Monique West

I have numerous amounts of clients that battle with agonizing decisions whether or not to cut off a toxic abusive parent. It’s not an easy plight to conceptualize cutting off a parent nevertheless actually following through on this. When there has been years of emotional, physical, psychological or sexual abuse, however, it becomes necessary to begin processing if making healthy boundaries with a parent as an adult is necessary.

I recently attended a week long seminar on Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) by George Faller, LMFT in Cape Cod, MA. EFT is usually a short term (8-20 sessions), structured approach to couples therapy formulated in the 1980’s and has developed alongside the science on adult attachment and bonding to expand our understanding about what is happening in couple relationships and to guide therapists (http://www.iceeft.com) I was blown away by the paradoxical approach in simplicity of the EFT technique but also the intensity of its application and the emotional vulnerability it calls upon for a therapist to authentically engage in the EFT practice.