Are you seeking ways to heal from past traumas and enhance your self-esteem? This post will explore how to improve self-worth in Ontario using Emotion-Focused Therapy (EFT). Learn how this approach can help you manage emotions, overcome childhood trauma, and build a deeper connection with yourself.
Why Emotions Matter
As we are emotional and social beings, emotions are essential to living a purposeful life. They enrich our experiences, providing depth and meaning. Without them, life would be dull and empty. The highs (love, joy, excitement) and lows (disappointment, pain, grief) shape who we are, influencing how we perceive and interact with the world around us.
Purpose of Emotions
Emotions, whether pleasant or unpleasant, serve a purpose by offering valuable insights into ourselves and the world. They guide our actions, influence decisions, strengthen relationships, and help us understand our experiences. Emotions are key to survival, growth, and finding purpose. To live authentically, emotions must not be suppressed or ignored.
Why I Transitioned to Emotion-Focused Therapy
Like many therapists, I started my career using Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT), which focus on identifying and shifting unhelpful thought patterns. These “thought-focused” approaches are useful but often don’t lead to lasting change because they don’t address emotions deeply enough.
In working with clients, particularly in the Asian community, I noticed that deeply ingrained beliefs about emotions being signs of weakness—along with the lack of emotionally available parents—prevented emotional exploration. This meant logical, cognitive-based approaches weren’t enough to shift these beliefs.
Though CBT and DBT have their place, I found they lacked a deep exploration of emotions, which are fundamental to who we are. This led me to seek an “emotion-focused” approach, ultimately guiding me to Emotion-Focused Therapy (EFT), developed by Dr. Leslie Greenberg.
What is Emotion-Focused Therapy (EFT)?
EFT therapy focuses on a person’s emotional experiences within the therapeutic process. It explores how emotions are expressed or repressed, processed or unprocessed, and the impact of these emotions.
Emotion-Focused Therapy (EFT) operates on the belief that emotions are essential for understanding and resolving psychological issues.
Ways Emotion-Focused Therapy Helps You
1. Identify, Understand, and Process Emotions
EFT helps individuals recognize, explore and make sense of emotions that may have been avoided and pushed down, particularly those linked to adverse childhood upbringing and childhood trauma, fostering healing of past wounds.
2. Manage and Regulate Emotions
People often feel overwhelmed by their intense emotions and feel dysregulated, hence fearing emotions themselves. EFT teaches techniques for managing intense emotions, reducing emotional distress, and building emotional resilience. This enables individuals to self-soothe, manage emotions, and regain control.
3. Heal Attachment Wounds
Attachment injuries and wounds occur in childhood trauma and during difficult childhood upbringing. These attachment wounds affect how we view and interact with ourselves and form relationships. EFT aims to create a safe space for exploring, understanding, validating, and healing these wounds, thereby promoting healthier emotional connections with oneself and others.
4. Build Self-Esteem and Improve Self-Worth in Ontario
EFT helps individuals reconnect with their true selves and heal emotional wounds, which in turn boosts self-worth. It promotes self-compassion and treating oneself with the same attention one offers others, leading to a significant increase in self-esteem.
5. Shift Negative Beliefs About Self
Childhood trauma often creates negative beliefs (i.e., “not good enough” or “unworthy”). EFT helps reframe these beliefs by addressing the emotions that fuel them and replacing them with more helpful emotions that foster healthier and more compassionate views of oneself.
Improve Self-Worth in Ontario Through Emotion-Focused Therapy
Overall, EFT is an empathetic approach that fosters emotional awareness, processing, regulation, and expression to create lasting change and improve mental well-being. It supports emotional healing, growth, and a deeper connection with oneself.
Ready to take the first step towards improving your self-worth and healing from the past? Book a free consultation today and discover how Emotion-Focused Therapy can transform your life.
