Simple, Inexpensive Gear for Session Recording
One of the best ways to improve your EFT practice is to record and watch some of your sessions.
There are more options than ever these days; here are a few ideas to consider as you search for gear.
The problem with most video cameras is that although the video is very good, their mics are sometimeinadequate for recording voices in session. In a perfect environment they’re fine, but if you’re competing with noisy ventilation, nearby waiting rooms or traffic you’ll lose some of audio with standard, or built-in mics – and it will be the quietist, most poignant part of the sessions that you’ll lose. The best set-up if you’re office is audio challenged is to have a dedicated mic. It will cost more, but still within reason.
First the camera:
Some therapists are using iphones and ipads and laptops, and they have excellent video. Canon Vixia series of handycams is good and the R600 has an input for a mic: Zoom Q4 camera has a very good mic built in to a good camera and it’s very compact:
Mics
Zoom, Shure and Rode are all good makers of mics and make iphonemics. It may take a little trial and error to find the right choice for you. All are available through Amazon.
If you’re looking for a mic to use with your laptop or for a camera with a mic input (see the Sony above), I’d recommend the Zoom Q2n:
A couple of other tips:
- Use a lower resolution setting on the camera – it will save space on your camera and give you smaller file sizes. You don’t need high def.
- Be aware of back lighting. If there’s strong sunlight or a lamp coming from behind or near your clients, you won’t be able to see their facial expressions.
- Try to limit background noise, including hvac systems; it can get loud enough to lose voices.
- You don’t need to be in the picture. We most want to see clients’ faces.
You may want to keep your video files on an external hard drive – for security or space. Inexpensive ones that hold a terabyte or more and are available for less than $100:
Improving your Practice by Reviewing your Sessions.
You could have a dozen good reasons why you aren’t recording – and reviewing – your sessions: “It takes time.” “I already know what I need to do differently.” “ I’m afraid recording will interfere with the process.” “It’s too complicated.” “I take careful notes, so I know what’s happening.” In this article we make the case for not only why, but also how to watch your sessions and some of the key factors to consider when watching.
What to watch
There’s no need to watch all your sessions. You might choose one in which you’re focusing on a particular skill, such as tracking the cycle in early sessions or setting up enactments. Focus your attention on how well you are implementing these key tasks. Or alternatively, choose a session that left you feeling lost or puzzled: the one when you got completely derailed by content; or it seemed like the right time for an enactment and you thought you set it up well, so why did it seem to fall so flat?
You might also consider watching part of a session rather than a whole session. Concentrate on a small segment – often 10 minutes is plenty, but watch the same 10 minutes 4 or 5 times. You will likely notice something more or different each time. It may be non-verbal communication such as facial expressions, gestures, posture, eye movement. Para-verbal communication, including vocal tone, emphasis, rate of speech, pauses. You’ll also be more likely to catch the interactional sequences as partners respond to each other or to you.
How to watch
1. Be Kind. First, and most important, be kind to yourself as you watch your own work. Many of us have a tough internal critic that seems to get especially vocal when we’re slowing down and taking a careful look at our work. But if you can be kind and self-supportive as you watch, you will likely also be more open to the learning it offers. It’s helpful to remember, like the ‘Monday morning quarterback’, it’s generally easier to pick up the things during review that we missed during the session. Finally, give yourself credit. By taping and reviewing sessions you are already in a highly selective class of therapists. And of course you will likely be much more helpful to your clients.
2. Take an observer stance. Try to step back and see the session with fresh eyes, not just recalling the session, but watching it now as an observer, with curiosity, making sense of what is happening in front of you. Zoom out and see the sequences and patterns in the session: what clients say and how you respond; how they listen, interrupt, etc.
3. Do your best to adopt an experiential stance as you watch. Note your internal process as you hear, for example, the client begin to escalate, or relate a painful interaction. Our own empathic stance is an important guide both in the moment with clients and when we review it later.
3 General Areas to look for: Process, Interventions and Pitfalls
Notice how well you implement key interventions. How well are you recapping sequences? Are you reflecting enough? Sue suggests to reflect at least every 4th intervention. Are you adding a bit of primary emotion as you track the cycle? How much do you explicitly validate? Are you using attachment language often and effectively? When you’re attempting to evoke emotion, are you using RISSSC and evocative language to bring the emotion into the moment?
You can also pick up on some of the pitfalls to effective EFT: Do you resort to explaining at the expense of clients experiencing what you’re describing? Do you get distracted by content and lose your focus on the process? Are you accessing emotion, but failing to expand and heighten it, so your clients talk about their feelings rather than from them? Do you start to deviate significantly from the model, for instance making behavioral suggestions and teaching attachment in an attempt to foster closeness or quiet escalation? As your couple escalates, do you move in to create structure and holding or do you begin to get quieter?
Observe whether you are following this large overarching process that you need to do in every session:
- Reflect the process in front of you (where are we/present process – either one partner’s emotional process or the interactional process),
- Access primary emotion,
- Create an enactment with that primary emotion,
- Process the enactment with each partner,
- Summarize the whole cycle.
Then go back to 1. While the depth of enactments changes across the steps/stages of EFT, the basic sequence remains the same (see at minute 22 on the Trainer Talk webinar in the ICEEFT member area)
After you have seen that are you doing the large, overarching process of what we do in EFT then you can work to pay careful attention to the minute process in the room. What happens after you have just reflected and validated a painful experience of one partner in an effort to access primary emotion? Does it take her deeper into that experience? Does she go into an explaining mode and exit? Do you follow her out the exit? Does she enter the experience and then return to secondary emotion and escalate?
When there is an unexpected escalation and the couple slips into their cycle you can carefully review the sequence and ask yourself: When did it appear to start? What happened immediately before (cue): What was each partner’s apparent reaction (behavior). What was the manifested, secondary emotion? Can you feel your way into or guess about the primary emotion and related attachment need? How were you responding? What did you do, or could you have done, to help them de-escalate.
With a partner who has trouble accessing emotion, track his responses carefully to pick up the immediate reaction to your interventions. How does he respond to your efforts to validate and affirm? As you attempt to access primary emotion by using evocative attachment language, does he pause before dismissing it? Do you note any glimmers of primary emotion, the sometimes tiny reactions that peak our from under the usual efforts to maintain safety in the face of distress. When a withdrawer struggles to find words to express his experience, try to ask yourself what you might have said or done differently? It will help to actually stop the tape before your response and reflect on what you wish you’d said. Don’t we all wish we could do that in some sessions?
EFT is a highly process-oriented approach and many of the elements of theory and intervention, e.g., softening and attachment injury resolution grew out of the careful review of session video. That same thoughtful review can help you improve your work by noting the small moments that often make the difference between sessions that wander and creep along and those that help partners shift destructive patterns and promote secure lasting attachment.
Jeff Hickey
Certified EFT Trainer
Director, Chicago Center for EFT
Rebecca Jorgensen
Certified EFT Trainer
TRI EFT Alliant