Through Stuckness to Vulnerability: Clarifying Steps 3 and 5

Through Stuckness to Vulnerability: Clarifying Steps 3 and 5

Sandra Taylor & Gulya Diyarova

BEFT Community Annual Conference 2018

Stuck?

We can all feel stuck in our work with clients at times – not knowing quite where we are or where we are going, our own material being triggered, anxious about whether to step deeper into emotion, clients reaching an impasse that we don’t seem to be helping with, etc. We can also get stuck when a couple are in Step 3 and we work with them as if they are in Step 5 - they just aren’t ready to go there yet!

Vulnerability

There are layers and layers of vulnerability in our work with couples. At Step 3 the vulnerability is often more one-sided - that is, there is usually a lot of sadness/tears/primary experience from a Pursuer, and an ‘as if engaged’Withdrawer who is usually busy placating,nodding, agreeing and pacifying - giving an impression of being involved but still doing what s/he does best, withdrawing and not aware of his/her own felt primary experience. In Step 5 each member of the couple is able to spend some time in the vulnerability of their primary emotion and the therapist works from an open vulnerable place within her/himself.

Of all the steps it is whether our couple are in Step 3 or Step 5 that can be the most confusing.

Stage 1: De-escalation of the Negative Cycles of Interaction

Step 3: Accessing the unacknowledged emotions underlying interactional positions.

Stage 2: Changing Interactional Positions

Step 5: Promoting identification with disowned attachment emotions, needs, and aspects of self and integrating these into relationship interactions.

(Johnson, S.M., (2004) The Practice of Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy – Creating Connection, 2nd Edition. Brunner-Routledge, New York.)

Why can we get confused which step we are in?

1. Both steps involve accessing emotions that have been out of awareness.
2. By Step 3 the couple may recognise the basics of the cycle so the therapist may wonder if they have completed Step 4 when actually the underlying feelings (Step 3) have not yet been accessed and explored.
3. When we access primary emotion in Step 3 the work feels, and is, deep and powerful so we can wonder if this is really Step 5.
4. The confusion happens easily where a couple presents initially as very reactive, escalated, angry or conflictual. After a while they are less reactive and start listening and engaging better. The therapist might confuse this de-escalation in an everyday sense of the word (arguments stopped) with EFT de-escalation (recognising the cycle as the enemy). The therapist may then try to work with the couple in Step 5 and get stuck as the couple are still in Step 3.
5. When a couple are in Stage 2 it doesn’t mean that they won’t escalate again as they get deeper into their fears – the cycle gets triggered by the fears and you return for a while to Steps 3 & 4. However, the couple de-escalate quicker and reconnect through sharing their vulnerable emotions in enactments and continue Stage 2 work.

You may turn to your supervisor, or ask a question on a training course, to help you clarify if you are in Step 3 or 5 with a particular couple but there isn’t always an obvious answer because of the different ways that partners go through Step 3. Consider how different Step 3 would be: for a person who struggles to name their emotions compared with someone who is comfortable with and knowledgeable about their personal process;for a person who is deeply private compared with someone who is happy to share anything about themselves.

The confusion is often when we are in Step 3 and wondering if we are in Step 5, but it may also be that the couple is ready to move into Stage Two but the inexperience and/or anxiety of the therapist holds the Withdrawer back from moving into Step 5.

How can we work out where we actually are?

The most crucial question is: have the couple de-escalated? If not, you will be in Step 3.

Markers for de-escalation are that each partner is now able to:

-Identify their usual position in the negative cycle

-Own their position in the cycle

-Access primary emotions underlying their position in the cycle

-Own their primary emotions – and link their own reactive behaviour to their own primary emotions and needs

-Link their partner’s reactive behaviour to their own attachment emotions and reactive behaviour

-Link their own reactive behaviour to their partner’s attachment emotions and reactive behaviour

-Have a coherent story of the negative cycle - which is now seen as their common enemy

-See their partner as less dangerous or uncaring and more as fearful

-Identify when they are in the negative cycle

-Interrupt the negative cycle in a way that allows them to fight the cycle together – teaming up against the cycle

-May access longings for safety/connection; still angry and mistrusting but not as hostile as initially

-Sense of efficacy – ‘If we created this then maybe we can make it better.’

-A new kind of dialogue emerges – beginning to be emotionally engaged with each other rather than rapid reactivity

-There is more safety and less reactivity in the relationship. Conflicts are calmer and the couple feel closer.

(Slightly adapted from De-escalation Roadmap – Lillian Buchanan & Lorrie Brubacher.)

Not only can partners recognise their own moves in the cycle, but they also ‘give permission’ for their partners’ moves/reactions in the cycle - recognising an attachment meaning of, and becoming less afraid of, the other’s anger or irritation e.g. Withdrawer: “I get now that your anger is your way of communicating your unhappiness, not just you wanting to bully me”.

What are the key differences between Step 3 and Step

Step 3 / Step 5
Part of Stage One with the goal of de-escalation. / Part of Stage Two with the goals of Withdrawer Re-Engagement & Pursuer Softening.
With secure base of de-escalation achieved deeper exploration and sharing is possible.
Expanding the partners’ windows of tolerance for strong affect. / Emotion is not new so partners are more able to deeply explore and share.
The cycle is included much of the time. The therapist makes sense of the cycle, explores it, and,at times, contains it as it is triggered in the room. / The cycle doesn’t get triggered so easily now. The therapist keeps the cycle alive in the room and refers to it each time we get a new piece of primary experience to put back into the cycle.
Aimed at integrating primary feelings into the negative cycle, not just cognitively labelling but experiencing the feelings. / The cycle is the context for emotions, for exits from emotion and blocks to acceptance of the partner and his/her responses.
Primary emotions are derived from the cycle and put back into the cycle. / Primary emotions are derived from the cycle and put back into the cycle.
Fear is hidden or blamed on other and starts to be explored and owned / Fear is now being accessed and owned much of the time.
NOT about changing view of self or other. / Deeper into view of self and other in order to revise view of self and other.
Partners are not initially attuned to each other and are not required to yet. They are more absorbed in their own experience and then, with the therapist’s help, start to connect with their partner’s process and the role of each in maintaining their cycle. / Partners build their ability to resonate with their partner with the therapist’s help – they become curious about their partner’s process and often feel empathic. There is a growing sense of being together.
SOT (self of the therapist) - Therapist often on the edge of a chair to contain, protect, slow it down; therapist’s presence to keep things safe. / SOT - Therapist leaning in, honing, heightening, prompting reveals and reaches; therapist’s presence as a bridge.
SOT - Therapist provides the resonance, the empathy/validation. / SOT - Therapist supports the resonance: empathy, validation coming from the partner now.

With thanks and acknowledgement to all those we have learned this from including: Sue Johnson, Lorrie Brubacher, Lillian Buchanan, George Faller, Jim Thomas, Gail Palmer

Through Stuckness to Vulnerability: Clarifying Steps 3 and 5 – Sandra Taylor & Gulya Diyarova

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