Emotionally Focused

Kelly Arthur, LMFT, LPC, CADC I

Licensed Marriage Family Therapist

Emotionally Focused Therapy has been my primary modality in working with couples since 2015. I find it a most beneficial therapeutic modality because it enables me to help couples get right down to the root of what's happening in problematic interactions. Using EFT helps me help couples much more quickly because we work with the shared human experience of emotions rather than staying in the story.

Anchor Within Counseling

Licensed Clinical Social Worker

Behavioral Health Office

Ravnoor Sahni (she/her)

Marriage and Family Therapist Associate

MA

Midori Ferris Wayne (she/her)

Marriage and Family Therapist Associate

MA

Michael Running (he/him)

Licensed Professional Counselor

LPC, MS, NCC

I have completed both individual and couples Emotion-Focused Therapy training programs from Edwards Psychotherapy here in Portland. EFT, Relational Gestalt, and mindfulness-based approaches are naturally complementary and offer a powerful fit for many clients.

Chelsea Kellogg (she/her/hers)

Marriage and Family Therapist Associate

M.A. Marriage, Couple, and Family Therapy

EFT is used with both couples and individuals. Sometimes when we're stressed, tired, spread too thin, or triggered we can struggle to connect emotionally with our partners or ourselves. I use both S. Johnson's Emotionally Focused Therapy and L. Greenberg's Emotion Focused Therapy to help make sense of negative cycles of interaction, connect to underlying emotion, balance identity with relationship, and become skillful in both self regulation and co-regulation.

Chris Lehman

Professional Counselor Associate

I studied and practiced emotionally focused therapy at Portland State University. In my experience I find this approach to be an effective way for a client to change and grow through an authentic relationship with their therapist.

Paula Emerick (she/they)

Licensed Marriage Family Therapist

LMFT

It's not as fluffy as it sounds. I believe in it. It works. But it goes deep. In a nutshell - integrating emotional understanding with intellectual meaning and attending to the body while creating a trusting relationship with me working from the foundation of attachment. Wow. That's quite a sentence, Paula! Or just google it. ;)

Stacey Vallas (she/her)

Professional Counselor Associate

MS

Emotions can illuminate our genuine needs and guide us in fulfilling them. But when our feelings aren't recognized and valued, we learn to respond to life with patterns of emotion that undermine our well being and even mask what we authentically feel. I will support your experiencing and working through of your own emotional patterns to gain clarity about your authentic feelings and needs.

Madilyn Long (she/they)

Licensed Clinical Social Worker

LCSW

I believe that emotions are the unsung heroes of unlocking the mind and body connection. They provide a roadmap for how to effectively and efficiently address and process any number of issues that may arise in every day life. By helping my clients to first identify and then work with their emotions rather than resist them, I help them to access healing and growth that may have previously been unknown or unaccessible to them.

Mary Bruce-Owenby (she/her)

Licensed Marriage Family Therapist

LGBTQIA-affirmative couples therapist

I have studied EFT in my training programs and use this approach in conjunction with others when working with couples. EFT's tools of engagement and attunement help us to first identify and deescalate negative patterns that have kept the couple isolated from one another, and then restructure and rebuild the trust, strengthening the emotional bond and renewing connection.

Varsha Ruparel

Licensed Professional Counselor

MS, LPC, NCC

EFT emphasizes creating and strengthening emotional bonds between family members or partners. I have successfully helped individuals identify adaptive and maladaptive relational patterns and develop more open, attuned, responsive, and loving relationships. I like this approach because it helps in addressing the underlying relational disturbance between people suffering from dysregulation.

Sarah Howeth (she/her)

Marriage and Family Therapist Associate

M.A. in Marriage, Couple and Family Therapy

Couples and intimate partners all have patterns in the way that they relate based on their early attachment histories. EFT uses present-moment experience to become more aware of these usually unconscious ways of relating and help partners find more connection by communicating more vulnerably and directly to each other.

Alana Ogilvie (she/her)

Licensed Marriage Family Therapist

LMFT, CST

Using an integrated EFT approach I help couples and individuals identify their primary emotions, work through maladaptive responses, and develop empathy and compassion for themselves and others.

Dasia Star (she/they)

Marriage and Family Therapist Associate

Master of Arts in Marriage, Couple, and Family Therapy

We all get into patterns based on our attachment histories. Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) supports folx (individuals, couples, nonmonogamous partners, friends) in getting to the heart of what is causing ongoing conflicts or difficult stuck points. Using EFT, we can slow down and uncover our attachment dance, find more authentic connection, and move toward deeper connection with ourselves and others.

Kimberly Noall (she/her/hers)

Licensed Professional Counselor

LPC, MFT

Joshua Bogart (He/Him/His)

Professional Counselor Associate

MA

I have ongoing training in Emotionally Focused therapy. EFT is an attachment-based therapy that helps clients face existential life issues by creating a strong sense of self and resiliency. This type of therapy is experiential and offers corrective experiences to help clients relate better to themselves and others in a safe and secure way.

Jenni Smith (she/her)

Licensed Clinical Social Worker

LCSW

Ashley Adler (she/her/hers)

Marriage and Family Therapist Associate

Master of Arts in Marriage, Couples, and Family Therapy

Emotionally focused therapy is all about learning more about attachment-based patterns: how you show up in the world with your loved ones. These patterns that originated in our childhoods can have big impacts on our close relationships, and creating awareness brings more choice.

Michael Wilson, MA

Licensed Professional Counselor

I view my therapy through an attachment lens. Attachment lays the groundwork for how we will interpret and process the world around us. Utilizing EFT I examine my clients attachment style, identify mismanaged emotions, and develop healthier strategies of coping with negative emotional experiences.

Tori Morrison (she/they)

Marriage and Family Therapist Associate

M.A., Marriage & Family Therapist Associate

Robin Magdahlen

Licensed Professional Counselor

LPC RDT

Emotionally focused therapy proposes that emotions themselves have an innately adaptive potential that, if activated, can help clients change problematic emotional states or unwanted self-experiences. Emotions themselves do not inhibit the therapeutic process, however learning better coping strategies enables clients to move through old behaviors and patterns into a state of increased well being.

Benita Munson (she/her)

Licensed Professional Counselor

LPC, CRC, CADC I

I am trained in Emotionally Focused Therapy for Couples through Edwards Psychotherapy in Portland. In EFT I will teach you how to access your primary emotions (IE sadness, fear) that are underlying secondary defensive reactions (resentment, jealousy). Once a person can communicate their primary emotion to a partner, it helps to increase connection and attachment. We will also do enactments in session which heighten emotion and also build connection and attachment.

Kevin Sadler (he/him)

Professional Counselor Associate

MA

Heather Lokteff

Licensed Professional Counselor

Emotion Focused Therapy can be used for couples as well as individuals. EFT focuses on becoming more aware of emotions and learning to label, allow, experience, transform, and regulate emotions. For couples, EFT helps to create a more secure bond between partners and shifts interactions and dynamics in a more positive, affirming direction.

Ajay Dheer (He/They)

Marriage and Family Therapist Associate

M.S. Marriage and Family Therapy

I am currently being trained in Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) with anticipated completion in spring of 2021. EFT attunes to our own emotions and emotional regulation as well as how they interact with those of our partner(s). I primarily use EFT with relationships (monogamous couples as well as polyamorous/open relationships), though the benefits of my training can also be utilized with individuals.

Miranda Bayard-Clark, LPC (she/her)

Licensed Professional Counselor

Attachment is one of the key drives all humans need. We learn attachment from our primary caregivers, which is translated to our intimate partners. When we feel emotionally secure and attached, we feel good and safe. When our emotional connections are not validated, we feel threatened. I work with couples understand each other on a primary level, and create strong, secure attachments.

Eric Nielson

Marriage and Family Therapist Associate

I integrate Emotionally Focused Therapy (or, 'EFT') in my work with couples and with families. I have done training with Sue Johnson, one of the progenitors of EFT, and am engaged in on-going supervision and training in this therapeutic model.

Alicia Turgesen (She/Her)

Marriage and Family Therapist Associate

MA

Emotionally Focused therapy is centered in attachment. As people, we all crave and deserve secure attachments and relationships. In therapy, we work to rebuild those secure bonds.

Portland Counseling & Anxiety Specialists

Licensed Professional Counselor

Karin Pfeiffer-Robinson (she/her)

Professional Counselor Associate

M.A., NCC

In my work with clients, and in my own personal journey, I have observed that it is very common to feel overwhelmed and confused by our emotions and to judge them negatively. Developing the ability to recognize, accept, and address our emotions can be the basis of a more grounded and meaningful life.

"Paisley" Jen Burrell (she/her)

Licensed Marriage Family Therapist

LPC, LMFT

Emotion must be evoked, experienced, validated, respected and accepted in order to move forward. People get stuck when their emotions have been denied, repressed, depressed, dismissed or invalidated. EFT works with clients difficult and sometimes painful emotions to allow the necessary healing and integration to occur.

Sarah Hardin

Licensed Marriage Family Therapist

What feelings underlie your behaviors and your ways of relating to others? This approach helps you identify your core emotional needs and learn ways to express those to others. EFT works wonderfully with individuals, couples, and families alike to deepen connection and fine-tune communication skills. I excel at helping folks uncover the feelings that are often difficult to name.

Margot Standeven (she/her/hers)

Licensed Marriage Family Therapist

Masters in Marriage, Couple, & Family Counseling

EFT helps couples recognize and understand the negative cycle that interferes with their communication. With this awareness, less time and energy is spent on regulating negative emotions and protecting individual vulnerabilities. Instead, the partners can turn to each other for comfort and support so as to be resilient and meet life’s challenges

Darin Bergen (he/him)

Clinical Psychologist

PsyD

My Emotion-Focused Therapy (for individuals) training has roots in the beginning of graduate school and it helps with the processing of emotional problems and healing old wounds. EFT has a strong basis in the science of emotion and therapeutic change. I have completed the Level 1 and Level 2 Emotion-Focused Therapy training with Les Greenberg.

Caitlin Beckwith-Ferguson (she/her)

Marriage and Family Therapist Associate

I use emotionally-focused therapy to help couples connect in a deeper, more vulnerable way. So often, couples are caught in a negative cycle of interaction. We will identify your attachment needs and your emotions and work towards expressing them openly to each other. I have completed these trainings: Emotionally Focused Individual Therapy (EFIT): Attachment-based Interventions to Treat Trauma, Anxiety, and Depression training Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy – ICEEFT Externship

Ayala Parker (she/they)

Marriage and Family Therapist Associate

MA, LMFT-A

Tever Nickerson

Licensed Professional Counselor

LPC

I have done extensive training in emotionally-focused therapy for both individuals and couples. I believe EFT work gets to the heart of people's pain by examining how maladaptive emotions get in the way of our health and happiness. EFT allows us to work on shifting less helpful feelings and responses to allow room for more adaptive emotions.

Richard Marshall

Licensed Marriage Family Therapist

M.A., LMFT

Emotion Focused Therapy (EFT) is an evidence-based treatment, and together with the Gottman Method, is the therapeutic model I most commonly use with couples. Its power comes from its ability to tap into people's primal need for a close attachment bond to others. It helps people express their softer, more vulnerable emotions with the aim of increasing connection and closeness to others.

Sarah Small

Professional Counselor Associate

MA

Emotions are temporary physical sensations that allow our body to communicate with us. There is no such thing as a 'bad' emotion, but there are plenty that are highly uncomfortable or difficult to manage. Emotions have the power to help us change, heal, and grow. I work with individuals to accurately identify their emotions and understand how to regulate them productively and meaningfully.

Savannah Torkelsen

Professional Counselor Associate

OR license # R7416, WA license # MC61259505

Cat Bice (she/her)

Licensed Clinical Social Worker

LCSW, LICSW

I began learning emotionally focused therapy in 2020 as I was searching for a treatment orientation that better aligned with my growing understanding of the role of attachment needs and trauma in a wide variety of mental health and relationship concerns. I have completed over 100 hours of structured training in EFT with individuals and couples and regularly participate in ongoing educational trainings, consultation, and review of my work as I work towards certification.

Taylor Kravitz (She/Her/Hers)

Licensed Marriage Family Therapist

MA, LMFT

Do you find you and your partner(s) are getting stuck in the same argument over and over? You know you both care for each other but neither of you feel heard and seen. Using Emotionally Focused Therapy, I can help you get in touch with your deeper emotions, address your relational conflict cycle, and build safe & emotionally connected relationships.

Sonia Holdaway (she/her)

Professional Counselor Associate

MS

My approach to counseling is grounded primarily in Emotion-Focused therapy, which encourages exploring and experiencing your emotions in real time in session, to help you connect with, and better articulate, your deeper needs. Many of us can understand our struggles very well on a cognitive level, but have trouble figuring out how to actually feel better. I love that emotion-focused therapy uses in-the-moment, emotional change experiences in session to actually create lasting change.

Nicole Kammerlocher (she/her/hers)

Professional Counselor Associate

Emotionally Focused Therapy is based in attachment theory and focuses on recognizing how we experience our emotions, what we do with them, and how we can connect more effectively and fully with our partners.

Bex Mertulien (They/Them)

Professional Counselor Associate

Registered Associate R7909

I specialize in utilizing emotions focused therapy for individuals and relationships to explore how we construct and engage with our emotions and relate to ourselves and others emotively. I also utilize and draw from attachment based theory to explore how our early life experiences impact our present ways of relationship.

Arah Erickson (she/her/hers)

Professional Counselor Associate

MS, NCC, LPC-A

I often work from an Emotion Focused Therapy perspective. Through this approach, we work together to deepen awareness of emotions, feelings and experiences that might be getting in your way, or making you feel stuck. Exploring these emotions in a safe space with deep compassion, can often be very meaningful and freeing, allowing for new insights and renewed sense of grounding, and peace in how you want to be in the world.

Catherine Palmer; MS, LPC, MFT (She/her)

Licensed Professional Counselor

Marla Christensen MA, LMFT, LPC, NCC (she/her)

Marriage and Family Therapist

MA, LMFT, LPC, NBCC

My approach is also connected with Dr. Sue Johnson’s Emotionally Focused Therapy, and Integrated Behavioral Couple therapy (Neil Jacobson and Andrew Christensen). Emotionally Focused Therapy allows the therapeutic relationship to identify vital information that client emotions can provide as an attempt to develop strong, safe relationships.

Sakura Counseling (She/He/They)

Licensed Professional Counselor

LPC

As I have grown into a professional license counselor I have come to realize the benefits of deep work to heal trauma and various other human concerns. It helps individuals accept, regulate, express, and bring awareness of the complexity of human emotions. Understanding emotions help guides us to our needs or wants.

Cayla Panitz (she/her)

Licensed Professional Counselor

LPC

I utilize Emotion Focused Family Therapy to support caregivers who are facilitating mental health recovery of their loved ones.

Carewell Portland Carewell Portland/Julie Berman (she/her)

Licensed Professional Counselor

LPC

Emotionally Focused Therapy helps people understand themselves better so they can make big changes.

Alex Bistroi

Licensed Professional Counselor

I completed training in Emotion-Focused Therapy (EFT) for individuals. I also completed training in EFT for couples.

David Zimmerman (he/him)

Professional Counselor Associate

M.A., Professional Counselor Associate

We all find ourselves in patterns of relating to our emotional experience. By helping understand our individual cycle and the emotional patterns we engage in when we interact with others, we can start to have new experiences of feeling connected to ourselves and those we love.

Bree Koenig (she/her/hers)

Marriage and Family Therapist Associate

MS Clinical Psychology, San Francisco State University

Henry Cameron (He/Him)

Licensed Professional Counselor

LPC

I have taken courses taught by Sue Johnson, founder of EFT

Kristen Genzano (she/her)

Licensed Professional Counselor

MA, LPC, NCC

I am trained in Emotionally Focused Therapy and use this orientation to inform my work with individuals and couples. Emotions are central to the human experience. By being aware of and expressing our emotions we can more deeply understand ourselves. Deeper self-understanding gives way for more authentic self-expression.

Grace Carter (She/Her)

Professional Counselor Associate

Emotionally focused therapy, an intervention based on scientific study of adult love and bonding processes in couples, is designed to address distress in the intimate relationships of adults. Strategies from emotionally focused therapy can also be used in family therapy to help family members connect and improve emotional attachment. Couples seeking counseling to improve their relationships may find this method a beneficial approach, as it can help people better understand both their own emotion

Amanda Fitzpatrick (She/they)

Marriage and Family Therapist

LMFT

I have additional training specifically in Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy and attachment theory. I believe engaging in the emotional climate of a couple is where change happens.

Maria Bonacci (she/her)

Licensed Professional Counselor

LPC

I utilize EFT in individual, couples and group work to connect presenting problems with deeper emotional context.

Gayle Waitches

Professional Counselor Associate

Emotion Focused Therapy suggests that our emotional inner life can be our most valuable guide rather than felt as mere states of being. As we allow ourselves to more deeply experience our emotional climate, we can become more intentional, aware and discerning with our life choices.

Hayden Collier

Licensed Professional Counselor

LPC, CADC-I

Heather Simpson (she/her)

Marriage and Family Therapist Associate

MA MFT Associate

Renee Fitzpatrick (she/her)

Licensed Professional Counselor

LMHC, LPC

Emotionally-Focused therapy (EFT) is a form of therapy that focuses on the value of engaging in emotional experiencing in the present moment. EFT believes that a safe, clarifying and meaningful connective experience has the power to heal and transform our senses of self and intimate relationships.

Julie Finnell

Professional Counselor Associate

I have completed EFT Externship with Sue Johnson, the creator of the EFT approach for couples therapy.

Jackie Turner (she, her)

Marriage and Family Therapist Associate

MA, Marriage & Family Therapist Associate

In my work I am always paying attention to the emotional processes and experiences that are occurring in the room, often under the surface, particularly when they arise in our closest relationships. We all have attachment patterns that can cause us to miss each other on an emotional level, and a big part of couples therapy is bringing those patterns into our conscious awareness and help us learn to meet each other's and our own needs more effectively, for a closer relationship.

Lacey Buckingham (They/She)

Licensed Professional Counselor

LPC, LMHC

JESSICA VAN DER MERWE (She/Her)

Licensed Professional Counselor

LMHC, LPC

EFT focuses on individual emotional states (or lack thereof) as the “barometer” for the one's most important and unresolved issues. According to this form of therapy, emotions are adaptive but can become problematic. EFT works to identify core emotions and beliefs, and transform them to resolve conflict.

Lindsay Anderson (She/Her)

Professional Counselor Associate

M.A., NCC, Professional Counselor Associate, MCHA

When we suppress or numb our emotions we don't get to pick and choose the ones we want to feel, they all get suppressed. Emotions are information and they are often trying to tell us important things. Recognizing and sitting with our emotions is a practice that we can get better at; allowing us to move deeper into our understanding of ourselves and others.

Jenna Washburn (she / her)

Professional Counselor Associate

MA: Mental Health Counseling - Specialization in Addictions

While I also use CBT often, I always pair it with Emotionally Focused Therapy because it allows a more well-rounded approach and links together the cognitive with the emotional spheres of a client's experience.

Leslie Jones

Licensed Professional Counselor

I have formal training in Emotionally-Focused Therapy, applied specifically to the work I do with couples. This modality has enhanced my ability to help clients see the foundational causes of the emotion that comes to the surface; the root cause is able to be addressed and remedied. I have been able to apply this theory to all of the clinical work I do.