Borrowing Benefits

DVD 12: Couples Counselling

This DVD is excellent for many reasons, which include that it is:

1. Highly entertaining and makes learning the subject matter easy

2. It highlights Gary's mastery over the use of humour in therapy and therefore should be of great interest to students who wish to explore this area of EFT

3. It also demonstrates the use of interesting language patterns and reframes

4. It is also interesting because these DVD's demonstrate the latest way that Gary is using EFT (2004/5), in many of the set ups he misses out the affirmation completely, or may only use it once rather than the standard three times

The DVD deals with relationships. Gary works with a couple, who like most couples have certain frictions in their relationship. Interesting point is that although this couple have frictions they quite easily talk about it in front of their partner, without either of them flaring up and going for the jugular. In fact the two volunteers play along with Gary as he works on their issues making the whole DVD even more entertaining.

At the beginning of the DVD, Gary talks about standard couples counselling where participants recite their woes about their partner and then the therapist goes on to help them develop compromises. Then he points out that partners often feel resentful about having to compromise. Gary then points out that EFT works by eliminating that resentment, so that couples can develop a more natural solution requiring less effort from both partners.

As they begin to explore the case, Gary asks each partner in turn what are the problems in their relationship. The wife starts off first by saying that his untidiness with his tools is an issue for her. She is resentful that she has to pick up for him. Gary actually works directly with the wife whilst getting the husband to tap along using the borrowing benefits procedure. Both partners are sat facing each other during the entire process. As Gary starts to use the EFT, he uses exaggeration in his language and humour. Interesting that as he explores the issue more between tapping sequences he modifies and adapts to the new information he receives.

As Gary progresses through the therapy, he uses an interesting reframe, he paces the wife, matching her view point of her experiences about how she feels about the mess and draws in humour by calling the husband a "slob", which both partners find funny and then subtly asks her to imagine that all the tools are in the right places, but only because the husband is dead. The actual language he uses here is important, it creates an instant shift for the wife as to how she perceives the situation. It simply becomes, what is more important, having your husband around or having a tidy house, although this is not stated up front.

Especially funny and typical of many issues that arise in relationships is the story the husband relates about how the wife blows up over issues he regards as trivial. Asked to come up with a specific example the husband tells of a time he find a huge peanut in the house and promptly eats it. When the wife returns she says, "what happened to the peanut.......I was saving that peanut..(for a bird).." She goes on to say, "you ate my peanut".

Interesting points in how Gary deals with this is that early on he uses a metaphor to describe the wife's reaction, he says that, "she comes out of her shorts", this is probably an American one, as it isn't a phrase I have heard before. Still as he goes through the EFT process, he subtly reuses the phrase as follows, "sometimes when she comes out of her shorts its OK"..... this creates a subtle shift in meaning and is a play on words, typical with how hypnotherapists use language, by the end of the EFT sequence he has subtly shifted the feeling around the issue.

Through several parts of this DVD the couple are in hysterics which basically shows that at all points Gary has retained rapport with the couple.