Emotion-focused coaching

What it is

In a session, the coach follows what you feel as it shows up in the conversation, helps you put words to it, and asks what the feeling is about or what it wants. Emotion here is treated as a guide to what matters to you, rather than as a problem to remove. The approach distinguishes primary feelings, which are first responses, from secondary reactions that can cover them, and it works with the one that helps most.

This page is about Leslie Greenberg's approach for one person. Emotionally focused couples therapy, developed by Sue Johnson, is a different approach that works with the bonds between partners, and it is covered on its own page.

Where it comes from

Leslie Greenberg developed emotion-focused approaches within the process-experiential tradition. Elliott, Watson, Goldman and Greenberg (2004) set out that tradition in a book on learning emotion-focused therapy.

Greenberg's 2002 book is a therapy text, and its subtitle uses the word coaching: Emotion-focused therapy: Coaching clients to work through their feelings (Greenberg, 2002). The coaching form is an adaptation of that model, and it has not been tested separately. His 2006 book with Watson applies the approach to depression (Greenberg & Watson, 2006).

The principles underneath

Feelings carry information

Feelings tell you what matters, what feels threatened and what you want. The work starts there, rather than with a verdict on the feeling.

Naming it helps you work with it

Putting words to a feeling, with some precision, makes it easier to decide what to do with it.

Primary and secondary feelings

A first, fresh feeling is often covered by a reaction such as anger or shame. Working toward the first feeling changes what you do next.

Feeling it changes it

The model holds that emotion changes most when it is felt and worked with in the moment, not only understood.

How a session runs

1. Start with the situation or feeling that is most present for you right now.
2. The coach asks you to describe what you feel in your body and in your own words, and reflects it back.
3. Notice whether a second feeling, such as frustration, is covering a first one. The coach asks what the first feeling is about.
4. Work with the feeling. Say what it wants, whether to protect something, change something or be heard, and try a small response from there.
5. Close by naming what has shifted, and agree what to notice between sessions.

When it tends to fit

• You know you are upset, but you cannot say what you feel underneath the anger.
• A feeling keeps returning in the same situation, and you want to understand what it is asking of you.
• You are about to act on a reaction, and want to check what the feeling is telling you first.

Where it stops

Deep or long-standing emotional pain, trauma, or thoughts of harming yourself need a qualified clinician. Emotion work can stir up more than a coaching conversation can hold.

Coaching does not replace couples work. In a relationship where a partner is harmful or unsafe, focusing only on your own feelings can keep you in harm's way, and a qualified professional should help.