that with withdrawal re engagement first and shortly after with pursuer softening. And so how deep is deep enough? Well, end of the day it's can a pursuer who formerly was very protesting, can they now face distress and protest flexibly not as much more open in the face of pain? And conversely, can the withdrawer face distress, face difficult things and stay engaged where they would formally numb out, check out, go away either physically and or emotionally. So end of the day the client kind of decides that with how they go about their behavior under distress in particular. Is that making sense to you?
- [20:05]
Dr. James Hawkins
100% so and so let's go ahead and take a commercial break here and then we're going to come back and maybe we'll switch to like once again. Like we want to give you some moves in these different places. Do you want more help getting focused in your work with relationships and distress, but you need it to fit into your already busy schedule and you want it to be Affordable? Check out successandvulnerability.com Success and vulnerability is an excellent online video based curriculum developed by a team of EFT trainers, supervisors and therapists who share their unique insights and therapeutic styles to help you succeed at working with relational distress. The SV program is for therapists at all stages of development who want to grow in their ability to work with emotional and relational distress. Success and Vulnerability is also a great tool to help supervisors increase their effectiveness and supervision to help give focused expert feedback for to help people get better in their work with couples and families and even individuals. Success for Vulnerability uses multiple forms of learning from didactic to experiential exercises and actual clinical cases with commentary to help you learn the micro moves of emotionally focused therapy. We look forward to be a part of helping you and your clients have success where it matters most. Invulnerability.
- [21:40]
Dr. Ryan Reyna
All right, welcome back. I get to talk about one of my favorite parts of doing when EFT goes well, when my work goes well. One that I won't talk about is like clockwork though couples who have children that happened twice last week. So that was really a nice blessing, honestly. They, they're talking about their relationship and they're saying nice things about progress and they'll just stop and say this has also completely changed how we parent, by the way, even though we never talked about parenting. That's kind of cool to hear. The other part that I think is really, really key is, you know, we're recording this. I'm sure you're listening to it at a different time, but we're recording this just before a holiday season in our culture at least it's mid December and we're kind of getting ready for holidays. And so one of the things that you may experience wherever you are and however you do holidays is you may get to See someone you haven't seen in a long time. Maybe it's a cousin or a sibling or maybe just an old friend that you don't get to see all the time, but because it's a holiday now, you get to and just think about how you are when you first see them. And that should be happening in our offices when we're doing deeper work. Because as I said earlier, one of the absolutes thing that you will see is in a relationship that's living distress for too long as they disown parts of themself. Well, the parts of themself that are disowned are still there. They're just dormant. And in this new way of being together with safety, those old selves, those old parts of self are re entering. Sometimes you don't have to do anything to see them. Other times we need to go ask about them. Right? What did that used to be like? Help me understand this. And more in particular, when a disowned aspect of self comes back in the room, we need to be ready to respond to it with affirmation, with honor, even with our own excitement. You know, we need to be happy to see that. One of my, the couple that I certified with years ago, it's a great story. She was the daughter of an alcoholic mother and she was now in a very significant withdrawer in her relationship. And that was not an accident, by the way. And so she talked about developing really great skills at attunement. Ironically, she would hide as her mom would come back from work and she would watch the door. And when her mom would come back in, she could tell really, really quickly whether she'd been drinking or not. And if she had been drinking, she would stay hidden. If mom was sober, she would come out and engage. And it really became a metaphor for how she related in her life. And yet it caused great distress in her bond. And so through this work, she had a great partner. She's a great client. That's what makes a good therapist, is good clients. Don't forget that. And as we did deeper work, in particular in stage two, she came in one day and, and she said, you won't believe what happened. And I'm like, what's that? And she said, I told a joke. And for someone who tells jokes about every 30 seconds, I was not immediately impressed until I reflected back on she hadn't told a joke in 20 years. And she told it in a very public place. It was in a big event and people laughed and it was fun. And her partner looked at me and is like, that's a big deal. And I'm like, okay, let's get to know your sense of humor. Because, see, she had disowned that playful part of herself as a way to survive her attachment history and as a way to survive her current negative cycle with her partner. So sometimes things like a sense of humor, playfulness, sometimes it's sexual. These disowned parts of self come back in our office, and now it's our job to notice them, to honor them, and then to reintegrate them, to get her talking about her sense of humor, to get her partner to respond to that, to get. To get the rest of our clients back in the game.
- [25:53]
Dr. James Hawkins
Ryan, that's huge, what you just said. I mean, I felt it hit my body because when we're talking about this positive, these are the things that they've probably let go of because life just didn't feel too safe or it was too risky. You know, we know. We definitely know. We, you know, when we teach EFT trainings, that withdrawals will do that, because even sometimes positive comes with the risk of having to engage in more conversation or whatever. Right. But when you said that, Ryan, like, I really reckon withdrawals and pursuers do it, that we kind of. Because life doesn't feel safe, we give up even good parts of ourselves. Probably not. We don't calculate it, but it is necessary in some ways. I don't know. That just. Just hit me. As you said, these disowned parts of self that we want to help them get back. Okay, so my job right now is. So when we see moments like. Just like what Ryan did. Catch what Ryan did. I want to talk about the practical parts of when these positive points come forward. So catch what Ryan did there. This client. Now, Ryan's done some deep work, obviously worked through a lot of trauma, and now something new happens in her life, and she chooses just like. And it sounds funny, but like, my. My. One of my daughters just had show and tell at school. Ryan. And she was excited to go show and share. Your client. Ryan's client came in and wanted to have show and tell with him about a joke she told at a public event. Ryan could have been like, come on, I'm Dr. Ryan Reina. You're paying for my time. I don't want to hear about a joke you told at an event. No, but did you catch it? Ryan did. Ryan said, let's explore your humor. He welcomed it into the office because there was something significant. So one, Ryan knows his client. This is different. He fitted into her story, and he made space for it right there. And then even the partner validates it. No, you don't get it. This is a big deal, and the partner even deepens it. So that's a positive right there that I catch. Like, wow, look at you, man. You really know your partner here. You want. You want to make sure I see that something serious is happening for her. I really appreciate you, so let's stay here today. And the reason why that's practical is Ryan's highlighting it, because this is something I recognize. I've listened to our podcast. I say this person's name a lot. Gail Palmer. But Gail taught me something that was important, and I even saw her do this in an interview with Sue. She says that, like, people's longings and pains and protection are really two sides of the same coin. They're always in close relationship to each other. So Gail would say, yeah, prime that longing, and her pain will be right on the other side. But stay there with it. Keep, poke, keep. So with her, the lesson would be, then, here's the practical point is learn to slow down. This is a skill I'm working on still to slow the pace down. So when Ryan notices it, he says, okay, let's understand your humor and be intentional and mark the spot. Like, so slow it down. Be intentional, focus. And then I think you hover around and explore with people. When positivity comes through, slow down, hover over that positivity, and explore, explore, explore. When we say explore, what we mean is, what does this mean for you? Look at how it's bringing out this joy for you. And then even explore. Like. And these are like, Ryan's language is. But there's been parts of. You've had to put this away, you know, what's it bringing up for you right now, Ryan?
- [29:16]
Dr. Ryan Reyna
Yeah, and just the importance of welcoming these parts back to the team, just like you would the cousin you haven't seen in 10 years, you know, and so sort of half celebration, half sentiment, if you will. You know, you don't want to be so celebratory that you pull them out of the emotion. I've done that before. But you definitely want to be impacted by those moments. I think that's really important, you know, and I catch a vision of that client I'm referring to for two decades, you know, being a wallflower, you know, and not having her voice and not. And all that she's missed out on because of not having that voice. So it's exciting to. To get back the parts of her that are real and to share that with the world. I think there's something that's really cool about that. So I'll get on a 30 second tangent here. So much of what we call our personality is often really just our protection and what a loss that is to go through life with half of who you are missing. And it's a joy to be a part of going on a redemptive process for people to find the rest of who they are. So in summary here, you know, we did two episodes about when a session goes really bad, and now we're wrapping up the second episode of when there's a lot of good that happened and how it can be disorienting. And then this last one, I think our theme is, and really the theme of both positive episodes here is utilization. And so at risk of being redundant, I want to say it one more time. It can be easy to just let the positivity tell you that the work is over, or just to kind of take it easy and celebrate. And we do want to do some celebration. But what we're suggesting is that you use this new positivity, this new space. I kind of think about an elevator shaft. Now let's take it back down into those places where those muscles haven't been strengthened very often. And with the target of secure connection, but also with the target of that each person in your office feels seen, heard, understood, important and worthy of love. And for a clinically distressed person, that really can only be redeemed if in the places that are hurt. To take in love in those places not only changes the relationship, it heavily impacts one's sense of self. So we're so happy to be with you and share this today.
- [31:54]
Thank you for listening. We hope this experience helps you push the leading edge in your work to help people connect with themselves and with each other. Please subscribe to our podcast and leave us a five star review. You can contact us at pushtheleadingedgemail.com and you can follow us on our Facebook page at pushtheleadingedge. You can follow Ryan on Facebook at Ryan Raina Professional Training and On his website ryanrenatraining.com you can follow James on Facebook and Instagram at Doc Hawk LPC. You can also check out his website dochawklpc.com.