Emotional Safety: Viewing Couples Through the Lens of Affect

Emotional Safetyis designed to help couple therapists identify and conceptualize the problems of their clients and to provide solutions, focusing on the two central elements of emotion and attachment. Problems occur in relationships when the partners no longer feel safe being open and vulnerable with each other. Emotional Safety: Viewing Couples Through the Lens of Affectenables couple therapists to recognize and articulate the emotional subtext of their clients' interactions. The emotional safety model is based on modern affect theory and focuses on the affective tone of messages in the areas of attachment and esteem. The model allows therapists to address the subtle interplay of perceived threat and emotional reaction which underlies their clients' difficulties and disrupts emotional safety.

Don R. Catherall is a Clinical Associate Professor at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University.