Externship Program

Emotionally Focused Therapy Externship

Dates: January 30 – February 2, 2025
Location: The Retreat at St. Thomas (7020 Camp Hill Rd., Fort Washington, PA 19034)
Time: 9 AM – 5:30 PM (Eastern)
Total CE Hours: 28 (Must attend all 4 days of training to receive CEs)

Cost:

Early Registration Rate (until 12/21/24): $1,245
Full Registration Rate (after 12/21/24): $1,345
CMH Clinician*, Equity**, Student: $800
Externship Refresher (for clinicians taking the Externship again): $850

*Community Mental Health Clinician Rates: We offer this discounted rate to enable clinicians working in community mental health settings on a full-time basis to be able to participate. Group practices are not eligible.

**Student/Equity Rate: This registration option is for full-time students and for participants with historical/institutional barriers to access. Please choose equity pricing only if you are a member of one or more historically marginalized communities.

Continuing Education Credits:

28 continuing education (CE) credits will be available for an additional fee of $40. CE credits are provided through TriEFT Alliant. MUST attend all 4 days of training in its entirety to receive CEs. No partial CE’s will be given.
Council for Relationships is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. Council for Relationships maintains responsibility for this program and its content.

The following entities accept continuing education credits provided by APA-approved sponsors:

  • The Pennsylvania State Board of Social Workers, Marriage and Family Therapists, and Professional Counselors 
  • The New Jersey State Board of Marriage and Family Examiners
  • The Delaware State Board of Professional Counselors of Mental Health and Chemical Dependency Professionals
  • The Delaware State Board of Social Work Examiners

Clinicians licensed in other states should contact their regulatory board to determine course approval.

Cancellation Policy

If notified in writing of canceling by 1/4/2025, the fee will be refunded minus $50 administrative fee. The fee is non-refundable after 1/4/2025.

COVID Policy: This EFT Externship is IN PERSON. There is no option to attend this training online. Therefore, if you are sick with Covid on the first day of the Externship you are eligible for a full refund minus $50 administrative fee. We ask that all attendees who feel sick not attend the Externship.

Presenter

Ting Liu, PhD, LMFT, Certified EFT Trainer, Supervisor and Therapist

Description of Externship

This is an official Externship, endorsed by the International Centre for Excellence in Emotionally Focused Therapy (ICEEFT) and brought to you by the Philadelphia Center for EFT (PCEFT).

The four day EFT Externship is the first official step to learning EFT. Four day Externships in Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy (approximately 30 hours) includes the observation of live and video recorded couple and individual therapy sessions, presentations of theory and clinical techniques, skills training exercises, and discussion of specific cases, clinical material and issues.

Following this workshop, participants will be able to:

  • Gain clear understanding of theoretical underpinnings, research and road map of EFT;
  • See relational and emotional distress of couples, families and individuals through the lens of attachment theory;
  • Explore, organize and distinguish negative interaction patterns that maintain relational distress;
  • Access, assemble and deepen core attachment emotions that underlie negative interaction patterns;
  • Apply systemic, experiential and humanistic interventions as EFT micro-interventions; 
  • Practice the 5 core moves of the EFT Tango macro-intervention;
  • Shape key bonding events that build secure connection;
  • Overcome therapeutic impasses and address existential dilemmas.
  • Participants will obtain a clear understanding of the basic experiential and systemic concepts of an “Emotionally Focused” approach to therapy.
  • Participants will be able to view clients in the web of their interpersonal attachments and conceptualize relationship distress and repair based on theories of attachment and emotion.
  • Participants will develop skills in sharing and maintaining an engaged, open and collaborative alliance with clients.
  • Participants will develop skills in the 5 moves of the basic macro-intervention – the EFT Tango – in order to change patterns of affect regulation, models of self and other, strategies for engaging others and interactional patterns.
  • Participants will develop skills in EFT micro interventions taken from experiential and systemic models of intervention.

EFT is a relational therapy. The Externship will focus on the general model of EFT as laid out in the 2019 book, Attachment Theory in Practice, and teach the model as implemented in couple and individual therapy sessions.

Prior understanding of EFT and Attachment Theory preferred but not required.

Audience

Psychologists, Social Workers, Marriage and Family Therapists, Professional Counselors, and Graduate Students

About our Trainer

Ting Liu, Ph.D.,LMFT,  serves as the clinical director of PCEFT and is a certified EFT (Emotionally Focused Therapy) trainer, supervisor and therapist. 

She is licensed in Pennsylvania as a Marriage and Family Therapist and is an Approved Supervisor with the American Association of Marriage & Family Therapy. She maintains a Private Practice in Wayne, PA.

Dr. Liu received her doctorate in Child Development and Family Studies with a specialization in Marriage and Family Therapy from Purdue University. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Center for Family Intervention Science at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

Her publications include four books she has translated into Chinese in the fields of MFT and EFT. She has also published several journal articles on different applications of EFT and wrote a chapter on multi-cultural therapy in the EFT casebook. She is currently involved in several outcome studies examining the cultural applicability of EFT to diverse populations.

Dr. Liu offers EFT training, supervision, and case consultation to therapists in the Philadelphia area, as well as to therapists in Beijing, Hong Kong, London, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Singapore, Taipei, and Tokyo.

Are you interested in being more effective with couples in crisis?

Do you sometimes feel you don’t have a clear map?

Are your sessions at times highly charged and emotional?

Do you sometimes struggle with how to help couples heal after infidelity?

Would you like to energize your work with couples?

  • Learning EFT was personally and professionally transformational for me. EFT makes sense of human connection like no other way of understanding and being with couples. We have a new understanding of the value of staying present, in the here-and-now process and in the experience of moments of emotional vulnerability. I am most grateful for the times of witnessing when couples navigate differently the “ups and downs” in their lives.

    Lucy Raizman, LCSW, LMFT
    EFT Certified Therapist
  • EFT colleagues and the international community and well-focused supervision provide all kinds of personal and professional benefits, helping me become the kind of psychoemotional healer I want to be – not the least of which is a sense of security, the knowing feeling that I can reach resources that support this risk-taking work I am doing.

    Nancy Logue, Ph.D.
  • I love doing EFT with couples because I love to see the hope of intimate connection being rekindled. I feel privileged to be part of the hard work couples do in session, and I am often moved by their ability to risk reaching out and letting each other come closer.

    Cheryl Sparks, MA, LPC
  • Practicing EFT gives me the opportunity to be truly emotionally present. I am able to create a safe place in which the couple can find their way toward greater heartfelt connection. EFT provides a map for this bonding to take place, and witnessing this occur is remarkably rewarding.

    Debra Rosenberg, LCSW, BCD
    Certified EFT Therapist
  • Learning and practicing EFT has revolutionized my life, both personally and professionally. With this elegant, deeply humanizing model, I am able to help couples make sense of their often longstanding distress and offer a road map to the secure bonding we all long for.

    Wendy Merson, LMFT
    Certified EFT Therapist and Supervisor
  • When I first heard Sue Johnson [creator of EFT] speak 15 years ago, it was as though a bell rung, and I instinctively knew this model got to the truth more than any I’d ever known. As a therapist, not only are these results heartening, but the process of EFT has allowed me to see what’s at the heart of the problem and gives me a clear map to address it.

    Fran Neali, RN, MSN, CS, LMFT
    Certified EFT Therapist and Supervisor-in-Training
  • Being emotionally present with couples as they access their longings for closeness and share their vulnerability with their partner is very touching. There is a bit of magic in the room as they create a more secure and loving bond. I always feel honored to be part of their process. I often say that with EFT I am helping the world…one couple at a time.”

    Robin Sesan, Ph.D.
    Certified EFT Therapist and Supervisor
  • Working with distressed couples often used to feel like I was lost in the woods, around midnight, with just a small flashlight…Learning EFT was like having someone hand me a high-beam flashlight, a GPS and a back-up crew to call in emergencies.

    Ruth Jampol, Ph.D.
    Certified EFT Therapist and Supervisor