Why do the Chi for Two practices for romantic partners remind me of Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) for couples?

Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) was created by Sue Johnson. Both EFT and Chi for Two grow out of Attachment Theory. Cindy Hazan and Phillip Shaver were the first scientists to notice that romantic couples had attachment styles like the attachment styles that theorist Mary Ainsworth had noticed in mothers and their children.

Ainsworth identified styles of attachment that were either Secure or Insecure. Over time, attachment theorists have come to subdivide Insecure attachment styles into Anxious Insecure, Avoidant Insecure and Ambivalent Insecure.

Shaver with Mario Mikulincer began to connect the attachment styles with a more polyvagal-informed understanding of nervous system functioning. Chi for Two looks at attachment styles through the lens of polyvagal theory. Polyvagal theory helps us recognize that we have two types of nervous system functioning depending on whether we feel safe or sense danger. The kind of nervous system functioning that happens when we feel safe aligns with a Secure attachment style and the kind of nervous system functioning that happens when we sense danger aligns with an Insecure attachment style.

Seeing attachment styles through the lens of polyvagal theory helps us recognize the path for transforming the Insecure attachment styles into a Secure attachment style. Chi for Two recognizes the origins of attachment styles. Patterns of multi-generational trauma create the Insecure attachment styles.

Polyvagal theory helps us understand how movement expressions become inhibited by trauma. These movement expressions become inhibited using nervous system functioning that Porges calls Shut-down. Shut-down affects the body below the diaphragm. Because this inhibition happens in our pelvises, it’s not surprising that trauma patterning would be awakened in our dances with our lovers.

Chi for Two draws from the work of child psychiatrist Judith Kestenberg and colleagues who identify infant rhythms that naturally alternate between ones they call “indulging” and ones they call “fighting.” How parents respond to these rhythms over generations determines whether these are expressed or inhibited. When inhibited rhythms from infancy awaken in the romantic dance, couples feel that something is wrong and hopefully seek professional help.

Chi for Two coaches invite each person to do partner practices with the coach. These practices replicate the infant/parent dance that invites us into being. Afterwards, lovers feel more available to do the romantic partner practices because they are living more freely in their pelvises.

Because Chi for Two grows out of Attachment theory, it can remind people of Emotionally Focused Therapy for couples. The fact that Chi for Two has partner practices can also create a sense of similarity.

The difference is that Chi for Two has specific partner practices for therapists to do with each of the partners to heal multigenerational trauma. These practices help couples sense how they feel in their pelvises when they are needing a symbolic redo of infant/parent dances.

As in EFT, Resmaa Menakem, author of Rock the Boat: How to Use Conflict to Heal and Deepen Your Relationship talks about the importance of both partners becoming vulnerable and recognizing each other's vulnerability as part of the healing/deepening dance. Menakem, like Chi for Two, warns against romantic partners "mothering" each other. Menakem sees problems arising from the conflation of Mother and Lover. In Chi for Two, embodiment coaches offer the mothering container. 

Each partner brings to the coach the hungers that arise out of infant pelvic feelings. Witnessing each other’s work with the coach, partners are able to appreciate the bravery of their lover's symbolic redo of infant/parent dances. Then when they are able to sense their post-pubescent pelvis again, they return to the romantic dance.

Certified Chi for Two embodiment coach Mukti Jarvis is a long-time certified EFT therapist and long-time Non-violent Communication facilitator. Jarvis brings EFT, Non-violent Communication and Chi for Two embodiment coaching together because they have so many similarities.