Emotionally Focused Individual Therapy (EFIT) Essentials

Emotionally Focused Individual Therapy (EFIT) Essentials

with Zoya Simakhodskaya, Ph.D and Elana Katz, LCSW, LMFT 

Introductory Level | Live, In-Person | 24 CEs Credits (APA and NBCC-approved through TRIEFT; NYSED – Pending)

Target Audience: Psychologists, Social Workers, MFTs, Counselors

Welcome to our revolutionary, attachment-based approach to individual therapy.

Why choose “EFIT Essentials”?

“EFIT Essentials” is, quite simply, our two-day Level 1 plus two-day Level 2 combined together into a four-day course!

EFIT teaches you how to tune into, order, and use the power of potent emotion to literally ‘move’ clients into a new sense of self. As client’s construct their inner emotional world in new ways, the results are an increased sense of competence and worth, a sense of secure connection with self and others, and diminished symptoms of emotional disorders. Deepen your understanding of EFIT while discovering effective ways to overcome barriers and obstacles to change. Delve deeper into objectives, with more extensive discussion and practice, and gain support for challenging clients and situations. Participants are encouraged to identify examples where difficulty in implementing EFIT and/or the Tango may occur.

Dates: February 27-28, 2025 and March 3-4, 2025

Location: FPWA | 40 Broad Street, 5th Floor, New York, NY 10004

Thursday, February 27th, 2025 | 9:00 am – 4:45 pm

Friday, February 28th, 2025 | 9:00 am – 3:45 pm

Monday, March 3rd, 2025 | 9:00 am – 4:45 pm

Tuesday, March 4th, 2025 | 9:00 am – 4:45 pm

Daily Schedule: 6hr training + 60min lunch + two 15 min breaks

TRAINERS:

Trainer: ZOYA SIMAKHODSKAYA, PHD

Zoya is a licensed psychologist and certified EFT therapist, supervisor, and trainer. She has a full-time practice in Chelsea, NY with adults and couples, specializing in cross-cultural and bilingual populations. In addition to her psychotherapy practice, Zoya has many years of experience providing crisis intervention in a psychiatric emergency service and continues as a voluntary faculty at NYU School of Medicine. Zoya trains EFT therapists locally, nationally and Internationally. She is particularly interested in the intersection of couples therapy and sexuality.

Elana Katz, LCSW, LMFT, is a Trainer and Supervisor in Emotionally Focused Therapy and a senior faculty member at the Ackerman Institute for the Family. In addition to her role as therapist and trainer, Elana has applied her knowledge of attachment and relationships to help legal clients and their professional teams intercept the recurring patterns that often shape high conflict negotiations. She also has a particular interest in understanding and addressing the impact of marginalization on personal relationships. Elana teaches nationally and internationally, most frequently in the Midwest and Israel, and her private practice is in Manhattan.

EFIT Course Objectives

Participation in EFIT will enable you to:

• Describe the key elements of the attachment perspective and its significance for understanding personality, development, and the impacts of trauma.
• Explain the role of the attachment perspective in clinical interventions.
• Describe the key elements of the humanistic experiential perspective and its significance for clinical interventions.
• Adopt an attachment humanistic experiential perspective on clients, problems, and interventions.
• Delineate clients’ within and between patterns of affect regulation and how these impact self-development and relationship functioning.
• Identify how repetitive patterns maintain each other and generate emotional and trauma-related disorders.
• Describe the core elements of emotional disorders such as depression, anxiety, and trauma-related disorders.
• Outline the three-stage process of therapy in EFIT.
• Describe and implement the C.A.R.E. model in initial sessions and throughout therapy.
• Outline protective, self-defining, and interactional iatrogenic patterns.
• Describe the EFIT process of change.
• Outline and implement the 5 moves of the EFIT Tango to shape corrective emotional experiences.
• Describe and implement EFT micro-interventions within sessions.
• Discover and distill core emotional experiences to choreograph transformative moments.
• Offer corrective emotional experiences to positively impact models of self and other, fostering stable, lasting change.
• Move clients toward a felt sense of security with self and others, creating a coherent sense of a competent self.
• Shape a coherent, secure attachment with others through accessibility, responsiveness, and engagement.
• Facilitate moments where clients can encounter vulnerability with balance.
• Validate the client’s sense of competence and worth in every session.
• Support clients in expanding their sense of self and open engagement with others.
• Integrate corrective emotional experiences into models of self and other, enabling clients to address existential life issues.
• Offer transformative moments where vulnerability, that is “frightening, alien and unacceptable emotion,” is encountered with balance.
• Enable clients to move into the accessibility/openness, responsiveness and full engagement that characterizes secure attachment with others.
• Enable clients to shape a coherent sense of a competent self that can deal with existential life issues and become a fully alive human being.

Course Features:

These workshops are presented in-person and include:

– Didactic presentations accompanied by recorded EFIT client sessions and experiential exercises.
– An outline of the theory and practice of EFIT, focusing on the primacy of emotion and the creation of a safe haven and secure base alliance.
– An exploration of core models of health and dysfunction from an attachment perspective including how within and between cycles interact and block growth and adaptation.
– A systematic sequence of interventions (called The EFT Tango) as well as numerous micro-interventions.
– Techniques to stay with present processes in session and shape key change events.

What are the readings, and path to certification?

“A Primer for Emotionally Focused Individual Therapy (EFIT): Cultivating Fitness and Growth in Every Client” by Susan M. Johnson and T. Leanne Campbell, 2022.

“Attachment Theory in Practice: Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) with Individuals, Couples, and Families” by Dr. Susan M. Johnson, 2019.

“Becoming an Emotionally Focused Therapist: The Workbook (2nd Edition)” by James L. Furrow, Susan M. Johnson, Brent Bradley, Lorrie L. Brubacher, T. Leanne Campbell, Veronica Kallos-Lilly, Gail Palmer, Kathryn Rheem, Scott R. Woolley, 2022.

Path to certification:

Note: Essentials is Levels 1 and 2 combined into a single course.

1. We recommend “Fundamentals of EFT” precede any other course. This is not a requirement.
2. Take 4-day “EFIT Essentials” –or– 2-day “EFIT Level 1” + 2-day “EFIT Level 2”.
Note: EFIT Level 1 is a pre-requisite for EFIT Level 2.
Note: Essentials is Levels 1 and 2 combined into a single course.
3. Take 10-hr “EFIT Consultation” (aka “Mastering Skills and Overcoming Challenges in EFIT: A Consultation Process”)
4. Complete additional steps through ICEEFT.com’s EFIT page.

A certificate of completion is available for all our courses.

Cancellation Policy: If canceled 30 days before the start of the event, the fee will be refunded minus $100 administrative fee. After that date, the fee is non-refundable. You can attend the next available EFIT Essentials through NYCEFT after paying $75 transfer fee.

Accessibility and Support:

NYCEFT is deeply committed to supporting the diverse learning needs of every participant in our trainings. We are very aware that this essentials may be a physically and cognitively demanding experience, involving sustained attention, extended sitting, etc. over many hours. If you feel comfortable, we would love to hear from you if there is anything we can do to make the training more accessible, or if there’s any additional support we can provide.

Disability Access – If you require ADA accommodations please contact our office 30 days Or more before the event. We cannot ensure accommodations without adequate prior notification.

Disclosure statement: There is no conflict of interest or commercial support for this program.

Questions: Please reach out to Olga Tokareva at infonyceft@gmail.com with any questions or concerns.