The Role of Homework in EFT
The main therapeutic actions of emotional change in EFT are viewed as
occurring in-session, however, homework can play an important role to
deepen and consolidate in-session work, as well as carry forward
in-session work to clients’ daily lives (Greenberg & Warwar, 2006;
Warwar & Ellison, 2019). EFT does not typically use the term
“homework” with clients to refer the between-session work as the word
implies completion is necessary which does not fit the EFT perspective
of homework. Rather, when speaking with clients, homework is referred to
as an “experiment” or an “exercise” for the client to “try and see
if it fits.” This paper uses the terms homework andbetween-session work interchangeably. Different types of homework
in EFT include: 1)awareness which involves promoting awareness of
something that emerged in session; 2)practice, which involves practicing
a change that occurred in session; and 3)introducing novelty, which
involves trying something new related to an awareness or change that
occurred in-session. The use of homework in EFT is indicated and most
effective when it is facilitated from current in-session work that is
emotionally activated, alive, focused on the goals of therapy (which in
EFT is synonymous with the client’s core pain), and guided by the
principles of emotional change. In addition, homework that is
co-constructed with the client and custom tailored to a client’s unique
strengths and personal challenges is most successfully experienced. In
EFT, offering homework is preceded by in-session experiential teaching,
such as psychoeducation and rationales, which are also personalized and
offered alongside the client’s current in-session work and guided by the
client’s moment-by-moment process (Greenberg & Warwar, 2006; Warwar &
Ellison, 2019). The goal of offering psychoeducation and rationales
prior to collaborating on homework with the client is beneficial because
it connects the in-session work to the homework and offers a
justification of how it would be helpful to the current in-session work
and the goals of therapy.
EFT involves a style of following and guiding the client’s experiential
process based on two central principles: 1) providing an empathic
relationship, and 2) facilitating therapeutic work focused on emotion
(Greenberg et. al., 1993). Facilitating a therapeutic relationship is
based on therapist presence, empathic attunement, the therapeutic bond,
and task collaboration. Task collaboration emphasizes moment-by-moment
and overall collaboration on the goals and tasks of therapy. Following
clients requires empathy and attunement which facilitates acceptance and
is necessary for guiding, while guiding clients allows them to process
their emotions in novel ways. Consistent with this type of
client-therapist relationship, EFT proposes a view of the therapist as
an emotion coach who is a facilitator that helps guide clients toward
their internal strengths and resources, to move them to their end goals
(Greenberg, 2002; Greenberg & Warwar, 2006). The emotion coaching
relationship in EFT is based on an experiential developmental framework,
as emotional change and the development of emotion skills occur in the
client’s zone of proximal development (Vygotsky, 1986) which is the
optimal zone that a client can learn/experience new things with the
guidance of the therapist. As an emotion coach, the EFT therapist offers
experiential teaching, psychoeducation, interventions, in-session work,
and homework suggestions that are in the client’s zone of proximal
development. In this emotion coaching relationship, the EFT therapist is
attuned to the client’s moment-by-moment: capabilities, emotional
states, emotional pain, and current goals. In addition, the therapist
follows or guides clients based on an assessment of these momentary
states which helps determine the relevance and timing of in-session and
between-session work being offered. From this perspective, in closely
following and being attuned to the client, the EFT therapist guides
homework suggestions that are within the client’s experiential and
developmental grasp.
Clients are viewed as the experts of their experiences, and the
therapeutic relationship always has priority over the achievement of a
task. Homework and experiential teaching are offered in a tentative,
non-imposing manner, in an atmosphere of collaboration and
co-exploration, with interest and curiosity. The therapist
collaboratively explores with clients how they can they be aware of,
practice, or expand a moment of change in the session to between
sessions. It is important to emphasize that compliance or completion of
homework is not the goal. If homework is not completed, then the
therapist takes responsibility for the homework suggestion not being
suitable to the client’s present state or as not being offered with
enough of a clear rationale linking the homework to the current
in-session process and the goals of therapy. When a task is experienced
by the client as contrary to their goals, therapists return to following
the moment-by-moment process to become more attuned with their client’s
goals. In fact, when homework is not completed the outcome can be more
therapeutic and it is viewed as an opportunity to explore what was
difficult and work on it directly in therapy which can be quite
productive. If homework is not completed, from a framework of acceptance
the therapist: validates and explores with the client what was
challenging about it; works with the difficulty in-session; and
collaborates on suggestions for homework that are more appropriate.