Sung-Hsien Sun
Department of Psychology and Counseling, National Taipei University of Education
This study examines the experiences of unmarried couples in emotionally focused couples therapy (EFT) to understand the effect of unmarried couples’ subjective perception of treatment and perception of treatment behavior to the counselor. A total of 6 pairs of unmarried couples each received 6 sessions of EFT interviews. In the middle and at the end of the couples therapy, post-interviews were conducted to understand the experiences of the unmarried couples in the counseling process. The results of the study show that EFT is a counseling experience that underscores “safety,” “empiricism,” “extensibility,” “learning,” and “guidance” for unmarried partners. Finally, best practices of couples therapy and future research recommendations are discussed.
Keywords: emotionally focused couples therapy (EFT); unmarried couples