Transforming Emotional Pain

In Transforming Emotional Pain, Rhonda Goldman, PhD, works over the course of two sessions with a young graduate student struggling with imposter syndrome, marked by feelings of inadequacy, incompetence, and intense self-criticism. Using emotion-focused therapy, the therapist first identifies and works with the patient's self-criticism by having her voice harsh internal messages about not being "good enough." As therapy progresses, the underlying source of this self-criticism emerges: emotional pain from the patient’s relationship with her father. In response, Dr. Goldman shifts to an unfinished business task, allowing for the expression of unmet needs and emotions. In this fascinating program, Dr. Goldman is interviewed by Whitney Tschan, PhD, about her work and together they look at how she guided the patient from pain toward aa corrective emotional experience. 

Emotion-focused therapy (EFT) is a research-based, transdiagnostic, neo-humanistic, experiential approach to psychotherapy. It offers a nuanced understanding of emotion along with clearly specified models for intervention at both the micro- and macro-levels of clients' affective processes. In EFT, therapists work directly with emotion in session, targeting and transforming painful, maladaptive emotional states that typically originate in past distressing or traumatic experiences. This process of changing emotion with emotion operates at a deep experiential level, facilitating change that extends beyond symptom reduction to include shifts in emotional memories and in clients' subjective experience of themselves.

As a therapeutic model, EFT is structured in a way that prioritizes empathy, affective processes, and clients' inner experiencing. Within the therapeutic relationship, the therapist provides moment-by-moment empathic attunement to clients' emotional states and lived experience. Specific therapeutic tasks are initiated in response to in-session markers that signal particular emotional processing difficulties. For example, two-chair dialogues are used to address internal conflict splits and harsh self-criticism, while empty-chair dialogues help clients work through unresolved emotional injuries related to developmentally significant others. Throughout the therapeutic process, therapists balance following the client's experience with actively guiding emotional change. Both moment-to-moment empathic attunement and the facilitation of these therapeutic tasks are demonstrated in this video.

A substantial body of quantitative research, including multiple randomized controlled trials, has demonstrated the effectiveness of EFT in treating a range of psychological difficulties, including depression, anxiety, social anxiety, and trauma-related symptoms. 

Rhonda N. Goldman, PhD, is a primary codeveloper of emotion-focused therapy (EFT) for individuals and couples. She is a professor at The Chicago School in Chicago and director of the Emotion-Focused Therapy Institute–Chicago. Dr. Goldman is actively engaged in the research, development, practice, and training of EFT. 

She has coauthored seven influential texts on emotion-focused therapy, including Learning Emotion-Focused Therapy (2004; 2025), Deliberate Practice in Emotion-Focused Therapy (2021), The Clinical Handbook of Emotion-Focused Therapy (2019), Case Formulation in Emotion-Focused Therapy (2015), Emotion-Focused Couples Therapy (2008), and Case Studies in Emotion-Focused Therapy (2007). A new edition of her book on emotion-focused therapy for couples is forthcoming. 

Dr. Goldman has authored numerous journal articles and book chapters on empathy, vulnerability, depression, and emotion. She is a founding board member of the International Society of Emotion-Focused Therapy (ISEFT) and served as a past editor of the journal Person-Centered and Experiential Psychotherapies. 

An internationally recognized trainer, Dr. Goldman has taught and provided EFT training across the globe, including in China, Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Spain, Portugal, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Ireland, Germany, Switzerland, Denmark, Norway, Poland, the United States, Canada, Ecuador, and Brazil.

APA videos

Providing Emotion-Focused Therapy Online
Rhonda N. Goldman, PhD

Emotion-Focused Couple Therapy
Rhonda. N. Goldman, PhD

Case Formulation in Emotion-Focused Therapy: Addressing Unfinished Business
Rhonda N. Goldman, PhD

Emotion-Focused Therapy for Trauma
Sandra C. Paivio, PhD, CPsych

Working With Emotion in Emotion-Focused Therapy
Leslie. S. Greenberg, PhD

Working With Emotion in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
Michael A. Tompkins, PhD, Leslie S. Greenberg, PhD, and Norka Malberg, PsyD

APA books

Learning Emotion-Focused Therapy: A Comprehensive Guide, Second Edition
Robert Elliot, Jeanne C. Watson, Rhonda N. Goldman, and Leslie S. Greenberg

On Becoming Emotion Focused
Leslie S. Greenberg

Emotion-Focused Therapy: Coaching Clients to Work Through Their Feelings, Second Edition
Leslie S. Greenberg

Deliberate Practice in Emotion-Focused Therapy
Rhonda N. Goldman, Alexandre Vaz, and Tony Rousmaniere

Forgiveness and Letting Go in Emotion-Focused Therapy
Leslie S. Greenberg and Catalina Woldarsky Meneses

Shame and Anger in Psychotherapy
Leslie S. Greenberg

Other suggested resources

Elliott, R., Watson, J.C., Goldman, R.N., & Greenberg, L.S. (2025). Learning emotion-focused therapy: A comprehensive guide, 2nd ed. American Psychological Association.

Goldman, R., Vaz, A., & Rousmaniere, T. (2021). Deliberate practice in emotion-focused therapy. American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/0000227-000

Goldman, R., & Goldstein, Z. (2023). Guiding task work in the context of an emotion-focused relationship. Journal of clinical psychology, Jul;79(7):1627-1640. doi: 10.1002/jclp.23472

Goldman, R., & Goldstein, Z. (2022). Case formulation in emotion-focused therapy. Journal of clinical psychology, 78, 3, 436-453. https://doi.org/10.1002/jclp.23321

Greenberg, L.S., & Goldman, R. N. (Eds.) (2019). Clinical handbook of emotion-focused therapy. American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/0000112-000

Tschan, W., & Goldman, R. (2024). Use of Emotion-focused therapy in the treatment of a case of anorexia nervosa. Person-centered and experiential psychotherapies, 3, 23, 362-385. https://doi.org/10.1080/14779757.2024.2360602