In EFT (Emotion-Focused Therapy), we heal trauma by helping you fully experience the emotions of the original traumatic event. That probably sounds pretty daunting (and traumatic!). Let me explain.
The reason this process isn’t actually as daunting as it sounds—and, in fact, feels pretty amazing—is because the therapist is there to guide you and ensure your arousal (or distress levels) stay relatively low. I’ve had clients tell me that it feels incredibly good to fully experience their emotions, and personal disclosure: I’ve been through a lot of therapy myself, and it does feel really good when you do it.
In therapy, your arousal/distress levels are kept relatively low
The therapist’s job is to keep your arousal/distress levels within an optimal working level. That means not so high you’re incredibly distressed, but not so low you will fall asleep from being too relaxed -just a bit.
If you’ve ever re-experienced the emotions of the original trauma through a flashback or even just remembered the event, your emotions would have likely been somewhere on the continuum of high to through the roof. Or you may have dissociated entirely because it was simply too much to handle.
In therapy, however, we keep your distress levels low—down to a three to four out of ten—so you’re feeling pretty chill. From this calm and regulated place, we can then help you move through the layers of your emotions, right down to the core of the experience.
At this point, you might be saying -but I fully feel my emotions all the time! There are key differences. If you try to do this on your own, you will likely get stuck in what we call maladaptive emotions. This happens because you’re still avoiding the deeper pain. You’re stuck on the surface level, not down in the deepest part of the emotion. This is where the therapist comes in—we guide you. We help you access that core layer of the painful experience. If the pain doesn’t go away or transform in some way afterwards, then you probably felt and experienced the maladaptive emotions.
Why do we need to get to the core of emotional pain?
Because until you fully experience the emotion right down at its core, your body can’t release it. At the time of the trauma, it wasn’t possible to do this—that’s why the trauma got stuck in your body and mind. You have to fully experience the emotion before your body can let it go. In EFT language, we say that you have to transform the maladaptive emotions into primary adaptive emotions.
The therapist supports you in experiencing that core emotion, and here’s where the magic happens: when you fully experience it, the emotion changes.
For example, anger might transform into something like assertive anger. Instead of just feeling furious and overwhelmed, you now have the capacity to assert yourself and speak up—something you couldn’t do at the time of the trauma. Or, instead of feeling self-loathing and hatred, you might experience self-compassion for yourself, which allows you to tend to your inner wounds.
The key difference is that instead of the emotion being stuck in your body (or maladaptive), it becomes adaptive. It moves through your body, and you’re able to get your needs met in a healthy way. You can speak up, assert yourself, or offer yourself kindness and compassion. And once this process happens, the emotion can be released, and the trauma can finally be resolved.
What does this look like in real life? Well, the experiences or events that used to trigger you simply won’t trigger you anymore. It’s truly profound. The trauma can be closed, and you’re free to move forward.
EFT is a powerful, transformative way to heal trauma, helping you find the freedom that comes when your emotions are finally able to move through you and be released.