EFT is a research-based, attachment-centered therapy created by Dr. Sue Johnson. Grounded in attachment science, EFT teaches us that our emotional bonds shape how we experience love, safety, and trust. When those bonds feel threatened or broken, we often fall into protective cycles that deepen pain and disconnection.

EFT helps individuals and couples identify and shift emotional patterns that keep them stuck—whether that’s in relationships, cycles of anxiety, or self-doubt.

As a Certified EFT Therapist specializing in both:

• Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy (EFCT)
• Emotionally Focused Individual Therapy (EFIT)

I support you in understanding the roots of your emotional struggles and creating lasting change through connection—not just insight.

EFT is not about blaming or quick fixes. It moves beneath the surface to uncover raw emotions, fears, and unmet needs driving reactive patterns. The therapy follows a structured, experiential process through three phases:

1. De-escalation: Identify the negative cycle (e.g., pursuit-withdrawal, conflict-avoidance, criticism-defensiveness), understand the emotions beneath it, and feel less blame and more understanding.

2. Restructuring: Share vulnerable emotions in new ways that draw your partner—or your inner self—closer.

3. Consolidation: Solidify new patterns of connection, emotional safety, and responsiveness for lasting change.

Whether in couples or individual therapy, EFT helps you:

• Tune into vulnerable emotions and express them in ways that build connection instead of triggering fear or defensiveness
• Rebuild safety, trust, and secure attachment—with your partner and within yourself
• Create emotional experiences that promote healing, compassion, and deeper bonds

EFT for Couples is especially effective for:

• Repeated arguments and emotional distance
• Fear of abandonment, rejection, or intimacy
• Healing from betrayal, infidelity, or ruptures in trust
• Communication breakdown and relationship gridlock
• Anxious-avoidant or fearful-avoidant dynamics, especially in high-achieving couples
• Restoring emotional closeness and rebuilding connection

EFT for Individuals (EFIT) supports:

• Anxiety, depression, or emotional overwhelm
• Feeling disconnected, misunderstood, or unseen
• Patterns of people-pleasing, avoidance, or self-sabotage
• Low self-worth, shame, or difficulty expressing needs
• Healing childhood wounds and attachment injuries
• Developing secure internal connection and emotional resilience

EFT boasts one of the highest success rates of any couples therapy—70–75% of couples move from distress to recovery, and 90% see significant improvement.

The true power of EFT lies in how it engages emotional experience itself—the “emotional charge” that shapes our perceptions, meanings, and behaviors. By safely evoking, ordering, and reshaping these emotions, EFT facilitates profound personal transformation.

Rather than focusing on solving problems superficially, EFT explores the processes that keep you stuck, helping you reassemble your emotional reality into one that feels coherent, manageable, and hopeful.

The goal is to create secure attachment bonds that reduce depression, anxiety, and relational distress, while building resilience and inner strength.

As a Certified EFT Therapist, I’ve helped many individuals and couples move from feeling stuck, disconnected, or overwhelmed, to feeling grounded, seen, and deeply connected.

I offer:

• Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy (EFCT) for relationships in distress
• Emotionally Focused Individual Therapy (EFIT) for attachment healing
• Support for anxious-avoidant dynamics in high-achieving professionals and couples
• Online EFT sessions across California and Arizona
• In-person therapy in Costa Mesa, Orange County, CA