Do Our Goals Align?
A New Year’s Reflection on EFT Therapy Goals
It’s New Year’s Day, January 1st, 2026, and I’m grateful for this time alone at home. It’s a beautiful morning—a fresh 2 inches of sparkly snow on the ground, blue sunny skies, and slow flurries still falling. I’m thinking about the new year and the intentions I’d like to focus on.
My house is mostly cleaned up from Christmas, except for this patch of holiday leftovers on my kitchen bar. Christmas cookies and chocolates tempting me despite my slight headache and fatigue—reminders my body has had enough of the sugar and gluten I typically try to avoid. Well-meaning gifts I’m unsure about, thank you notes waiting to be written, some packaging…mostly meaningless clutter.
These holiday remnants prompt deeper questions: How do I want my next year to look? What is it about the way I lived my days, how we spent our holidays, that I truly enjoyed? Am I living the life I dream of? And when it comes to my husband Mike—to our shared hopes and dreams—do our goals align?
This question of alignment—whether in marriage or in therapy—is more important than we often realize. When we’re not clearly working toward the same vision, we can inadvertently work against each other, leading to frustration and disappointment. Today, I want to explore what it means for our goals to align, both in our relationships and in the counseling room.
The Power of Alignment in Marriage
I’m looking forward to our marriage planning day tomorrow. (See last year’s blog where my daughter, Abi, wrote about how she and her husband, Jack, begin each new year with a “Marriage Summit.”) Our alignment as a married couple can sometimes be tricky when either one of us has unspoken desires or fears. We’ve had too many goal-setting years that end with great disappointment because we were not, in hindsight, taking adequate time to communicate, listen, and fully understand each other and our visions, goals, and dreams.
Do Your Therapy Goals Align With Ours?
My thoughts have drifted to our work at Married Life Counseling. We have goals for our counseling sessions with individuals and couples—as a client, do you? When you begin working with us, we ask on your questionnaire: “What are your goals for counseling?” Or “What do you hope to accomplish through counseling? Briefly describe your ideal outcome.”
Just as in marriage, our goals and desired outcomes must align if we are going to reach them—otherwise we are likely, in subtle ways, working against each other. In counseling, if we want to achieve our goals and experience genuine, lasting change, we ought to make sure the therapist and client have clearly stated plans.
As Emotionally Focused Therapists, we have a game plan for our work to help you reach a place of thriving, meaning, purpose, and greater life satisfaction, personally and relationally. I’d like to share our goals for therapy so that you can take a moment to reflect and examine if our goals align and if we are a good fit. If they don’t, we might not be the best fit for you, honestly. And if our goals do align, then we can both be reassured that even when counseling seems slow, challenging, messy, or “one step forward, two steps back,” we can continue pressing forward and engaging, knowing this is normal and natural and we are all—clients and counselors alike—moving toward the same goal and vision.
Emotionally Focused Therapy Goals for Couples
Our goal in EFT couples counseling is to help couples create a secure emotional bond that becomes a safe foundation for intimacy, trust, resilience, and oneness.
We work with couples to achieve this connection by:
Turning down the heat and reducing tension. We notice and name the negative cycle creating conflict. We believe the negative or fear cycle is the enemy working against the relationship, not each individual. (If we discover active addiction, abuse, or infidelity is happening, we’ll likely suggest some alternatives to engaging in couples therapy.)
Moving from distancing emotions to connecting emotions. We help you shift from anger, criticism, withdrawal, or shutdown to the softer, more connecting emotions like fear, longing, sadness, and need.
Learning A.R.E. Conversations. We help couples interact by expressing more clearly their feelings, experiences, and desires with Accessibility, Responsiveness, and Engagement.
Developing secure attachment. We foster relationships where couples can be emotionally available to each other and depend on their spouse during times of distress. We practice these conversations in session.
Our goal with you is to create genuine, lasting safety and connection that enables couples to handle everyday stressors, conflicts, and life transitions together, rather than in opposition or isolation. As Dr. Sue Johnson, the founder of EFT, would say, we are helping couples move from “insecure bonding” to “secure connection.”
Emotionally Focused Therapy for Individuals
While our practice is especially designed to help couples, we believe in the “power of one”—one person focusing on changing their part of a negative cycle can influence the couple’s relationship in a positive way. And for single folks, working with an EFT therapist will help you better understand your own heart, mind, body, and soul connection and health.
Our goal for individuals in therapy is to develop a secure attachment with self and others, and if you have a faith background, with God, to increase your emotional resilience, clarity, and capacity.
Our primary goals with individuals include:
Recognizing and regulating emotions. We’ll help you tolerate emotional experiences with awareness and regulation rather than suppressing, numbing, or inappropriately expressing them.Identifying attachment needs and patterns. We work to understand the influence of your family of origin that is likely shaping current beliefs, emotional responses, and relationship expectations.
Transforming maladaptive emotional responses. We’ll guide you from numbing, self-criticism, anxiety, and depression to more healthy, adaptive, and flexible emotional health.
Finding inner strength and compassion. Our goal is to help you find strength, compassion, and inner-congruence so that you can function in life with a valid sense of self-worth, the ability to ask for help and support, and the capacity to discern appropriate times of personal responsibility and agency.
Increasing capacity for secure connection. We hope to help you build stronger connections with friends, family, faith community, and romantic relationships.
For individuals, we focus on your internal attachment security and identity so that you can engage with the world with greater confidence, clarity, and calm.
Summarizing Our Goals as EFT Therapists
Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy (EFCT): We work on the bond between partners.
Emotionally Focused Individual Therapy (EFIT): We work on your emotional world and how you connect.
Both share the same foundation: attachment, emotion, and connection—not symptom management alone.
A Self-Reflection Checklist for EFT Therapy
Of course, your personal, individual goals, visions, and dreams for your life are our starting point. Generally speaking, the goals I’ve shared above apply to most of our human needs and relationships and are for your consideration as you seek support to move to a better place of thriving and flourishing.
Here’s a checklist to help you reflect (printable versions below):
For Couples Considering EFT (EFCT)
Read slowly and answer yes / unsure / not really.
☐ We are willing to look at patterns between us, not just who is “right” or “wrong.”
☐ We want to understand what happens emotionally underneath our conflicts, not just fix behavior.
☐ We are open to talking about vulnerability, fears, longings, and needs, even if that feels uncomfortable.
☐ We want a relationship that feels emotionally safe and connected, not just calmer or more polite.
☐ We are willing to slow things down in session rather than jump straight to solutions.
☐ We can tolerate some emotional intensity in service of deeper healing and connection.
☐ We are open to the idea that our relationship distress is about attachment and connection, not personal failure.
For Individuals Considering EFT (EFIT)
Read slowly and answer yes / unsure / not really.
☐ I want to better understand my emotional world, not avoid or override it.
☐ I’m curious about how my past experiences may shape how I relate to myself and others today.
☐ I want to feel more secure, grounded, and emotionally resilient, not just “less anxious” or “less reactive.”
☐ I’m open to exploring emotions like fear, sadness, longing, or shame with support.
☐ I want to build a more compassionate relationship with myself.
☐ I’m interested in how emotional safety and attachment impact my relationships, faith, work, or family life.
☐ I’m willing to slow down and feel, not just think or analyze.
Ready to Begin Your Journey?
I hope this New Year’s blog has been helpful as you consider your own agenda and goals for 2026! As I mentioned at the beginning, when my husband and I are not clearly and overtly aligned in our vision for our marriage and life together, we inadvertently work against each other and wind up frustrated and confused. The same is true for your alignment with your therapist. We truly want to be clear about our work together to help you find the very best outcomes, movement, and change.
EFT may not be the best fit if you are looking only for quick fixes, advice-giving, or surface-level coping strategies without emotional exploration. We’re happy to help you find a local therapist if we aren’t the best match for your goals.
However, if you’re looking for lasting change, genuine understanding, and becoming a congruent human being in all the ways—mental, emotional, physical, spiritual, occupational, and relational—we’d love to come alongside you for a time to guide and support you on your journey.
Please reach out when you’re ready!
To download our Self Reflection Checklist for EFT Therapy, click the links below for couples and individuals.
self reflection checklist-couples self reflection checklist-individuals
