Emotionally Focused Therapy

Program Overview

The Doctor of Marriage and Family Therapy in Emotionally Focused Therapy is built on a single clinical insight: most couples do not fight about what they are fighting about. Beneath the argument over money or in-laws runs an attachment question — are you there for me, do I matter to you, will you come when I call. Emotionally focused therapy works at that level, and it has the strongest outcome evidence of any couple therapy model developed in the last forty years. Students learn the model as its originators set it out. The attachment foundation comes first: Bowlby and Ainsworth on the bond, separation distress, and the strategies partners use when the bond feels unsafe. Then the method itself — tracking the negative cycle and the secondary emotions that drive it, accessing the primary emotion underneath, working in the present moment rather than reporting on the week, staging enactments in which partners speak to each other rather than about each other, and the three stages of de-escalation, restructuring the bond, and consolidation. The withdrawer's re-engagement and the blamer's softening are studied as the turning points they are. Family and individual applications are covered, along with the outcome and process research on which the model's reputation rests. For a Christian therapist the model sits naturally alongside a covenant understanding of marriage: the vow is not merely a contract to be enforced but a bond to be repaired. The doctoral project takes a real clinical or training question — a population, a stuck pattern, a supervision model — and tests an intervention in the student's own setting. Graduates lead counseling ministries, train couples workers, teach the model, and write for practitioners.

Core Courses

• EFT 801 — Attachment Theory and the Adult Bond (6 credits)
• EFT 812 — The Negative Cycle and Emotion in Session (6 credits)
• EFT 824 — Stage One: De-escalation (6 credits)
• EFT 836 — Stage Two: Restructuring the Bond (6 credits)
• EFT 848 — Consolidation, Families, and Complex Presentations (5 credits)
• EFT 860 — Applied Research Design in Couple Therapy (4 credits)
• EFT 899 — Doctoral Project in Emotionally Focused Practice (24 credits)

Admission Requirements

• Master's degree in marriage and family therapy, counseling, psychology, ministry, or a related field
• Experience in counseling, pastoral care, chaplaincy, or family ministry
• Statement of purpose describing the people you serve and the model you want to master
• Current resume or professional profile
• Official transcripts from prior institutions when available
• Case write-up, teaching sample, or research paper when requested