If you think about the last time you and your partner were disagreeing about something that at least in the moment felt very important, what do you recall it felt like in your body? Were you aware that your heart started racing, your breathing became more shallow, your speech was rapid and pressured? These are physical symptoms of threat and what occurs when you are under the stress of feeling disconnected from your partner. These cardiovascular and respiratory symptoms of threat are part of the flight-or-fight response, our body’s survival mechanism that prepares us for danger. Other neurological and muscular changes such as trembling, muscle tension, nervousness as well as digestive symptoms such as dry mouth and stomach upset can accompany these responses.
These same physiological reactions would occur with many different types of threats: a car cuts in front of us on the road, we hear a strange noise behind us when we are walking to our front door late at night, our boss expresses disapproval about a work project that we felt we successfully completed, or we engage in public speaking.
Essentially, our nervous system alerts us to the possibility of danger — mortal, life-threatening danger, ego injury, as well as the danger our internal attachment system alerts us to when we sense disconnection from our loved partner.
Our body cannot necessarily differentiate between mortal harm and attachment threat. But, in this heightened state, if we feel defensive and under attack, criticized, misunderstood or devalued by our partner during a disagreement our nervous system becomes dysregulated as if we were in mortal danger. When we feel relational stress, our inborn attachment system becomes activated.
The primary goal of our attachment system is to ensure the survival of our vulnerable self. Beginning at birth, a newborn must maintain closeness to a protective figure in order to survive. Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) model prioritizes attachment based on the work by Dr. John Bowlby. The idiom, “from the cradle to the grave,” has been used by many but it was popularized by Winston Churchill in 1943 who was referring to the need for some form of social insurance to include health, housing and education to give security to every class of citizen in the state. Dr. Sue Johnson, the creator of EFT also resolutely endorsed this idiom emphasizing our need for secure attachment through our entire lifecycle beginning at birth and throughout our life until death. When our attachment system is triggered by perceived threats, we feel fear, pain, or anxiety.
Polyvagal Theory
Developed by Stephen Porges (www.stephenporges.com), Polyvagal Theory provides a framework for understanding how the nervous system shapes emotional regulation, connection, threat detection, and responses. It’s widely used in trauma therapy, somatic therapies, and attachment-based work such as Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy (EFCT) because it links physiology with relational behavior. The act of self-regulating one’s emotions and co-regulating with your partner’s emotions is a key step in slowing down the negative cycle, hearing each other more clearly and understanding what is actually happening versus responding to your body’s alarm system which activates either a fight-or-flight response or immobilization.
Co-regulation
What does the term “co-regulation” mean? Co-regulation refers to an interpersonal process and also a biological and neurological process. If you laugh, I feel happy. When you are sad and cry, I am moved. If you are calm, I feel safe and soothed. Co-regulation is the way that the nervous system of one individual influences the nervous system of another. It is an interpersonal process and also a neurological and biological process. Although I am responsible for understanding, expressing and managing my emotions, in my relationship with my partner we are both affecting each other in real ways.
Co-regulation begins in the womb. An unborn baby can begin hearing muffled sounds like it’s mother’s breathing at around 18 weeks; as the auditory system develops and becomes keener and more refined, the baby can recognize the mother’s voice by the third trimester.
When a parent rocks the baby, coos in a soft voice, holds them and smiles at them, this is co-regulating the baby’s nervous system. The baby feels safe and secure. As the baby matures, this co-regulation process continues. When a child is unsure of what to do in an unfamiliar situation, for example, he or she will look at the parent to gauge their reaction – – is this situation safe or unsafe? If a parent looks alarmed, raises his or her voice, and shows fear or anger, the child receives the message from the parent to know how to act or respond. If a child is hurt and the parent responds with a calm voice and soothing tone and tells the child that his or her feelings of hurt make sense and together they can deal with it, the child is unconsciously co-regulating with the parent. If children do not receive consistent and adequate co-regulating responsiveness from a caregiver, they can have difficulty learning how to self-regulate and co-regulate emotions within themselves. The result might be an adult who has a sensitive threat threshold and relies on their partner for self-regulation during conflict, and co-regulation of emotions between partners is not developed.
To understand how co-regulation operates on a physiological and biological level, let’s briefly return to Stephen Porges’ Polyvagal Theory and take a closer, more technical look at how it operates. Polyvagal Theory breaks down the human autonomic system into three hierarchical pathways:
– Ventral Vagal System — Safety and Connection
▪ Social engagement system
▪ Regulated, grounded, open, connected
▪ Supports empathy, collaboration, curiosity
▪ Emotional regulation: easiest here – – feelings can be tolerated and
expressed without overwhelm.
– Sympathetic Nervous System – – Mobilization
▪ Fight or flight
▪ Activated, vigilant, intense, agitated
▪ Anger, anxiety, restlessness
▪ Emotional regulation: harder because the system is primed for protection not reflection.
Dorsal Vagal System – – Shutdown/Freeze
▪ Immobilization in the face of overwhelming threat
▪ Numb, collapsed, disconnected, hopeless
▪ Emotional regulation: extremely limited, emotions feels flat or unreachable.
As Porges emphasizes, these states are biological, not chosen. They are automatic and determine our behavior rapidly before we even have conscious thoughts about what is occurring.
Also, according to Polyvagal Theory, our body has an inborn radar for safety and threat – – neuroception – – which is the nervous system’s automatic scanning for cues of safety and danger. Our nervous system unconsciously assesses the environment (let’s refer here, specifically to what is happening in our relationship or with our partner when we feel emotional threat) to detect cues (facial expression, tone of voice, words that sound like past hurt, emotional distance or withdraw, and other non-verbal communication) which can trigger automatic defense responses (i.e., the fight/flight/freeze) and our ability to remain present and engaged as we quickly assess and differentiate safety from danger, albeit below our conscious awareness. Think of how anxiety or feeling anxious can distort the reality of whether a situation is truly dangerous or simply inconvenient, uncomfortable, or confusing. These cues can shift our nervous system into sympathetic or dorsal states before we are even aware of it. This is why our emotional reactions can make sense neurobiologically even when they seem irrational and unhelpful to ourselves and our partners.
A core tenet in Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy (EFCT) is that all emotions and responses that occur internally (within) and interpersonally (between) a couple make perfect sense if we understand what triggered or cued the reactions and the function of the response (usually self-protective).
Regulation Begins in the Body, Not the Mind
According to Polyvagal Theory, we regulate our emotions by shifting our physiological state and not by talking ourselves out of our feelings. So, when we feel safe, our emotions become tolerable; when we feel threat, our emotions become amplified or shut down; cognitive strategies work only when the nervous system is already regulated. If someone has ever said to you when you were really upset – – angry or anxious – – to “just calm down,” you know how unhelpful it is and how it can even intensify your feelings of distress.
Co-Regulation in Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy (EFCT)
How do couples co-regulate? They use soft voices with each other, their faces feel and look relaxed, each partner is present and attentive, and the emotional signals (verbal and non-verbal) are being acknowledged by each other. In EFCT, the therapist remains present and calm, which is critical when there is tension and discord between the couple and the therapist encourages each partner to be responsive to help the nervous system return to ventral safety. This process is slow, repetitive and takes time, but it is reliable.
When a couple is regulated, both self-regulated and co-regulated, it leads to the experience of positive cycles in their relationship. They will begin to feel safer with each other, safer accessing and expressing softer, vulnerable feelings, sharing them with each other, and ultimately creating a more secure attachment.
The Essence of Polyvagal and Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy (EFCT)
▪ When our bodies feel threat, we either unconsciously intensify or shut down our emotions.
▪ Partners misread each other’s protective responses (recall that pursuer and withdrawer attachment styles and ways of responding when feeling disconnected, unsafe, misunderstood are different).
▪ The negative cycle takes over.
▪ EFCT slows the cycle down and softens the experience
▪ Polyvagal awareness helps a couple see that “we are two different nervous systems longing for safe connection.”
▪ Co-regulation (at first with the EFCT therapist) with the partner restores a felt sense of safety.
Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy (EFCT) Negative Cycles Through a Polyvagal Lens
I have discussed the roles of pursuer and withdrawer in relationship cycles, the most common attachment styles, and their attachment function and significance. Even though both stances are different, they both reflect partners’ attempts to protect the relationship bond, just in different physiological ways.
Here’s an example of what would be occurring in pursuer/withdrawer relationship during a conflict:
Pursuer → Sympathetic Mobilization
▪ “Where are you?”
▪ “Talk to me!”
▪ High intensity = function = protest of disconnection
▪ Driven by fear of emotional abandonment
Withdrawer → Dorsal Immobilization
▪ “I can’t do this.”
▪ “This is too much.”
▪ Shutdown protects from overwhelm
▪ Often driven by fear of failure or inadequacy
Cycle = Two Nervous Systems Defending
Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy (EFCT)Helps Couples Shift Their Nervous System Physiology
The EFCT therapist will explain and normalize the physiology. The therapist will provide reassurance that the feelings of alarm and threat a couple feels when they are not getting along are normal. They will understand that their negative cycle takes over and their attachment style and protective strategies are initiated based on how they experience and make sense of the conflict. They will understand that how they respond is completely sensible when each of their nervous systems are just trying to keep them safe.
Normalizing this process, slowing it down, helping the couple track the cues and signals they send and receive from each other along with cues of safety, helping them send softer emotional signals and co-regulating their nervous systems together is what shifts the aroused physiological state to one of ventral safety and secure attachment.
Learn More About Emotionally Focused Therapy
If you’re curious about how Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy can help improve communication, deepen emotional intimacy, and heal past hurts, I’d be happy to speak with you.
👉 Contact me for a free 15-minute phone consultation.
📧 Email: drkathleendobek@gmail.com
📞 Call: (484) 354-1232