Abstract

One of the goals of Emotion Focused Therapy (EFT) is to develop a more resilient self by increasing self-compassion and self-protection and simultaneously decreasing self- criticism. Although self-compassion and self-protection tasks are one of the essential interventions in EFT, there is still little research about how they are articulated productively within a therapeutic session. Therefore, the goal of our study was to examine how self-criticism, self-protection, and self-compassion are expressed by a client within a therapeutic session. This is a single case study examining one session with the therapist Les Greenberg, who is the founder of EFT. The data were analyzed using consensual qualitative research (CQR). The team consisted of two core team members and one auditor. The video was transcribed and sentences that revealed aspects of the client’s experience of being self-critical, self-compassionate, and self-protective were extracted. Three similar domains were considered for all three concepts: behavioral, emotional, and cognitive aspects. Consequently, the findings showed the following subdomains for self-criticism: What you did wrong, What you should do instead, Expectations, Blaming from the critic, and Negative emotions towards the self, for self-compassion: Empathy towards the self, Positive emotions towards the self, Confirmation, Self-compassionate Advice, Self-acceptance, Motivation to alleviate suffering, Self-forgiveness, and for self-protection: Expressing needs, Protecting the self, Expressing emotions towards the self-critic, Understanding for the self, and Criticizing the critic. More studies of categorizing a broader number of cases of various therapeutic approaches are necessary to develop more detailed understanding of clients’ expression of self-compassion, self-protection, and self-criticism within therapy.