Transforming Emotional Pain in Psychotherapy

Transforming Emotional Pain in Psychotherapy presents Emotion-focused therapy as an approach to addressing psychological human suffering, providing an account of how emotional pain can be conceptualised and engaged with in therapy.

Offering a view that puts more emphasis on attending to distress, rather than avoiding or suppressing it, this book highlights the underlying pain that informs one about their unmet needs and examines how to respond to that need via emotions. Through extensive research evidence and clinical examples, the book presents a guide to helping the client to tolerate the pain; assisting the client to identify the core of the difficult emotional experiences; identifying the needs connected to the core pain which are unmet or being violated; and responding (with compassion and protective anger) to the underlying needs of the client to eventually transform the original pain. This second edition is thoroughly updated on the basis of clinical experience and research with new references throughout. There are also two brand new chapters. One chapter looks at how the processes happening in therapeutic sessions can be further supported outside the session in the client’s everyday life. Another one looks at the emotion transformation processes in the context of work with couples, groups, and families as well as with clients of different developmental stages.

This book will be essential reading for clinical and counselling psychologists, psychotherapists and counsellors in practice and training, as well as for fully qualified professionals undergoing further training in EFT.