Certified EFT Training

The standards for Levels 1, 2, and 3 from the International Society of Emotion-Focused Therapy (ISEFT) and our Basic Workshop Offerings at the Emotion-Focused Therapy Institute are:

Participants should have a minimum prior training: Must have a professional training in some form of therapy and be an accredited practitioner. If not humanistic-experiential therapy (e.g. person-centered, focusing-oriented, gestalt), additional empathy and person centered training is recommended. It is recommended that for therapists who have no prior training in humanistic-experiential therapies, a module focused on empathic tracking, listening, and responding be included in the training.

ISEFT Training Standards for EFT Individual Therapy

ISEFT Training Standards for EFT for Couples Therapy


Levels 1 & 2

Basic Didactic/Experiential Workshop Training (Levels 1 & 2)

Minimum 8 days (but can be longer), run by certified or approved EFT trainers, covering at least:

  • Empathy/relational skills

  • Emotion theory, emotion change principles and emotional deepening

  • Basic markers/tasks: focusing/clearing a space, unfolding, two chair
    (conflict and self-interruption splits, self-soothing), empty chair

  • EFT case formulation


Level 3

Initial Supervisory Experience (Level 3)

  • At least 3 days group supervision (with presentation of at least one client for 1 hour); or

  • five hours of individual supervision of own work with at least 2 clients

Must be signed off on by their approved EFT supervisor on the basis of actually doing EFT to at least a minimal degree and not some other therapy as demonstrated by these EFT skills:

  • Empathy

  • Marker identification

  • Emotional deepening

  • Appropriate use of EFT tasks, such as focusing, reprocessing, enactment/active expression work,
    alliance/interpersonal/relational work

  • Ability to think about clients in EFT terms (case formulation, process identification, marker
    identification, use of experiential formulation responses)