Emotion-Focused Family Therapy

What is Emotion-Focused Family Therapy and How Can It Help?

Emotion-Focused Family Therapy (EFFT) is a therapeutic model that is based on the belief in the healing power of families.

It teaches parents/caregivers to be their loved ones' emotion coach.

It gives caregivers the tools to help understand emotion basics, then a script to help validate and support their loved one. Emotions are no longer feared by loved ones, or caregivers.

They learn that emotions are simply the body's alarm bell.

Loved ones learn to cope with their emotions in a more manageable way and maladaptive coping behaviours are reduced.

EFFT also offers caregivers ways to process their own blocks or fears that get in the way of doing something different.

Additionally, EFFT provides caregivers ways to heal emotional ruptures within their relationship with loved ones.

Meet Tory Vitaly, our EFFT Therapist

Written by Tory Vitaly, MSW, RSW:

“One theme has been common in almost every family I have worked with: Parents/ caregivers desperately want to help their loved one to heal. To feel better. To live.”

I am an Advanced Therapist, Supervisor and Trainer in Emotion-Focused Family Therapy (EFFT).

I have been a social worker for 21 years and a counsellor for the past 12 years.

In that time, I have been fortunate to gain experience in various different therapy and treatment modalities in mental health.

I am also a mother of two adult children, and I have personally experienced the benefits of EFFT (more on that below).

I have had the pleasure of working with hundreds of families in various settings from community-based organizations to inpatient hospital settings to private practice.

I have worked with families with loved ones of all ages struggling with:

  • depression

  • anxiety

  • emotion dysregulation

  • self-harm

  • suicidal ideation

  • substance use and

  • eating disorders.

When to Seek Emotion Focused Family Therapy (EFFT) for Your Family

Written by Tory Vitaly, MSW, RSW:

Since 2016, after my first EFFT training, I have been using EFFT with every single caregiver I work with.

I have worked individually with parents as well as offered the Caregiver Workshop in various forms.

I have had the pleasure of witnessing magical shifts in families. Watching loved ones' mental health improve as they no longer need a maladaptive coping strategy to deal with their painful emotions.

I have witnessed parents and caregivers break through their emotional blocks caused by fear and burnout.

Family patterns, in which emotions were just swept under the rug, were shifting and emotions being talked about and processed. 

As a mother, I have felt more confident in my ability to support my daughters.

You'd think that as a counsellor, with all the tools in my toolkit, I would be able to implement those easily.

Well, it is very different when it is your own child.

When feeling at my wit’s end, and frustration was at an all time high, and I could not understand why my daughter wouldn't just do this or that to make her life easier or suffering less.

I was stuck.

Flooded with my own emotions because of X, Y, and Z. I couldn't think.

But then I would take a few deep breaths and remember to use the emotion coaching script I learned in 2015.

Just like that, both my daughter and I were calmer, more settled versus storming off to our own rooms and not talking for the rest of the evening. And wouldn't you know it, she made the shifts she needed to in order to reduce whatever the struggle she was having in the first place. 

You do not have to do this alone.

I am here to support you and your family learn tools and strategies that can improve your relationships.