The effect of therapists’ enactment interventions in promoting vulnerability sharing in emotion focused couple therapy

Abstract

Objective

The primary purported change process in emotion-focused therapy for couples (EFT-C) involves partners accessing and revealing their underlying vulnerable emotions and responding empathically when their partners disclose their vulnerable emotions. One main intervention to facilitate vulnerability sharing is enactment – guiding partners to interact directly with each other. The objective of the current study was to identify interventions therapists can use to help partners share vulnerability in the context of enactment. The primary hypothesis of this study was that promoting these interventions would lead to more vulnerability expressions during enactments.

Method

One hundred and five vulnerability enactment events were identified from videod therapy sessions of 33 couples dealing with a significant emotional injury who received 12 sessions of EFT-C. Four therapists’ interventions were coded: setting a meaningful systemic context, promoting the revealing partner’s emotional engagement, preparing the revealing partner for enactment, and promoting the listening partner’s emotional engagement in the enactment. In addition, vulnerability expression was coded.

Results

Multilevel regression models showed that two interventions were significantly associated with greater levels of expressed vulnerability: setting a meaningful systemic context, and preparing the revealing partner for enactment.

Conclusion

These findings suggest that therapists can facilitated vulnerability sharing using specific preparatory interventions.

KEYWORDS:

• emotion focused therapy for couples
• couples therapy
• enactment
• vulnerability
• therapists' interventions

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplemental data

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/10503307.2023.2245961.