Register Early! Externship in EFT for Couples March 2009 Columbia, Maryland Gail Palmer and Doug Tilley   Click Here...

Just Published!!!

        Hold Me Tight: Seven Conversations for a Lifetime of Love,
                     by Susan Johnson   http://www.holdmetight.net

                             This is a book for all couples who want
                                      share a closer connection.

About the Maryland Center for EFT

The Maryland Center for Emotionally Focused Therapy, LLC provides training to mental health professionals in Emotionally Focused Therapy for Couples in the greater Washington/ Baltimore/ Northern Virginia area.  This website features both the activities of the Maryland Center and information about local EFT therapists and events.  

Douglas Tilley, LCSW-C is director of the Maryland Center for EFT.  He is an EFT trainer, an EFT Supervisor and Certified EFT Therapist and an Approved Supervisor for the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapy.  See www.douglastilley.com. The training offered by this Center is recognized by the International Center for Excellence in Emotionally Focused Therapy, directed by Susan Johnson, Ed.D. and can be applied toward becoming a Registered EFT Therapist.  For more information about Susan Johnson and the International Center for Excellence in Emotionally Focused Therapy, see www.eft.ca.

About EFT

Emotionally Focused Therapy for Couples was developed about 20 years ago by Sue Johnson, Ed.D and Leslie Greenberg, PhD. This short term (8-20 sessions) experiential and systemic couples therapy is now one of the most researched, delineated and empirically-validated approaches in the field of couples therapy. It has demonstrated powerful clinically significant effects with various populations (Johnson, 2003, JMFT 29, 365-385 and see: empirical support for EFT).

EFT presents a comprehensive theory of adult love and attachment and a process for healing distressed relationships. It recognizes that relationship distress results from a perceived threat to basic adult needs for safety, security and closeness in intimate relationships. This experiential/systemic therapy focuses on helping each partner reprocess the emotional experience underlying the rigid negative interactional patterns that keep them stuck. Through a series of well-defined stages the therapist takes the couple from conflict deadlock to creating new bonding interactions. To learn more about this approach you are encouraged to read The Practice of Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy: Creating Connection, Second Edition 2004, Becoming an Emotionally Focused Therapist: The Workbook, by Johnson, Tilley, et al., 2006, and/or to visit the EFT web site: www.eft.ca. To see a list of resources and references on EFT click here.