The Use of Homework in Emotion-Focused Therapy for Depression
Serine Warwar, Ph.D.
Director, Centre for Psychology and Emotional Health
Director, Greenberg Institute of Emotion-Focused Therapy
Director, Emotion-Focused Therapy Clinic, York University
Mailing Address: 403-1200 Bay Street, Toronto, ON, Canada, M5R 2A5
Email: swarwar@cpeh.ca
EFT (Emotion-Focused Therapy) was developed through the perspectives of
modern emotion theory, affective neuroscience, and dialectical
constructivism. Although EFT has been assessed for its efficacy in the
context of various diagnostic groups, EFT did not originally emphasize
diagnostic categorization. Traditionally, EFT was developed as a generic
therapy where the therapist is attuned to a client’s presenting
difficulties and underlying pain and suffering and uses a
process-diagnostic lens, that is what is happening moment-by-moment, to
determine which interventions would be beneficial in resolving a
client’s issues. Due to the demand for research on specific diagnostic
populations, EFT was first empirically validated for the treatment of
depression in adults. EFT integrates person-centered, gestalt, and
existential therapies (Elliott et al., 2004; Greenberg, Rice & Elliott,
1993) and is now recognized as a comprehensive, evidence-based
transdiagnostic therapy (Greenberg, 2021; Timuluk and Keogh, 2021),
treating a wide range of client populations (individual, couples,
families) and many types of emotional issues (Greenberg & Goldman,
2019). It focuses on emotional processing of underlying emotions to
transform emotional pain and suffering. Emotional processing has been
recognized as an important mechanism of change and has been shown to
predict outcome across therapy modalities (for a review, see
Pascual-Leone et al., 2016). Emotional processing in EFT involves
approaching, accepting, tolerating, symbolizing, regulating, making
meaning of, and utilizing or transforming emotions. In therapy, healthy
emotions (referred to as adaptive emotions in EFT) are accessed to
transform unhealthy (maladaptive) emotion schemes, and this process
supports the development of more secure relationships as well as
positive identity and relationship narratives (Greenberg, 2015, 2021).
Throughout the course of therapy, in-session work and moments of change
are consolidated and expanded using homework and experiential teaching
guided by the EFT principles of emotional change, the client’s emotional
pain and suffering, and the phases of therapy.