About the Workshop
In the emotionally charged world of relationships, reactivity often emerges as the first response when vulnerability feels too dangerous. In Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), this reactivity shows up in rigid cycles of pursuing and withdrawing, where both partners struggle to feel safe enough to open up, trust, and connect.
This workshop focuses on the art of working effectively with emotional reactivity, active defenses, and common impasses, guiding the couple through the delicate shift toward de-escalation.
Vulnerability, like blood in the water, can provoke counterattacks rather than openness. Why? Because it’s not only the external environment that feels unsafe—but also the internal landscape, shaped by internal working models forged by past, and sometimes traumatic experiences. When attachment wounds are triggered, intimacy is experienced as danger: personal dragons awaken, and what should bring closeness becomes a threat.
Primary emotions are covered by protective emotions such as anger, sarcasm, guilt, withdrawal, or rationalization. The waters grow turbulent. The partner is no longer a safe harbor, but a shark.
Amid these dynamics, even the therapist can find themselves struggling—caught in the cycle, stuck, unsure whether to intervene or stay, uncertain how to move. These are the moments that call for presence, flexibility, and the ability to move with the cycle, not against it.
In particular, we will explore the work involved in Step 2 and Step 3 of the EFT process, focusing on regulation, validating defenses, and the conscious, flexible use of the EFT Tango, guiding the couple toward the first movements of de-escalation.
Alongside verbal interventions, the therapist’s body language will also be emphasized: how posture, subtle gestures, tone of voice, breath, and the RISSSC can transmit safety, openness, meaning, and containment.
The therapist’s internal emotional regulation will be considered an essential clinical tool—able to hold the storm in session and set the pace for change. As Sue Johnson and George Faller highlight, in moments of high intensity it’s not only what we say that makes the difference, but how we say it—and the quality of our emotionally present presence.
Even with a clear structure, EFT therapeutic work requires adaptability, creativity, and emotional centeredness.
This workshop aims to support therapists in navigating the most intense and complex moments of couple therapy: when escalation is just around the corner, when connection seems lost, when the risk of impasse is high—but also when a small opening appears, one that must be protected and gently supported toward a new relational possibility.
A part of the workshop will be dedicated to recognizing how dysfunctional cycles and protective strategies can take different shapes in various cultural and identity contexts, including LGBTQIA+ relationships.
Understanding these aspects helps offer more precise, respectful, and attuned interventions—while remaining grounded in the core EFT focus on attachment and emotion.
The therapist’s presence becomes the anchor in the chaos, the steady light in the emotional fog, with cultural and identity awareness as part of the compass that guides the therapeutic journey toward the possibility of a safe haven.
During this two-day workshop, participants will be able to:
●        Identify and navigate emotional reactivity cycles in therapy, helping clients recognize and shift their automatic responses.
●        Recognize how cultural contexts and LGBTQIA+ identities influence emotional reactivity and protective strategies, understanding how social narratives, marginalization, and cultural norms shape attachment models and defensive behaviors in therapy.
●        Work with active defenses in real time, slowing down the emotional process, fostering curiosity, and transforming reactivity into opportunities for connection.
●        Connect with both positions, Pursuers and Withdrawers.
●        Develop strategies for emotional re-attunement.
●        Strengthen therapeutic presence in moments of high emotional intensity, maintaining attunement while guiding the therapeutic process.
●        Deepen the understanding of pursuer and withdrawer positions, not as fixed roles, but as dynamic emotional strategies rooted in protective mechanisms.
●        Explore the link between action and emotion in reactive cycles, understanding how behaviors, emotions, and protective responses intertwine during moments of intense activation.
●        Master the EFT Tango with flexibility, learning to adapt its steps fluidly when working with high reactivity.
●        Focus on micro-interventions—small, precise shifts in language, tone, and presence that can alter the emotional trajectory of an entire session.
●        Understand how the RISSSSC model evolves when working in the heart of the emotional storm.
Learning Objectives
By the end of the workshop, participants will be able to:
●        Identify and intervene in negative reactivity cycles using EFT principles to disrupt rigid interactional patterns.
●        Differentiate between active and passive emotional defenses (e.g., anger vs. withdrawal, intellectualization vs. emotional numbness) and adapt interventions accordingly.
●        Apply strategies to regulate high emotional intensity, helping clients stay connected to their emotions without becoming overwhelmed.
●        Use de-escalation techniques that go beyond surface-level management, reaching the emotional core of clients’ experiences.
●        Cultivate a therapeutic stance that fosters safety, remaining centered and emotionally present even when sessions feel like emotional battlefields.
●        Work with emotions such as anger, shame, and fear—not to avoid them, but to understand their protective function and channel them toward emotional processing.
●        Transform reactive emotions into active agents of change, including cognitive defensive mechanisms like over-rationalization, excessive talking, or avoidance through “explaining.”
●        Use micro-movements and attunement strategies to shift rigid relational dynamics, applying small but powerful interventions to create emotional openings.
●        Navigate therapeutic impasses with clarity, recognizing when the process is stuck and applying targeted strategies to restore movement.