12. The 5 Most Predictable Places Where Your Session Could Go Bad The Leading Edge in Emotionally Focused Therapy

In this episode, we take time to talk about the five most likely places where your next session could go bad. We all do them from time to time, but we want to help you improve in each of these areas.
Starting poorly.
In the sessions after you have completed your assessment, start with the last leading-edge point from the last session.
Example: Last time we met this is what the cycle looked like. Here is what you did well, and here is where you got stuck. Is your relationship in the same place or is it different?

Going for protection when they need you to organize their protection.
It’s a mistake to go for longings when a couple is reactive. Attune with them where they are in their protection to help them open up their attachment channel.
You need to resonate with the reactive energy and protection to meet its function, so it won’t be needed as much.
Going for longing is right­—just don’t get ahead of them.

Allowing the reactivity and blocks to change your focus.
We are always focused on titrated amounts of corrective emotional experiences.
Don’t throw your map out of the window when the storm of the reactive cycle comes.
Meet them in reactivity with your map. Don’t let the cycle drive the session to the same painful places they always experience.

Hoping tracking the cycle will change things.
“Cognitive work sets the table, but new experiences are the food.”
Tracking the cycle is a massive reframe of the attachment view of the reactivity in their relationship.
What part of the pain never gets talked about in a way that is clear, and/or gets responded to with empathy and comfort?

Multiple misses around enactments.
Not doing enough of them.
Not getting them clear.