Deliberate Practice in Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy

Hanna Levenson, PhD, is professor emerita at the Wright Institute in Berkeley, California. She also maintains a private practice in Oakland where she sees individuals and couples for therapy and professionals for consultation/supervision. Dr. Levenson has specialized in brief dynamic therapy and supervision for over 40 years. She has authored over 85 professional papers and multiple books, including Deliberate Practice in Psychodynamic Psychotherapy and Deliberate Practice in Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy, and has released five professional videos with APA illustrating her approaches. Dr. Levenson received the Distinguished Contribution to Psychology as a Profession Award given by the California Psychological Association.   Sam Jinich, PhD, is a certified trainer in emotionally focused couples therapy (EFCT). He specializes in clinical practice with couples from diverse backgrounds. He is founder and director of the San Francisco Center for Emotionally Focused Therapy and cofounder of EFT Academia in Argentina. As a bilingual and bicultural trainer, Dr. Jinich has been responsible for establishing EFCT in Mexico, Argentina, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Panama, Brazil, Chile, and Spain through mentoring and supervising practitioners, supervisors, and trainers. He was involved in the first-ever multinational randomized clinical-trial research study in Spanish on the effectiveness of general couples therapy and EFCT.   Alexandre Vaz, PhD, is director of training at the Sentio Marriage and Family Therapy graduate program and Sentio Counseling Center. He has authored many books on deliberate practice and psychotherapy training and is coeditor of the book series The Essentials of Deliberate Practice (APA Books). Dr. Vaz has held multiple committee roles for the Society for the Exploration of Psychotherapy Integration (SEPI) and the Society for Psychotherapy Research (SPR). He is founder and host of “Psychotherapy Expert Talks,” an acclaimed interview series with distinguished psychotherapists and researchers. Tony Rousmaniere, PsyD, is program director of the Sentio Marriage and Family Therapy graduate program, and executive director of the Sentio Counseling Center. He has authored many books on deliberate practice and psychotherapy training and is coeditor of the book series The Essentials of Deliberate Practice (APA Books). In 2017, Dr. Rousmaniere published the widely cited article in The Atlantic Monthly, “What Your Therapist Doesn’t Know.” Dr. Rousmaniere supports the open-data movement and publishes clinical outcome data at drtonyr.com. He is president of Division 29 of APA.

Series Preface
Tony Rousmaniere and Alexandre Vaz
Acknowledgments
Part I. Overview and Instructions
Chapter 1. Introduction and Overview of Deliberate Practice and Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy
Chapter 2. Instructions for the Deliberate Practice Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy Exercises
Part II. Deliberate Practice Exercises for Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy Skills
Exercises for Beginner Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy Skills
Exercise 1. Evocative Inquiry: Identifying Patterns and Eliciting Attachment Fears and Needs
Exercise 2. Evocative Reflection: Eliciting and Heightening Emotional Experience
Exercise 3. Validating Partners’ Experiences and Tracking Dysfunctional Patterns
Exercise 4. Attachment-Reframed Validation
Exercise 5. Deepening Emotions With RISSSSC: Speaking Simply, Slowly, and Softly
Exercises for Intermediate Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy Skills
Exercise 6. Tracking the Therapist’s Inner Experience
Exercise 7. Providing a Rationale for Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy
Exercises for Advanced Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy Skills
Exercise 8. Gathering and Assembling Elements of Emotion
Exercise 9. Enactments: Deepening Emotional Experience and Choreographing Engaged Encounters
Exercise 10. Slicing the Risk Thinner: Helping Partners Express Difficult Emotions
Exercise 11. Interrupting Negative Process Early in Therapy: Catching the Bullet I
Exercise 12. Interrupting Negative Process Later in Therapy: Catching the Bullet II
Comprehensive Exercises
Exercise 13. Annotated Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy Practice Session Transcript
Exercise 14. Mock Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy Sessions
Part III. Strategies for Enhancing the Deliberate Practice Exercises 
Chapter 3. How to Get the Most Out of Deliberate Practice: Additional Guidance for Trainers and Trainees
Appendix A. Difficulty Assessments and Adjustments
Appendix B. Deliberate Practice Diary Form
Appendix C. Sample Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy Syllabus With Embedded Deliberate Practice Exercises
References
Index
About the Authors