Emotion Therapy in BC | Emotion Focused Therapy and EFFT
Emotion therapy helps you understand, process, and work through difficult emotions rather than avoiding or suppressing them. Our BCACC-registered therapists in BC offer emotion-focused therapy and Emotionally Focused Family Therapy (EFFT) online throughout British Columbia for individuals, children, teens, and families.
Through emotion therapy, you'll learn to engage with painful feelings as sources of insight and healing, addressing unmet emotional needs that may be contributing to depression, anxiety, eating disorders, or relationship difficulties. Whether you're struggling with the effects of childhood trauma, interpersonal problems, or supporting a family member through recovery, our compassionate therapists provide a safe space to explore your emotions.
Accessible from anywhere in BC including Vancouver, Kelowna, and beyond, our online emotion-focused therapy makes transformative emotional healing convenient and effective.
What is Emotion-Focused Therapy (EFT)
Emotion-Focused Therapy (EFT) emphasizes understanding and processing emotions while recognizing the importance of the self and past relationships. Emotion therapyoperates on the idea that many mental and physical health issues stem from avoiding emotions or unmet emotional needs. Rather than teaching you to control or eliminate difficult feelings, emotion-focused therapy helps you engage with unpleasant emotions as valuable sources of insight and information about what you need. By learning to identify, experience, and express your emotions in healthy ways, you can heal from past wounds, improve your relationships, and reduce symptoms of depression and anxiety.
Emotion therapy can be applied in individual, couples, or family formats, though this approach focuses primarily on individual and family work. Emotion-Focused Family Therapy (EFFT) was initially created for eating disorders but has since expanded to help families navigate other emotional and behavioural challenges.. In EFFT, parents learn to be emotion and recovery coaches for their children, fostering a strong parent-child bond and addressing fears that may hinder support.
How Emotion-Focused Therapy Works for Individuals and Families
In individual emotion therapy sessions, your EFT therapist helps you explore emotions you may have been avoiding or didn't know how to process. You'll learn to identify what you're feeling in your body, understand what those emotions are telling you about your needs and experiences, and express them in ways that lead to healing rather than harm.
Through emotion-focused therapy techniques, you'll work through painful memories and experiences by actually feeling the emotions connected to them in a safe, supported environment, not just talking about them intellectually.
For families using Emotionally Focused Family Therapy (EFFT), the approach recognizes that emotional disconnection often underlies family struggles, particularly with eating disorders and other mental health challenges. Parents learn to understand their child's emotional world, regulate their own emotional responses, and provide the emotional support their child needs for recovery. Rather than focusing only on behaviours (like eating patterns), EFFT addresses the underlying emotions and attachment needs driving those behaviours. Family members practice new ways of communicating about emotions, responding to each other's distress, and building emotional bonds that support healing.
Emotionally Focused Family Therapy (EFFT) for Eating Disorders and Beyond
Emotionally Focused Family Therapy (EFFT) was originally developed to help families support a loved one recovering from an eating disorder, but its principles now extend to other family challenges involving emotional disconnection. In EFFT, the eating disorder (or other struggle) is understood not just as an individual problem but as connected to family emotional patterns and attachment needs.
Parents learn to become emotion coaches for their children, which means:
Understanding the emotions driving problematic behaviours rather than just focusing on the behaviours themselves
Regulating their own anxiety and fear so they can respond calmly and supportively
Creating emotional safety that allows their child to express vulnerable feelings
Addressing their own emotional blocks that might prevent them from providing effective support
Strengthening the parent-child attachment bond as the foundation for recovery
EFFT recognizes that parents often want to help but feel paralyzed by their own fears—fear of saying the wrong thing, fear of making things worse, fear of losing their child. Through emotionally focused family therapy, families work through these fears together, building stronger emotional connections that support healing for everyone involved.
What Emotion Therapy and EFFT Treat in BC
EFT is effective for
Moderate to Severe Depression: Emotion therapy helps you process the underlying sadness, grief, shame, or anger that contribute to depressive symptoms, rather than just managing surface-level thoughts.
Effects of Childhood Deprivation or Abuse: When early experiences left you feeling unsafe, unwanted, or unloved, emotion-focused therapy helps you work through those painful emotional wounds and develop a healthier relationship with yourself.
Interpersonal Problems and Relationship Difficulties: By learning to identify and express your emotions clearly, you can improve communication, set boundaries, and build more satisfying relationships with partners, family members, and friends.
Eating Disorders: Emotionally Focused Family Therapy (EFFT) is particularly effective for anorexia nervosa, bulimia, and other eating disorders, helping families understand the emotional struggles beneath disordered eating and support recovery.
Anxiety and Emotional Overwhelm: Emotion therapy teaches you to tolerate and process difficult feelings rather than avoiding them through worry, panic, or compulsive behaviours.
Trauma and Unresolved Grief: When traumatic experiences or losses leave you stuck emotionally, emotion-focused therapy provides a safe path to feel and release what you've been carrying.
Who Benefits from Emotion-Focused Therapy
Individuals Struggling with Emotional Avoidance: If you tend to push feelings down, stay busy to avoid thinking, or feel numb and disconnected, emotion therapy helps you reconnect with your emotional self.
Adults Healing from Childhood Trauma: Those who experienced neglect, abuse, or emotional deprivation as children benefit from the safe emotional processing that emotion-focused therapy provides.
Teens and Young Adults: Adolescents dealing with depression, anxiety, identity struggles, or relationship problems learn to understand and manage their intense emotions more effectively.
Families Facing Eating Disorders: Parents and siblings of someone with an eating disorder use Emotionally Focused Family Therapy (EFFT) to become effective emotion coaches and create a supportive home environment for recovery.
People Who Feel Disconnected from Their Emotions: If you struggle to identify what you're feeling or tend to intellectualize everything, emotion therapy helps you develop emotional awareness and expression skills.
Anyone in BC Seeking Deeper Emotional Healing: Whether you're in Vancouver, Surrey, Victoria, or anywhere across British Columbia, if you sense that unprocessed emotions are holding you back from the life you want, emotion-focused therapy can help you move forward.
Duration of Emotion Therapy
EFT typically lasts between 16 to 20 weeks, depending on the individual.
Start Emotion Therapy in BC Today
Ready to stop avoiding your emotions and start using them as a path to healing? Our experienced therapists offer emotion-focused therapy and Emotionally Focused Family Therapy (EFFT) online throughout British Columbia, making specialized emotional healing accessible whether you're in Vancouver, Delta, Victoria, Kelowna, or anywhere across BC.
We work with individuals, teens, and families dealing with depression, trauma, eating disorders, relationship difficulties, and unmet emotional needs. We accept CVAP, ICBC, and WorkBC claims. Services are available in English and Portuguese.
Through compassionate emotion therapy, you'll learn to understand your feelings, process painful experiences, and build the emotional awareness you need to thrive. Book your emotion focused-therapy session today and begin your journey toward emotional healing.
Terapia focada nas emoções disponível em português.