Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy

If couples have a history of trauma from their family of origin, and they have a present relationship trauma, that has a double impact on the relationship, meaning that everything is unsafe. So these couples tend to struggle with anxiety, depression, and difficulty regulating how they are feeling and coping.

The partners feel unsafe, they often go back to what they know. If something has happened that makes them feel afraid or panicked, they tend to fall back on what they know in terms of how they related from the time they were young. 

When the partner was a child, who could he go for comfort and support?  Was there someone there that the child felt safe and trusting? 

Could the child lean on parent or a caregiver and turn to them for comfort if the child was sad or hurt and needed comfort?

When the child learned to numb feelings to protect himself from pain, it could help the child to survive when the child had no one to lean on. The child has survived his childhood by not relying on anybody and being independent. Back then the more he tried to get a connection with people in his family, the more he kept getting hurt.

However, numbing feelings in the present relationship may make both partners feel disconnected, unloved, and unappreciated; thus, have a negative impact on the relationship.

Not being emotionally present, numbing feelings, getting angry or lashing out when feeling unsafe and afraid to trust tends to lead to disconnection. What was learned in order to survive in childhood is not working any longer in the present relationship. It is triggering and/or pushing the other partner away.

For couples who experienced trauma, it is very difficult to get in touch with their vulnerable feelings of hurt and fear. They may become anxious when they feel unsafe and vulnerable. It is difficult for them to seek comfort and ask for help because possibly in the past it was not safe to do that. 

Results from Whisman’s study suggest that traumatic events that happened during childhood are correlated with marital disruption in adulthood. 

Trauma undermines an individual’s functioning and the ability to relate to others by destroying trust and sense of safety. 

Per Johnson, confiding, and proximity seeking, actions that are a potential source of safety and comfort for distressed couples without a history of trauma, become a cause of danger in the partnerships of trauma survivors.

For a trauma survivor, the need for the secure attachment to relieve anxiety when feeling threatened or when experiencing a flashback or a trigger, associated with past trauma, can be hindered by fear of being vulnerable,  difficulty expressing emotions and feeling emotionally numb and detached. 

 A survivor’s struggle to trust others, fear of rejection and feelings of unworthiness and unlovability compounded with the partner’s unresponsiveness may lead to re-victimization.

The quality of an intimate relationship may contribute either to the exacerbation of PTSD symptoms or to the survivor’s recovery (Johnson & Williams-Keeler). 

A relationship with a partner can become an emotionally corrective experience for a survivor by providing a nurturing environment for effectively coping with the effects of a trauma, healing attachment injuries and restoring intimacy. 

What tends to lead to emotional connection is getting in touch with vulnerable feelings, sharing soft feelings with their partner, and asking for reassurance. For example: “I do not know what to do when things get difficult between us. I only know to pull away and close down to avoid conflict. It is completely foreign for me to reach out and ask for comfort. I don’t even know what that would feel like.”

Another partner may start feeling unlovable because her partner has been withdrawn for so long . She wants to feel close, but fear that she is not lovable or fear of trusting that the partner will be here for her prevents her from sharing her soft feelings.

Sharing soft feelings of fear, hurt, and longing for connection and the other partner to really hear and be impacted by that pain and respond to it differently than they happened in the past will help restore a loving bond. When there has been an injury to their trust, talking about it and reaching out to their partner from the place of vulnerability creates a healing experience and helps restore trust and connection.

 With restored trust and safety in the present relationship, when partners become accessible, responsive to each other, and engaged, they would be able to start healing the trauma they have been through growing up or even what they’ve gone through in their relationship.