Want to reach to stretch to the next level?
Curious about the benefits of
ICEEFT Certification as an EFT Therapist?

Explore here to learn more!
(Those seeking to be Certified EFT Supervisors, see the lower half of this page.)

As EFT has been evolving, so has the Certification process. Prior to 2024, Certification was focused on Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy (EFCT) (the place where EFT first found its roots). As of 2024, ICEEFT began providing three tracks for certification. Since EFT is one model with three modalities, with new horizons being developed and honed in the realms of Emotionally Focused Individual Therapy (EFIT) and Emotionally Focused Family Therapy (EFFT) as well, there is now a way to get certified in each modality. The general descriptions of the overall process are below and then specific information for each track can be explored on the below links for EFCT, EFIT, and EFFT.

If you want to learn more about what is involved with getting certified as an EFT therapist, check out the below links. Also consider working with an EFT Supervisor to help you achieve your goal! It is a journey that can’t be done alone. Let me come alongside you and support you!

Key Documents to help you with EFT Certification:
Check out these resources on the ICEEFT website to support your journey to certification.

Level 1: Certification as an EFT Therapist:

• The Road to Certification (This is a great first place to explore.)

• General Overview of Skills Required for EFT Certification (EFCT, EFIT, and EFFT) - scroll down just below the graphic

  • On the ICEEFT website: General Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) Skills

    • EFT Alliance Skills

      Therapist readily demonstrates:

      • Effectively engaging with clients in all their diversity, including the negative impact of discrimination, and with clients’ strengths and resilience.

      • Attunement and empathic tracking of client’s experience.

      • A safe-haven alliance (A.R.E.) including assessing risk, context, and contraindications.

      • A focus on reactive patterns and validating client’s attachment strategies.

      EFT Micro Skills

      Therapist shows ability to:

      • Reflect and validate client’s experience and identify emotions and relational patterns.

      • Validate vulnerabilities and coping strategies, normalizing blocks.

      • Ask evocative open-ended questions that help identify patterns and elicit deeper emotions and underlying attachment fears and longings, encouraging self-reflection.

      • Make appropriate empathic conjectures that validate and deepen experience (e.g. self/other).

      • Use all micro skills together with RISSSSC prosody – slow, specific, soft, etc.

      • Heighten experience with images and client’s emotional handles, where appropriate.

      • Reframe experience – mostly in terms of attachment-related emotions.

      • Evoke emotional experience and choreograph engaged encounters/enactments.

      • Pace risk-taking appropriately, holding client(s) at their leading edge (e.g. within their window of tolerance).

      EFT Tango Skills

      Therapist shows ability to:

      Move 1: Identify relational patterns and affect regulation processes leading to self-perpetuating cycles.
      Move 2: Assemble Emotion – Pinpoint trigger, perception, body sensation, meaning and action tendency by focusing on and processing core emotions.
      Move 2: Distill emotion with RISSSSC and engage present experience in a highly focused manner.
      Move 3: Set up encounters/enactments that prompt new awareness and /or bonding experience.
      Move 4: Process encounters (from Move 3) with client(s).
      Move 5: Summarize progress in the session, validating growth and contrasting new interactions with previous patterns.

      Candidates will be considered not ready for certification if one of the following exists:

      • Talking about emotion only from a cognitive distance.

      • A reliance on teaching, coaching, advising, or problem-solving.

      • Teaching about emotion as opposed to fostering experience.

      • Not using RISSSSC.

      • Failure to attune to clients.

      • Failure to actively assemble or deepen emotion in session.

      • Failure to demonstrate moves of the EFT Tango.

      • Positive enactments, shame-based enactments, or enactments that are not interpersonal in nature. That is, that are not systemic.

• Specific Details for the Different Types of EFT Certifications:

  • EFCT (Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy) Certification:

    • EFCT Courses and Steps to Certification

    • Becoming an EFCT Therapist (on the ICEEFT Members website, so you need to be a member to see this one) **This is the core page linking you to details for the key forms and expectations for the EFCT certification process.

      • Video Release Form

      • **EFCT Certification Video and Case Conceptualization Guidelines

      • Therapist Certification Application Checklist (all modalities)

      • General Overview of Skills Required for EFT Certification (EFCT, EFIT, and EFFT)- see the bottom where it talks about “Alliance Skills, Micro Skills, and Tango Skills.”

      • Guidelines for Certifying Therapists - specifics to have in the videos

        • This document describes the specifics of what is expected in the skill-set and video segments of EFT therapists to meet the criteria for ICEEFT Certification as an EFCT Therapist. (This is an older, retired document, but provides helpful specificity, so is included here.)

        • *As always, what is stated on the ICEEFT website holds priority, is the most current, and should be what is followed above all else.

      • Therapist Certification Checklist for Supervisor (all modalities)

      • Hightail link for submitting video to ICEEFT

        
        

• Publicly accessible OVERVIEW pages of what is involved for ICEEFT Certification on the three tracks:

  • EFCT (Couples) - This is the public website for describing Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy and what is involved in training and certification with this track.

  • EFIT (Individuals) - This is the public website for describing Emotionally Focused Individual Therapy and what is involved in training and certification with this track.

  • EFFT (Families)- This is the public website for describing Emotionally Focused Family Therapy and what is involved in training and certification with this track.

• These next webpages require you to be an ICEEFT member to access, so join (it’s worth it!) and explore further!

  • EFCT (Couples)Certification - includes all of the specifics for applying, guidelines of what is expected for the Stage 1 and Stage 2 video excerpts, etc.

  • EFIT (Individuals)Certification - more detail regarding certification

  • EFFT (Families)Certification - more detail regarding certification

• EFT Therapist Certification Process (helpful details!) (all modalities):

  • Therapist Certification Process: Step by Step

  • Certification Requirements

    • The Therapist reviews the general requirements for EFT certification and starts the specific trainings required for the modality in which they want to become certified.

  • Certification Fee

    • The Therapist pays the applicable certification review fee based on ICEEFT’s sliding scale. For details on the fee structure and potential discounts or waivers, see the Payment Process section.

  • Supervision

    • The Supervisor provides a minimum of 8 hours of supervision, focusing on the designated EFT modality and the development of the macro and micro EFT skills required for certification. Please see the corresponding sections for a list of the required EFT skills as applied in each modality.
      NOTE: Supervision can begin as soon as the first modality-specific core training (Externship or Essentials) is completed.

  • Video Review

    • Out of the whole of the videos that have been reviewed over the course of supervision, the Supervisor reviews and approves two (20-minutes each) video examples that demonstrate the therapist’s EFT skills, ensuring they align with the general video submission guidelines, as well as those of the chosen modality:

      • EFCT

        • EFCT Certification Video Guidelines

          This is a review of the Certification Candidate’s overall skills, exemplified in their two submitted recordings. Not every intervention will necessarily be apparent in every recording. The GOAL is for the trainees to be able to identify their strengths and weaknesses. The Supervisor and the Certification Candidate work on a clear path for improvement. Growth and improvement are considered an ongoing life-long journey for the EFT Therapist, i.e. certification is a step on that journey.

          EFCT Case Description and Conceptualization

          We are looking for key elements, for an understanding of the couple’s history from an attachment perspective and of what brought them in for therapy.

          We want the applicant to be able to describe the couple’s negative cycle, how each partner engages with the other, including the triggers (cues) that begin the distress, their action tendencies and associated core and reactive emotions.

          The therapist will describe the attachment histories of their clients and might be able to speculate on the clients’ attachment styles. We expect the applicant to describe the course of therapy along with any change events, if applicable. Optimally, the applicant may include therapist self-reflections.

          Assessments should be explicitly organized using the CARE framework.

          EFCT Skills for the Therapist to Develop & Demonstrate

          EFCT Alliance Skills

          • Shows skill at attuning to and empathically tracking each partner’s experience.

          • Shows the ability to create a safe-haven alliance – the therapist is Accessible, Responsive, and Engaged (ARE) with each partner. This includes assessing for risk factors, contraindications and cultural contextual factors.

          • Is able to focus the session on relational blocks.

          EFCT Micro Skills

          • Reflects and validates each partner’s experience. Identifies emotions and relational patterns to focus the work.

          • Validates and reframes reactive strategies of each partner.

          • Asks evocative questions about each partner’s emotional experience. Asks open-ended questions and encourages self-reflection.

          • Makes appropriate empathic conjectures that validate each partner’s experience.

          • Uses all micro skills together with RISSSSC prosody—slow, specific, soft, etc.

          • Heightens experience with images and emotional handles, where appropriate.

          • Reframes experience—mostly in terms of attachment-related emotions (e.g., reframe reactivity of the pursuer as protesting the lack of connection.)

          • Evokes emotional experience and choreographs engaged encounters/enactments.

          • Paces risk taking particularly in the face of trauma.

          EFCT Tango Skills

          Move 1: Identifies the relational patterns (negative cycle) and affect regulation processes. Identifies entry points and actively determines the focus of the session.
          Move 2: Assembles Emotion—pinpoints trigger, perception, body sensation, meaning and action tendency. Identifies core emotions.
          Move 3: Sets up and introduces encounters/enactments that moves the couple forward to new awareness and /or bonding experience; slices risks thinner as appropriate.
          Move 4: Processing the encounter of Move 3 with partners. “Catching the bullet” when needed and ensuring the encounter is safe.
          Move 5: Summarizes the couple’s progress in the session. Validates each person’s courage to interact in this new way and contrasts this to their negative cycle.

          EFCT Certification Video Submission Guidelines

          Stage I focus is on:

          • Relational patterns.

          • Accessing and processing emotions in the moment.

          • Organizing emotions within the context of a negative pattern of interaction.

          • Using emotional experience between partners.

          A submitted Stage I, 20-minute video segment should:

          • Demonstrate an explicit understanding of the systemic nature of the couple’s dynamic (e.g., tracking the negative pattern or summarizing the pattern for / with the couple, or contrasting what they are doing new in session with what their typical cycle looked / looks like.

          • Include a focus on accessing underlying emotion with one or both partners and enacting a more vulnerable experience.

          • Demonstrate at least three moves of the EFT Tango (e.g. moves 1, 2, and 3-4; or moves 1, 2, and 5).

          Stage II focus is on:

          • Attachment-related emotions (e.g., fears) and experiences (e.g., longing for connection, unmet need for connection).

          • Deepening and distilling a partner’s emotional experience associated with their position in the cycle of negative interaction (e.g. pursuer, withdrawer).

          • Exploring and bringing forth view of self and view of other (internal working models).

          The submitted Stage II, 20-minute video segment should:
          Demonstrate at least three moves of the EFT Tango, e.g., Moves 2, 3, 4:

          • Tango Move 2 should bring together attachment related emotions, including fears and longings, and views of self/other (internal working model).

          • Tango Move 3 (engaged encounters-enactments) is crucial in Stage II. This new, qualitatively different interaction is the healing agent in EFCT.

          • It is essential that Tango Move 4 supports the partner to hear and respond lovingly to the deep vulnerability that is expressed.

      • EFIT

        • EFIT Certification Video Guidelines

          This is a review of the Certification Candidate’s overall skills, exemplified in their two submitted recordings. Not every intervention will necessarily be apparent in every recording. The GOAL is for the trainees to be able to identify their strengths and weaknesses. The Supervisor and the Certification Candidate work on a clear path for improvement. Growth and improvement are considered an ongoing life-long journey for the EFT Therapist, i.e. certification is a step on that journey.

          EFIT Case Description and Conceptualization

          Supervisors are looking for key elements that demonstrate an attachment-based understanding of the client, their distress, and the change process. The applicant is expected to present a coherent picture of the client’s history from an attachment perspective and describe what brought the client to therapy at this time: Why the client is seeking therapy now—symptoms, diagnoses (if applicable), and current life stressors; and how problems show up emotionally, relationally, and intra-psychically.

          Assessments should be explicitly organized using the CARE framework.

          EFIT Skills for the Therapist to Develop & Demonstrate

          EFIT Alliance Skills

          • Shows skill at attuning to and empathically tracking client’s experience.

          • Shows the ability to create a safe-haven alliance — the therapist is Accessible, Responsive, and Engaged (ARE). This includes assessing for risk factors, contraindications and cultural contextual factors.   

          • Is able to focus the session on the relational blocks.

          EFIT Micro Skills

          • Track attachment strategies and triggers.

          • Reflect and organize client experience into emotion and relational patterns.

          • Validate vulnerabilities and coping strategies.

          • Ask evocative questions; use empathic conjecture.

          • Heighten and reframe experiences; structure engaged encounters.

          • Match tone with RISSSSC and pace risk-taking appropriately

          • Focus on relational patterns and emotions that keep the client stuck.

          • Access and process emotion in the moment.

          • Resource client through internal and external supports.

          • Organize and deepen emotional experience, making it tolerable and accessible.

          • Creating engaged encounter(s) between self, imaginal others, and therapist to create corrective experiences and epiphanies.

          EFIT Tango Skills

          Move1: Track and identify patterns linked to triggers, symptoms, history, and context.
          Move 2: Assemble and deepen emotion (trigger, meaning, sensation, action tendency).
          Move 3: Set up engaged encounters with therapist, self, or imaginal other.
          Move 4: Explore and heighten client’s response to the encounter, creating new interpersonal experiences.
          Move 5: Summarize progress, shape a coherent story, and validate client growth.

          EFIT Certification Video Submission Guidelines

          At least two video segments must be reviewed during supervision, with one video demonstrating an engaged encounter. Each segment must include at least three EFT Tango moves(e.g., 1–2–3, 2–3–4, or 1–2–5) and demonstrate EFT micro-skills, such as:

          • Reflection that organizes and deepens emotion.

          • Linking emotional distress to interactional patterns and attachment meanings.

          • Accessing and processing emotion in the moment.

          • Using emotional experience between parts of self, imaginal others, or the therapist to create corrective experiences.

          Stage I: Access & Regulate Emotion

          • Track and reflect present emotional experience.

          • Help clients identify, regulate, and tolerate emotion rather than avoiding, shutting down, or escalating.

          • Transform dysregulation into manageable emotional experience.

          • Expand awareness of inner world and patterns: link symptoms (anxiety, depression, anger, shame) to underlying attachment needs and fears.

          • Highlight protective strategies that keep clients stuck.

          Stage II: Deepen, Restructure, Transform

          • Deepen core emotional experience.

          • Stay with and expand emotion in the body.

          • Restructure models of self & other.

          • Foster encounters with disowned or fragmented parts of self.

          • Revise negative self-views (e.g., “I’m unlovable”) toward balanced alternatives.

          • Shift rigid views of others toward openness to connection.

          • Create corrective emotional experiences.

      • EFFT

  • Video Selection

    • The Supervisor and Therapist select one video to be submitted to ICEEFT for Trainer review.

  • Therapist Submission of Video to ICEEFT

    • The Therapist submits the selected video to ICEEFT via Hightail, per the full requirements and including:

      • A case conceptualization and transcript of the selected section, with interventions labelled

      • Start and stop times if the video exceeds the 20-minute requirement

      • The name of the trainer who has agreed to review the video

      • The Supervisor’s name and email address

  • Trainer Invitation

    • ICEEFT invites the designated Trainer through Hightail to review the submitted video.

  • Trainer Feedback

    • The Trainer reviews the video and case conceptualization and sends their feedback directly to the Supervisor.

  • Feedback Review

    • The Supervisor and Therapist review the Trainer’s feedback together as part of the ongoing supervision process.

  • Supervisor Reviewof Documentation

    • The Supervisor reviews the Therapist’s documentation as outlined in the certification requirements for each modality.

    • The Supervisor completes the Therapist Certification Checklist for Supervisor Verification and Signature, signing it to confirm that the Supervisor has reviewed all documents and certificates, and that the Therapist has met all the requirements for certification.

  • Supervisor Submission of Documentation to ICEEFT

    • The supervisor emails the completed Therapist Certification Checklist for Supervisor Verification and Signature and all required documentation to certification@iceeft.com, including:

      • CV and cover letter

      • 3 professional letters of reference

      • proof of state/province/country licensing/registration to practice

      • proof of malpractice insurance

      • certificates for completion of all required core trainings and educational requirements.

    • Please do not upload these documents to Hightail.

    • NOTE: This does not include the video, consent form(s), transcript and case conceptualization as these have already been sent to ICEEFT by this step in the process (see #5 above).

  • Final Review by ICEEFT

    • ICEEFT reviews the submitted materials, updates the Therapist’s certification status, and issues the official certificate.

  • Notification of Certification

    • Once the review is complete, ICEEFT sends a confirmation email to both the Therapist and the Supervisor.

  • General Video Submission Requirements

    Below are the general video submission requirements. Specific detailed requirements for certification in each modality (EFCT, EFIT, EFFT) are listed in the respective sections of this website as noted with links below. For example, see the section on EFCT Certification below for specific details on video submission and other requirements, case conceptualizations, etc.

    • Therapy Excerpts

      • Supervisor Review: Two videos out of the whole of the videos reviewed are selected and approved by the Supervisor to ensure they meet EFT standards and video submission guidelines.

      • Video Selection: One video is chosen by the Supervisor and Therapist for submission to ICEEFT.

      • Submission to ICEEFT: Therapist submits video via Hightail.

    • Session Format

      • Video-recorded or in-person video sessions are accepted.

      • Audio-only sessions are not accepted.

    • Case Conceptualization
      A case conceptualization is required for the video that is submitted to ICEEFT and should include:

      • Presenting problem(s) and goals of the therapy

      • Attachment history

      • Negative cycle

      • Progress to date – should include stage and steps used so far in descriptive format.

      • Therapist self-reflection, including comments on the video submitted, that notes the stage of therapy and process comments.

    • Additional Video Requirements

      • Submit a completed Video Release Form for each client.

      • Provide the start and end times for the video segment to be reviewed.

      • Provide a transcript (i.e. verbatim of all the words and non-verbals) with interventions labelled for the video to be reviewed by a Trainer (and a transcript/verbatim for the video to be submitted to Supervisor alone, per Certification Checklist form).

      • Ensure the video fulfills the Video Submission Guidelines specific to the modality in which the therapist wants to become certified.

• EFT Therapist Certification Checklist‍ ‍(all modalities)

• Skills Guideline for Certification - General Overview (all modalities) - see the bottom where it talks about “Alliance Skills, Micro Skills, and Tango Skills.”

  
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Level 2: Certification as an EFT Supervisor:

Certification as an EFT Supervisor has three tracks, and you can do all three!

You can become:

1) Certified as an EFCT Supervisor (for therapists working with couples),

2) Certified as an EFIT Supervisor (for therapists working with individuals), and

3) Certified as an EFFT Supervisor (for therapists working with families)

As the Graphic above indicates, it all begins with being ICEEFT Certified as a Therapist in the desired modality first (so, for example, you must be ICEEFT Certified as an EFCT Therapist before you can begin the journey to become an EFCT Supervisor Candidate and eventually an EFCT Supervisor).

For Details on Each Kind of EFT Supervisor Certification, you must be an ICEEFT Member to explore the below links on the ICEEFT website:

1. EFCT Supervisor Certification

2. EFIT Supervisor Certification

3. EFFT Supervisor Certification
   

Here is a sneak peak at what ICEEFT is looking for in an EFCT Supervisor (and the expectations are similar for EFIT and EFFT Supervision, again, see details on the above website links):

The Key Principles of EFCT Clinical Supervision

• A positive working alliance between the supervisor and supervisee is fostered because safety enhances learning.

• Modelling is available: the supervisor actively demonstrates EFCT interventions (e.g., demonstrates attachment language and non-verbal behaviors of EFT).

• Observation of therapy sessions occurs or transcripts are examined. Role plays with feedback give an opportunity for rehearsal.

• Feedback to the supervisee is clear, focused, supportive, and congruent with the supervisee’s stage of learning.

• Specific elements are pointed out for the supervisee to improve or work on.

• Written theory and techniques of the EFT model are referred to and taught in relation to practice (e.g., steps, stages, interventions, experiential and non-pathologizing approach).

Guidelines for EFCT Supervisor Certification

The 2 main considerations in reviewing supervision videos

1. How is the relationship between supervisor and supervisee characterized in terms of safety, collaboration, transparency, genuineness and is there a strong working alliance?

2. Does the supervisor focus on EFCT – the Stage of EFT and the Moves of the Tango that the therapist is doing, helping with case conceptualizing, developing experiential skills, and helping with future planning, etc.?

Specific considerations

• Is the focus on the client(s) and learning the EFCT model, in particular?

• Is the focus on the self of the therapist, if necessary, and is this focus within the boundary of supervision, not therapy?

• Is there use of video clips from recorded sessions?

• Is there use of role play?

• Does the Supervisor model, discuss, and name interventions, including the use of the moves of the EFT Tango?

• Does the Supervisor recommend any reading and/or the use of EFCT training videos to help supervisee?

• Does the Supervisor tune into the learning needs of the supervisee? Is the supervision paced to the supervisee’s developmental level?

• Does the Supervisor specify strengths and weaknesses of the supervisee?

• Does the Supervisor specifically help with accessing and integrating emotion and with shaping enactments using the moves of the EFT Tango?

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Additional helps for the journey:

• To get support with how to record your sessions, click HERE.

• Before ever recording sessions, be sure to have your clients sign a Consent to Record and Observe form. Here is asampleyou may personalize for your practice. An alternate version is this one by ICEEFT.

• Great headset with noise-canceling microphone for using with your sessions: Logitech USB Headset H390 with Noise Cancelling Mic. You can hear your clients well, you can go soft, slow, and low, and they can hear you well still, and you can adjust the levels and mute briefly if needed, etc.

• For certification as a therapist (not as a supervisor), it is a requirement as part of submitting our application to ICEEFT that we therapists type verbatims (“transcripts”) of our two 20-minute video clips. It is a pain, and it is invaluable since we learn so much from the process of slowing down and stepping back to analyze our own work, typing out the words, identifying the interventions we used (labeling each one), and reflecting on what we would like to have done differently. Transcription pedals are REALLY helpful for this (unless you are paying a medical transcriptionist to do it securely and getting permission from the clients!). There are many options out there for transcription pedals. Here is oneI found helpful when I was going through the process. (If you live in the Central PA area, I am glad to loan mine. Just reach out!)

• The Infinity Digital Foot Control pedal works with a software that can be found on the website  

  https://transcribe.wreally.com/. The software is designed to allow you to slow down the video to the speed you can type and just use your foot to move it forward while your hands are freed up to type. And it does it securely since it just works on your computer (and the text you type stays on your computer, not going to their website; all offline). If you can manage to set aside a chunk of time, you can get a 1 week free trial and type the two twenty minute video segments in that time (or, you can pay the $20/year).