Content
We would appreciate it if everyone could bring some snacks and drinks.
Session 1/2: In the opening interview, Dr. Serine Warwar facilitates a discussion with Dr. Leslie Greenberg about emotion-focused therapy (EFT), a transdiagnostic therapy approach that focuses on emotional processing. Dr. Greenberg also provides a brief description of the therapy session. In the first of two sessions, Dr. Greenberg guides a session of EFT with an adult, female client who is struggling with feelings of shame and inadequacy as a parent. She fears that by not meeting the high expectations she has set for herself, she is disappointing her children. Dr. Greenberg helps the client to explore her self-critical voice in a real dialogue through two-chair work and helps the client more deeply access her shame. The client conveys a feeling of betrayal towards her self-critical voice. The client connects her high expectations of herself to past experiences and family messages, including being an eldest daughter and a first-generation college student. Dr. Greenberg continues to lead the client in a two-chair dialogue in which the client confronts the anger she feels towards her family. By allowing the client to actively experience her emotions, she is able to better recognize and communicate her needs. The client is able to begin resolution between the two parts of herself and is able to better empathize with her own experiences. Afterward, Dr. Warwar and Dr. Greenberg review and discuss clips of the session. Dr. Greenberg highlights the importance of accessing emotions in the “here and now” of the therapy room.
Session 2/2: Leslie Greenberg, PhD, leads a session of emotion-focused therapy (EFT) in the second of two sessions with an adult, female client dealing with shame and anger as related to parenting and familial messages received growing up as the eldest daughter. First, the client reflects on the previous session and continues to express feelings of shame related to parenting. Dr. Greenberg encourages the client to recount an episodic memory in order to connect more deeply to the emotions she felt as a child. The client recounts an incident in which, while she was home alone taking care of her siblings, she and her sister hid in a bathroom for fear of her brother becoming violent. Dr. Greenberg leads the client in exploring the burden of responsibility she felt during this incident and across her childhood. Next, Dr. Greenberg uses the empty-chair technique to help the client connect to her anger and resentment towards her parents for burdening her with responsibility. The client expresses the anger and sadness she feels toward her mother for burdening her with expectations of cooking, cleaning, and childcare. She expresses anger towards her father, as his substance use required her to take on even more responsibility in the home. As she engages in the empty-chair technique, she begins to engage in resolution by shifting her views of herself and her parents. Dr. Greenberg guides the client in beginning to let go of her shame and to connect to the grief of missing out on being loved and loving her parents. The client begins to voice her own needs and explore what it might be like to assert these needs in her life. In the closing discussion, Dr. Greenberg and Dr. Serine Warwar discuss clips from the session and highlight how Dr. Greenberg encouraged the expression of shame, anger, and sadness in the session through the use of EFT strategies.
