From Reactivity to Repair: The EFT-C Approach to Lasting Couple Bonds

From Reactivity to Repair: The EFT-C Approach to Lasting Couple Bonds

Why do some couples find themselves caught in the same painful arguments, even when they love each other deeply? Why do others withdraw or shut down just when closeness starts to grow? What causes breakdowns in communication and the build-up of resentment over time? 

In our recent Webinar titled “EFT-C: A Couple’s Therapy Model That Promotes Interpersonal Healing” with Dr. Catalina Woldarsky Meneses, we explored these questions through the lens of Emotion-Focused Therapy for Couples (EFT-C)—a powerful, evidence-based model that helps partners understand and transform the emotional patterns that underlie their conflicts.

If you missed the Webinar, you may catch it again here. 

 

Vicious Cycles which Couples face 

Couples often come to therapy describing the same familiar pattern: repeated arguments over the same themes, a sense of helplessness in getting one’s point across, or a sense of “walking on eggshells” despite genuine care for one another. Beneath the conflict, both partners are usually trying—often unsuccessfully—to protect their sense of safety, connection, and worth within the relationship. What underlies these surface reactions are actually deeper emotional patterns playing out in real time. 

In EFT-C terms, these emotional patterns are called Maladaptive Emotion Schemes—deep, often unconscious emotional patterns that guide how we perceive and respond to our partners.When these emotional schemes are triggered, couples can fall into negative interactional cycles:

• • One partner pursues, seeking closeness or validation.

• • The other withdraws, feeling overwhelmed or afraid of failure.

This dance of pursuit and withdrawal often reinforces each partner’s deepest fears—abandonment on one side, inadequacy on the other—leaving both hurt and disconnected.

How EFT-C Interrupts the Cycle

EFT-C helps couples first identify this repeating dance, then slow it down so both partners can identify what’s happening underneath the surface. Instead of focusing on who’s right or wrong, the therapist helps each person tune into the primary maladaptive emotions driving their behaviour—be it fear, shame, sadness.

Through the EFT-C therapeutic process, partners begin to:

1. 1. Recognize the cycle as the common enemy, not each other.

1. 1. Access and express core emotions safely, often for the first time.

1. 1. Reframe the partner’s reactions not as rejection, but as self-protection.

As emotional clarity grows, the couple’s dynamic naturally begins to shift—from defensiveness to curiosity, from blame to empathy. This is the heart of EFT-C’s healing process.

Understanding the Core Needs Beneath Conflict

According to EFT-C, conflict isn’t just about surface disagreements (“You never listen” or “You’re too needy”). It’s about attachment needs and identity needs right at the core of being—our longing to feel safe, valued, and accepted for who we are:

• • Am I important to you?
    

• • Can I trust that you’ll be there when I reach out?
    

• • Am I enough as I am?

When those needs are unmet or threatened, strong emotions like shame, fear, or anger arise, causing a spiral into reactivity. Shame, in particular, is a powerful but often hidden emotion affecting couples. It drives withdrawal and self-protection, making it difficult for partners to stay open to one another. 

EFT-C brings those deeper needs into the open in a safe space so partners can respond differently—turning moments of distance into moments of repair. In therapy sessions, the therapist helps each partner articulate these needs vulnerably (“I feel afraid you’ll give up on me”) rather than reactively (“You never care”). This emotional honesty invites compassion instead of defensiveness, allowing new patterns of trust to emerge.

The Dual Work of Healing: Self-Soothing and Other-Soothing

How are couples to react when emotions are triggered? EFT-C also teaches couples the twin skills of self-soothing and other-soothing, both essential for resilience in relationships.

• • Self-soothing helps individuals regulate their emotions when triggered, staying grounded enough to respond thoughtfully rather than react impulsively.

• • Other-soothing helps partners offer comfort and reassurance when the other is distressed—creating a sense of emotional safety that heals attachment wounds.

Both are essential for repairing ruptures and creating what EFT-C calls secure bonding moments—instances where partners move from disconnection to emotional safety and closeness. Over time, this process rewires not only the relationship but also the individual’s emotional patterns. Couples begin to experience conflict not as a threat, but as an invitation to understand and respond differently.

Final Reflections

While couples may inadvertently face cycles of conflict in spite of their best intentions, the good news—and a core message of EFT-C—is that new emotional experiences can heal old ones. When partners learn to respond to each other’s pain with empathy instead of defensiveness, they create the very safety that was missing in childhood. The relationship becomes not just a source of love, but a space of emotional growth and repair.

Our Webinar underscored what many therapists and couples intuitively know: Healing happens in connection. By cultivating emotional awareness and responsiveness, couples can break free from repetitive cycles and build relationships grounded in trust, vulnerability, and compassion.

Caper Institute

Stay tuned for more highlights and resources from Caper Institute’s Webinars—where we continue to explore how emotions can transform relationships from the inside out.

Interested in Caper Institute’s Workshops and Webinars? You may find our upcoming events on our Workshop and Events Calendar here.