Emotion Focused Therapy – Level 1

Go beyond thoughts and beliefs by learning how to help clients become aware of, understand, and process their emotional experience.

This intensive four-day training provides participants with a solid grounding in the skills required to work more directly with emotions in psychotherapy. The focus of the program will be experiential, learning how to promote change in core emotional structures using techniques including Focusing, Systematic Evocative Unfolding, and Two-Chair and Empty-Chair tasks.

Participants will receive in-depth skill training through a combination of brief lectures, video demonstrations, live modelling, case discussions, and extensive supervised practice. For those interested in certification as an Emotion Focused Therapist, completion of Level 1 constitutes the first half of the basic training component of the accreditation pathway.

Emotion Focused Therapy (EFT) is a humanistic, process-orientated, evidence-based approach that has been shown to be effective in the treatment of depression, anxiety, eating disorders, PTSD, Complex PTSD, and trauma.

Topics
Emotion

Emotion theory
Assessment and principles of change

Empathy, Validation and Focusing on Affect

Creating an alliance
Empathic attunement
Evocation
Conjecture
Focusing

Process formulation, Developing a Collaborative Focus

Identifying markers of underlying affective/cognitive problems

Evocation, Arousal and Exploration

Focusing
Evocative unfolding
Two chair dialogue and splits

Accessing Primary Adaptive Emotions and Core Maladaptive Schemes

Empty chair dialogue and unfinished business

Restructuring Core Schemes

Supporting the emergence of primary needs
Letting go of unmet needs

Tapping positive emotional resources
Provision of new experiences
Continued Skill Training in Evocative Methods

Supporting a self-affirming stance
Promoting new narrative constructions

Skill Training & Applications

Depression
Post-traumatic stress disorder
Addictions
Contraindications

Tasks

Empathy tasks
Systematic Evocative Unfolding
Focusing
Two Chair work
Empty Chair work

Cost:
$1397.25+ $155.25 GST = $1552.50

Registrations close COB 2 days prior to the event

Contact the host of Emotion-Focused Therapy Level 1 - August 2026