This is an online training event

Families balance the need to belong with the need to become. As children become youth, and youth become adults, families are living between the stories of their past and the hopes they hold for the future. Sometimes the challenges of growing together while growing apart become more challenging for families with adult children.  Along the way past injuries and disappointments can leave adult children caught in patterns of entanglement and estrangement with their parents and siblings.

Emotionally Focused Family Therapy (EFFT) is an attachment-based approach that combines both systemic and experiential interventions to restore family relationships and strengthen their resilience. Adults who experience conflict, estrangement, and negative dynamics with their parents and/or siblings often suffer impacts that can last a lifetime, A primary goal of EFFT is to reduce problematic behaviour by creating new patterns of emotional accessibility and responsiveness that offer an opportunity to repair. EFFT provides therapists with a means to conceptualize these family dilemmas and offers a practical approach to engaging families at an emotional level.

Through focusing on the poignant power of underlying attachment needs, Emotionally Focused Family Therapy (EFFT) offers a predictable process for transformational change. This workshop will explore how EFFT can lead family members through past distress, disappointments, and injuries to create new relational patterns, stronger family bonds, and greater felt security. This training follows an intensive focus on key elements in the EFT process applied to adult family relationships. Demonstration and practice exercises provide participants opportunities to understand the EFT skills utilized in intervening with these family relationships. There will be an opportunity to view the treatment of one family over time from the beginning of therapy to termination.

Workshop goals:

Key themes in the workshop presentations will include:

• Understanding patterns of estrangement and entanglement in families with adult children
• Exploring the EFFT process of working through relationship blocks
• Unlocking resources for parental availability in Stage 1 EFFT
• Risking vulnerability and asserting needs in Stage 2 EFFT
• Promoting family growth and resilience through reconnection.

This workshop is open to all therapists and you do not need any prior EFT training.

About the Presenters

James L Furrow, Ph.D., is a recognized leader in the development, research, and practice of Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) with couples and families. He is contributing author and editor of five EFT texts including Emotionally Focus Family Therapy: Restoring Connection and Promoting Resilience, Becoming an Emotionally Focused Therapist: The Workbook, and The EFT Casebook. His research on couple and family therapy, positive youth development and spirituality are featured in leading professional journals. He is a licensed marriage and family therapist, clinical fellow, and approved supervisor with the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy. Jim founded the Los Angeles Center for Emotionally Focused Therapy and is an ICEEFT certified EFT therapist, supervisor, trainer, and board member.

Gail Palmer is one of the Founding Members of the Ottawa Couple and Family Institute and Co-Director of the International Center of Excellence in Emotionally Focused Therapy.  She holds a Masters degree in Social Work and is a Registered Marriage and Family Therapist in Canada. For over three decades, Gail has worked with Dr Sue Johnson, creator of Emotionally Focused Therapy, and is an experienced supervisor and trainer in EFT. She is on the Executive Committee of the ICEEFT board and is responsible for mentoring and training EFT trainers internationally.

Event Details:

Dates: Thurs 13th – Sat 15th November 2025

Time: 8:00am – 12noon, each day

Location: Online (via Zoom)

Price: Non-members: $525 (Early Bird rate); Members: $420 (Early Bird rate); Student/DEI rate: $420

Non-members: $600; Members: $480; Student/DEI rate: $420

N.B. Early bird rates end on 30th September 2025.

If you are an MCEFT member, please login to your membership account (top right of website where it says ‘Member login’) and your 20% discount will be applied at checkout.