An emotionally focused therapist practises EFT, an attachment-based approach used mainly with couples and also, though less commonly, with individuals and families. Rather than treating relationship distress as a communication problem to be solved with better scripts and ground rules, EFT treats it as a problem of disconnection, a breakdown in the sense of emotional safety and reachability between partners.
Three stages of the work
The therapy moves through three broad stages: calming the repeating cycle of conflict that both partners get pulled into, reshaping how each partner reaches for the other emotionally, and finally consolidating that change so it holds outside sessions. This structure gives couples a clear sense of where they are in the process rather than an open-ended series of arguments replayed in front of a therapist.
A note on the name
It is worth flagging clearly that this is not Emotional Freedom Techniques, the tapping method that shares the same initials but is an entirely different approach with a different evidence base. EFT as a couple therapy has a strong evidence base of its own for relationship distress, built on decades of research into attachment between adult partners.