17: Susan Johnson - Part 2
Welcome to Part 2 of my conversation with SUSAN JOHNSON, inventor of Emotionally Focused Therapy, or EFT, which is an evidence based therapy for couples that she's been developing and refining for more than30 years. How do you develop and refine a psychological intervention? Well, on the one hand, you spend a lot of time working with your intervention targets—in Sue's case, romantic couples in distress. On the other hand, you put a lot of time and energy into subjecting the intervention to scientific studies, not only to see whether it works, but to pick apart HOW it works, what the mechanisms are. Sue's work has influenced thousands of therapists and couples over the past several decades, and her work continues to this day, as professor emeritus at the University of Ottawa, as founder of the International Centre for Excellence in Emotionally Focused Therapy, and as inductee into the very prestigious Order of Canada in recognition of her profound service to her adopted country.In the last episode, I mentioned her books HOLD ME TIGHT and LOVE SENSE. I advise you to check them out if you are interested in sprucing up your relationships and learning a little about what Sue calls the science of love.Sue is certainly passionate and committed to this work, but you'll also find that she's unusually thoughtful about it, too.Sue is a first generation college student who grew up working in a pub, in Chatham, Kent, southeast of London. I think you can hear that background in her, in the way she allows herself a sort of straight-talky candor and accessibility. But don't let that accessibility fool you. Sue is one of our deepest and most sophisticated thinkers.So here in Part 2, we dive a little deeper into the scientific side of Sue's life and into the development of EFT.And we talk a little bit about what life's all about, too.Wisdom, folks. * * * Music for this episode of Circle of Willis was written and performed by Tom Stauffer of Tucson, Arizona.For information about how to purchase Tom’s music, as well as the music of his band THE NEW DRAKES, visit his Amazon page.
Circle of Willis is Produced by Siva Vaidhyanathan and brought brought to you by VQR and the Center for Media and Citizenship. Plus, we're a member of the TEEJ.FM podcast network. Special thanks to VQR Editor Paul Reyes, WTJU FM General Manager Nathan Moore, as well as NPR reporter and co-founder of the very popular podcast Invisibilia, Lulu Miller.
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Jim Coan
From VQR and the Center for Media and Citizenship, this is Circle of Willis with part two of my conversation with clinical scientist Sue Johnson.
Jim Coan
Hey everybody! welcome to part two of my conversation with Sue Johnson, inventor of Emotionally Focused Therapy or EFT. Which is an evidence based therapy for couples that she's been developing and refining for more than 30 years. How do you develop and refine a psychological intervention? Well, on the one hand, you spend a lot of time working with your intervention targets. In Sue's case, that's romantic couples in distress. On the other hand, you put a lot of time and energy into subjecting the intervention to scientific study. Not only to see whether it works, but to pick apart how it works. To see what the mechanisms are. Sue's work has influenced thousands of therapists and couples over the past several decades. And her work continues to this day, as Professor Emeritus at the University of Ottawa, as founder of the International Center for Excellence in Emotionally Focused Therapy, and as inductee into the very prestigious Order of Canada, in recognition of her profound service to her adopted country. And in the last episode, I mentioned her books "Hold me Tight" and "Love Sense," I advise you to check them out if you're interested in sprucing up your relationship a little bit, and learning a little about what Sue calls the Science of Love. Sue is a first generation college student who grew up working in a pub in Chatham, Kent, southeast of London. I think you can hear that background in her, in the way she allows herself a sort of straight talk-y candor and accessibility. But don't let that accessibility fool you. Sue is one of our deepest and most sophisticated thinkers. All right? So here in part two, we dive a little deeper into the scientific side of Sue's life and into the development of EFT. And we talk a little about what life's all about. Wisdom folks.
Sue Johnson
So I went and did it a doctorate in counseling. And when I look at it, I was nuts. I was like-
Jim Coan
Why?
Sue Johnson
I was like a starving kid who suddenly gets a meal put in front of them. I took twice the number of courses I had to take. I took all the courses in clinical psych as well as counseling, and as well as some in social work. And-
Jim Coan
You were, you were hungry.
Sue Johnson
I was hungry. And then I started working with couples at this clinic in town. And I'd run groups I'd done individual therapy, I'd done families at the maples. But when I started working with couples, I was just mesmerized. I was totally didn't know what to do. I couldn't find anything, the library that helped, I found a whole bunch of stuff about teaching people to problem solve and make deals about the behaviors they were going to exchange. And then I found a whole bunch of stuff about giving them insight, analytic insight into their past. None of that helped at all. So I was flying by the seat of my pants, but I was completely caught and fascinated. And I started working with these couples, and I started taping them, and watching the tapes, and learning from the couples. And then Les Greenberg was, became my advisor because he was interested in psychotherapy and, and process research and how change happened.
Jim Coan
And also one of the only people at the time who's taking emotion seriously.
Sue Johnson
Yes. He basically said emotion matters.
Jim Coan
Yeah.
Sue Johnson
And so gradually from watching all these couples in these tapes, I started writing down what I did that seemed to work. And when I think about it, the first manual was like eight pages. That was it. And just to show you how driven I was, I started doing it and it started to get, getting more systematic and Les said, "Well, you have to do a thesis. So I want you to do this process study, you know of individual therapy."
Jim Coan
How it works.
Sue Johnson
Yes. And I, I said no. I want to take this little manual thing, and I want to do an outcome study and he said, "No, I don't do outcome studies. And I'm not interested in that." And I said "well, that's what I'm gonna do. And I'm gonna get the money for I'm going to do it." And he said "well oh right then," and I can't even tell you... It was completely ridiculous, stupid and insane.
Jim Coan
What was?
Sue Johnson
I mean the whole thing-
Jim Coan
And also can Can I Can I just? Can we put this in historical perspective?
Sue Johnson
There was nothing out there.
Jim Coan
Well, so what was available at that time for couple's therapy?
Sue Johnson
Oh! Dick Stuart talking about making deals with people "you do the washing up and I'll do-"
Jim Coan
So exchange?
Sue Johnson
Yep.
Jim Coan
And was this part of the behavioral marital therapy?
Sue Johnson
Yes, Neil Jacobson-
Jim Coan
Neil Jacobson.
Sue Johnson
-who I used to drive down to watch in Seattle, he let me sit in the back of his-
Jim Coan
You know, I worked with Neil for a little for a while.
Sue Johnson
-well he let me sit in the... Funny with Neil. I phone Neil up and I said, "I'm a graduate student at UBC and I, I'd like to come sit in the back of your supervisions. I know you have clinical supervisions. Once a week, I'll drive down."
Jim Coan
Yeah.
Sue Johnson
"Would you let me?" and he says "no, go away." So I went to a conference somewhere around this time. Neil Jacobson stood up and gave a talk. And he made pronouncements all over the place. So you got to understand that I was on fire.
Jim Coan
Yeah, I'm getting that picture.
Sue Johnson
Like so. I didn't have any sense of how ridiculous this was on some level, okay?
Jim Coan
That's the- that's the utility of naivete.
Sue Johnson
Yeah, okay.
Jim Coan
That's how it works for us.
Sue Johnson
So, Neil Jacobson at the end of his big presentation stands up and says, "Are there any questions?" So this is me, okay? I stand up and say, "Yes, I have six."
Jim Coan
And this is what 1985, 1983?
Sue Johnson
No... yeah. Something like that. So I suggest I have six. I remember... I can't remember what they were, but I know there was six. And he says, and he's amused you see, he says-
Jim Coan
Sure.
Sue Johnson
"-You have six?" And I say "yes, I have six." And I asked him all these questions. He can't answer any of them.
Jim Coan
You don't remember any of the questions?
Sue Johnson
No, I can't remember. So I say-
Jim Coan
I'm on the edge of my seat here!
Sue Johnson
I'm very sorry, but it was something like "I'm very sorry but there's your theory says this, but what I see you is doing than that. And that doesn't fit with the theory. And also I don't understand how this works, because it completely goes against this and that's and so could you explain to me why this would be a good thing to do when in fact, it seems to me obvious." And I was- the nuns taught me, they taught me...
Sue Johnson
Now the nuns are hounding Neil Jacobson.
Sue Johnson
Now the nuns- the nuns taught me how to make a logical argument. And Neil Jacobson looked at me, like...
Jim Coan
It could go two ways with Neil. He would either be enraged or-
Sue Johnson
He was enraged. And then outside at coffee break, he comes up to me and he says, "Who are you? "I remember that because I was scared to death.
Jim Coan
He would learn.
Sue Johnson
And I said, "I'm the lady from Vancouver who asked to come and sit in the back of your clinical supervisions and you said no," he said, "hmph, you can come." So I started going-
Jim Coan
So-so he was enraged, but he invited you to his-
Sue Johnson
Yes because I think he was intrigued. So I started going down and sitting in the back of his supervisions. And he, and he agreed to help me do this study, which he thought was a joke. I mean, he thought it was a joke. He said, "Oh, I'll help you. You know, I know, you know, five good CBT therapist in Vancouver, they'll do the CBT bit while you do this, what do you call it? This funny little emotion thing?"
Jim Coan
What did you call it?
Sue Johnson
We call it Emotionally Focused Therapy. Yes. "So what do you call it? That's what you call it. So I know, I'll help you if you like," but it was very patronizing and he would make a joke out of the fact that I disagree with him. Like he'd say something to his students, "like you can make deals for affairs."
Jim Coan
Yeah.
Sue Johnson
Right? You can make a deal for an affair. And then he looked at me and he said, "but I bet you don't agree with that, do you sue?" And I was quite...
Jim Coan
That's the dumbest idea in the universe.
Sue Johnson
Well I would stand up say-
Jim Coan
What are you talking about Neil?
Sue Johnson
"-Absolutely not, of course, I don't agree with that completely doesn't work. And I don't see why." So then he would laugh, you see, and all the students would laugh. And I was just, when I think about it, there was no real validation, except for the fact that I would go in and work with these couples and they'd get better.
Jim Coan
Well, that's the- that's the proof in the pudding, right?
Sue Johnson
So we did this study, okay? And I thought if we got any results at all, it would be really good because EFT in the form it was there in those days was pretty damn basic. We did this study, and it was damned hard. I mean, I nearly ended up in the hospital. We did 45. We had a control group, 15 in the EFT group, 15 in the behavioral group- and in the behavioral group, the BMT was done very well, and Neil sent somebody up from Seattle to make sure it was done well. And we had weight control. And I nearly ended up in hospital because it was ridiculous. And I had an amazing helper called Giesler and I don't know where she went in life. But we killed ourselves. We worked all the hours God made for seven months. And we did the whole damn thing in seven months. So, I don't know what I expected. But I did the stats. And in those days, you had to run off these sheets of data from, right? So I remember printing all this stuff off at night. And I look at the results, and I go, "No, there's a mistake. That's impossible. There's a mistake." So I think, oh shit if there's a mistake, where the hell's my- So by this time, I've done all kinds of stats classes, right? So I go back, I pour over it, I can't find any mistakes. I go "what the hell, it must have been entered wrong." I go back and look at any mistakes. So okay, just run it again. I ran it three times. Shit, this stuff fucking works!
Jim Coan
Oh brother. How did Neil, take that?
Sue Johnson
Well that was really funny. Because I remember Les Greenberg and I - I had written it up in my, in my thesis by this point - I was about to graduate and Neil came up to Vancouver to give a workshop. And Les said to me, "who's going to tell him? Am I going to tell him? You're going to tell him?" I said, "I don't know. I don't want to tell him. I'm the student. You're supposed to be the thesis advisor."
Jim Coan
Because he's gonna freak out.
Sue Johnson
I know, he said, "You tell him." I said "alright, I'll tell him." So then we were in a pub. And Neil's just done a big workshop for-
Jim Coan
Which is perfect for you.
Sue Johnson
Yes. It's just perfect.
Jim Coan
You're on home turf.
Sue Johnson
Yes. So, we've just done- Neil's just you've done this big workshop. And he's got a triple scotch, which is a lot. A triple scotch is a-
Jim Coan
That's a good amount of scotch.
Sue Johnson
So he's sitting there in front of him. And he says to me- again, it's very patronizing, right? He says, because you know, I'm female and I'm really used to as an English working class woman. I'm used to being underestimated, right? Yeah.
Jim Coan
Right, right.
Sue Johnson
So he says to me with this sort of patronizing voice, "oh, Sue, and how's your little study going?"
Jim Coan
Oh, God. Stop it!
Sue Johnson
And I said, "it's done." And he said, "it's done?" Because he told me you'll never finish this study. You just can't do it, right? He said, "it's done? But you only started it seven months ago?" I said, "Yes. It's it's done. It's done and it's analyzed." So and he sort of clears his throat a bit and he says, "oh, and what were the results?" And I said, "both CBT- your version of CBT and EFT were better than controls on all variables. And EFT was significantly better than CBT in effectiveness on all variables as well, except one" I think there was one that wasn't...
Jim Coan
Yeah.
Sue Johnson
And he said, "Oh," like it didn't matter at all. And then the game changed. And he wanted me to come to Seattle and he wanted me to tell him what I did that was different from him, so that he could tack it on the end of his interventions. And I said, "You can't do that, because I come from a totally different frame than you and you can't you can't just tack a technique on the end."
Jim Coan
It's not that way. It's a completely different paradigm.
Sue Johnson
It's a completely different way of thinking. And I think that's an issue that I've always had with my behavioral colleagues. They think in techniques, they think in terms of manipulating people from the outside in. And they want to just smack another technique on. CBT for couples is based on economic theory of relationships, which is all about profit, loss, cost.
Jim Coan
Yeah.
Sue Johnson
That's what it's about. And I said, "couples don't work like that." So then see, here's the issue is though he would say to me, I would say couples don't work like that. He would say to me, "well, then how do you know how couples work?" And then in "Hold me Tight" I actually put this in. This is one of the most significant things that happened in in my life. I went to a conference after my thesis was in and I had my doctorate and I think I'd already got the job at Ottawa University. And the thesis was getting published in the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psych. And we were in Banff, listening to Neil and Neil stood up and basically said, "relationships are a deal and you can negotiate for anything. They're bargains." So Les Greenberg and I went into this bar and Les says to me, "Well, what's wrong with what he said?" And I said, "everything's wrong with what he said. He doesn't understand relationships. They're not just- you can't just manipulate people's behaviors. This... there's something intrinsic to relationships. He doesn't understand relationships."
Jim Coan
The relationship is its own reward.
Sue Johnson
Right! So he doesn't understand relationships. So Les said "Well, we what if- if relationships aren't bargains, what are they?" And I said, "they're emotional bonds, silly."
Jim Coan
So this gets to the broader framework. So-so you know, when I think about that time, that that mid 80s time, so many things are about to happen in psychology generally around this frame.
Sue Johnson
Well, you see, it wasn't happening. Attachment was about mothers and infants. And that's all.
Jim Coan
That's right.
Sue Johnson
As I sit there in that pub, it was 1986.
Jim Coan
1986.
Sue Johnson
As, as I sit, no, it was 1985. As I sit there in that pub, the words came out of my mouth, "they're emotional bonds." And suddenly my brain leaped to this stuff that I'd read about John Bowlby. And I went back home, and I dived into Bowlby and I thought, my God.
Jim Coan
There's the organizational framework.
Sue Johnson
They're the same. This is it.
Jim Coan
Yeah.
Sue Johnson
Romantic love isn't attachment bond, my God. So I wrote up a little article, and I sent it the Journal of Marriage and Family Therapy, and it didn't hear and I didn't hear and I didn't hear. Then I got a letter from Al Gurman.
Jim Coan
Al Gurman!
Sue Johnson
Yep. And he said, "Dear Sue, it's been quite fascinating. Every time I sent it out for review, the results of the same. I've sent it out," I think you said four times, I can't remember now but he said, "I've sent it out a number of times. Half the people love it, and half of them absolutely hate it." So he said, "so I can't send it out anymore. I like it, so I'm publishing it."
Jim Coan
That's Al Gurman.
Sue Johnson
And you see bonds are bargains is the first time in the couple therapy literature - It's actually I think, the first time in the adult literature - that anybody actually dared to say, romantic love isn't an attachment bond. And then a year later, Phil Shaver-
Jim Coan
Phil Shaver, yeah I was going to say.
Sue Johnson
-And Cindy Hazan came out with an article. And then another year later, they came out with another article. And it was literally this slow. And I started improving EFT, I got a job at Ottawa U, I started doing more studies, I started refining EFT, and writing about it more, and getting more and more convinced by attachment. But adult attachment was like nowhere! It was, there just wasn't there was Mary Main starting to talk about coherent frames of mind. But that was very analytic.
Jim Coan
Yes. And it was all about sort of the original attachment.
Sue Johnson
That's right.
Jim Coan
Re-playing the analytic piece.
Sue Johnson
That's right. And it was, and all the attachment clinicians that's - there weren't many - and all they were talking about was that you learn to be a certain way in childhood, and then just repeat it all through your adult life. And I thought, well, that's not true because my couples change.
Jim Coan
Yeah.
Sue Johnson
They tell me "that I've learned this way all my life. But now I'm understanding" your- and like so my, my couples are the people who really taught me, okay?
Jim Coan
Yeah.
Sue Johnson
And so, I started, I connected with Phil Shaver, and he started inviting me to conferences. And I would be, it was very intimidating. I was-
Jim Coan
And he's a very different kind of researcher than you are. I mean, he's-
Sue Johnson
Yes!
Jim Coan
He's like, also a little bit like a freight train. You know, he's just, he's got his momentum.
Sue Johnson
He's a freight train, alright. But he would say, "Sue, you will-"
Jim Coan
And a lovely guy.
Sue Johnson
-yes, he's a lovely guy. "Sue, you will come to this conference." So I show up, I'd show up. And I'd be like, I remember one on Long Island where I thought, bloody hell. I'm like, I'm here on this panel with all these developmental and social psychologists. I am the only clinician here. And Everett Waters was having a big fight with Phil Shaver about something and Phil was going red in the face and Everett Waters was doing the Mary Main school and Phil Shaver was doing the social psychological version of adult attachment which-
Jim Coan
Which he was inventing.
Sue Johnson
Well, he was inventing it as I was talking to him and-and as far as I was concerned, he was on the money. And then Everett Waters, I remember, turned to me out of the blue at this damn conference where I'm just on this panel of like, I don't know 15 academics or something, and said to me, "you will present tomorrow morning on how this works out in clinical cases." And I'm like, bloody hell! Like, I don't know anything about attachment, I'm not behave- I'm not a developmental person. I'm not - but I did! I said "Alright then." I presented a case. Right? And Phil was great. Phil was always open and interested and fascinated and then I met Mario Mikulincer-
Jim Coan
Oh yeah, yeah. Mario.
Sue Johnson
-and we started dialoguing and the field of adult attachment grew, and EFT grew, and my lab in Ottawa grew. And as it went along, you know, I've would- in the early 90s, I was trying to write articles on adult attachment for Journal of Marriage and Family Therapy, and I couldn't get them published.
Sue Johnson
Yeah.
Sue Johnson
I couldn't get them published. And I remember going to a conference in Atlanta, the American Association of Marital and Family Therapy, and it was all narrative therapy. And I remember doing a presentation where I stood up and I started talking about how you could not just focus on cognition, you had to pay attention to emotion. And a third of the people left the room. And then I started talking about adult attachment, and how dependency - there was something called constructive dependency, dependency wasn't pathological, even though we use words like emehsment, and fusion, symbiosis, and codependency.
Jim Coan
Yeah.
Sue Johnson
That was actually a mistake! And that we were dependent. And another third of the people left the room. And I think in the end, there were maybe five people left. So I went home, and I said to my husband, "I think I better give this up. It's killing me. I know it works with my couples. I know adult attachment is the most fascinating thing since sliced bread. But nobody wants to know about it. The time is off. Nobody cares."
Jim Coan
This is the early '90s?
Sue Johnson
"I think I'll just, I'll just go and do depression research."
Jim Coan
Oh brother.
Sue Johnson
Yeah. And I went to see Les-
Jim Coan
You get depressed.
Sue Johnson
Yeah, well, I went to see Les Greenberg in-in Toronto. He was in Toronto by that time. And he was doing interesting, he had given up the couples, he, you know, he sort of gone... He was sort of much more into the individual stuff. And he, I said, "can I come and start doing some individual depression research?" He said, "Well, yes, I think that's the best thing to do." And that I went home, and thought - we're being pretty open in this interview - I went home and thought, sod it. I don't care.
Jim Coan
Can you say that? I'm just kidding.
Sue Johnson
You can if you're English working class.
Jim Coan
You already dropped the F bomb.
Sue Johnson
Sod it. Like I said, "I don't give a damn. I don't care about any of them. I don't care about the academics. I don't care about the reviewers. And I don't- and I don't need their bloody research grants. I'll do my own on a shoestring" and all my research studies haven't been done- I remember explaining to John Gottman once that I'd never had a grant bigger than $80,000 and that I'd done all these outcomes studies on my students passion and my passion and nothing. And he was just gobsmacked, right? I thought, "I don't care about any of them. They can all go to hell. I'm going to do this, because this stuff matters." And within a couple of years, something started to shift. Social status psychologists started to listen to the adult attachment stuff. Mario Mikulincer turned into a research machine, like churning out incredible studies, right?
Jim Coan
I remember in the in '93? '93 to '95. I remember, that's when I first learned about attachment, adult attachment-
Sue Johnson
That's right.
Jim Coan
-when I was first. That's when I first heard your name. That's when I first learned about Phil.
Sue Johnson
Yeah.
Jim Coan
And it was in the Gottman lab. And we started using some some of Phil's measures at that time. But yeah, but it was still like this. What is this? You know, it wasn't it wasn't...
Sue Johnson
Well, and then, you know, I started to connect with people like John Gottman, and he was amazing. He came and we- I was at this point, I was at the hospital one day a week, had the marital and family therapy team. And we were seeing all the most... couples with the most huge problems, not just marital distress, but all kinds of other problems, and families, and the most distressed couples and families in Ottawa. And we would see these people - I had a team of like 20 clinicians - and we would see these distressed families, and we would do supervision sessions and consultations and assessments. And, you know, I was doing research studies, and I connected with John Gottman. And he invited me out to talk to his team. And he came and talked in Ottawa, we put on a conference for him. I eventually left the hospital and created our own institute and with the clinicians that I trained at the university and at the hospital. And what I remembered, I thought, you know that John Gottman would be like Neil Jacobson, kind of...
Jim Coan
Yeah. Well, they work together for a long time.
Sue Johnson
...patronizing, and rather just not... So I go out there to this man who's - I really respect his research, right? And I feel like the stuff we're doing is completely consonant with his research on relationship distress. So I go out there, I'm very intimidated. And all I remember is this room where I sat and I talked to all his team and all his students. And what I remember was the silence. Like, the students were all up on, on you know, counters and the chairs the room was absolutely full and everyone was crowded in there. And John was at the end of the table with his chair, his chin on his hand. And I don't think Judy was there, Judy wasn't there. Everyone... And what I remember was the silence. And after a while, I started think "my God," you know? I like like, hey, like, like, maybe, you know, they maybe they know that for some reason I'm crazy, or that all this stuff is rubbish or like... And then at one point, I said, you know, "I've talked to you all day, but nobody said anything. And what do you what do you think?" And John Gottman just looked at me and said something like, "this is completely fascinating." And I thought, oh my god, he likes it. I was like, Mikey in the-
Jim Coan
In the commercial.
Sue Johnson
Yes. In the commercial about the cookies. My God, he likes it! And then we became friends and EFT started to take off from just a little Ottowa clinic. I started to connect with people who wanted to train in other places Scott Woolley, at Alliant University in San Diego said, "would you come down here and teach?" And he said, "Well, what shall we call your training? Why don't you come down for four days?" And I said," Oh, all right. Well, what should we call it?" He says, "I don't know, we could call it an externship in EFT," I said, "alright then." So I come down, and the first time we do it is to get like 20 people in it. And then, you know, Scott's colleagues and students start to get involved, you know, and they start bringing me live couples to work with as part of the externships. And that starts to get really interesting. And then other people on externships. And then suddenly, I'm flying all over the country, which is kind of problematic, because by this time, we've adopted two children.
Jim Coan
Oh, God, yeah.
Sue Johnson
And you know, that was pretty hard. And I didn't do this when they were very small. I wanted to be with them. But they're a little bit older by this time. So suddenly, from nobody wanting to hear me at all, it felt like everyone went nuts. And suddenly narrative isn't the big thing that it used to be. And suddenly, it's not a crime that I do research. In the beginning was like, "You're just a researcher, you're not a clinician."
Jim Coan
Well you can't win. I've noticed that in clinical psychology, you just can't win. If you want to do some research, then you're just research. And if you want to do clinical, then you're just clinic.
Sue Johnson
That's right.
Jim Coan
That whole thing.
Sue Johnson
That's right. So then it started to take off. And the institute, I left the hospital, we had an institute in town, and we decided to cut it in half. Clinical Institute and a not-for-profit organization, that we decided to call ICEEFT.
Jim Coan
Right.
Sue Johnson
The International Center for Excellence in EFT. And I think at that point, I thought, well, we have maybe four or five of us that go around the world. And we maybe we give three or four externships a year in places like New York. And that's not what's happened in the last 12 or so years. I mean, we've got to the point where we have 17 outcome studies in EFT, nine process of change studies, really good follow ups. We've now done a big attachment study with someone called Jim Coan. We've- I've actually even done a brain scan study for God's sake. And that- what was happening there has translated into, we have, ICEEFT has 50 amazing, talented, dedicated trainers who go all over the world. And because we're into attachment, we've deliberately created, I'm not sure any other model of therapy has done this. Maybe Act has, I don't know, maybe Steve Hayes because he talks about community. But we deliberately created learning communities. There's now 45 EFT centers and communities all over the world where clinicians get together, and we had to create a supervision structure and a trainer structure. And then people asked, they wanted to be registered, certified in EFT. And at first I said, "No, no, you know, I hate bureaucracy. I'm not doing that. That's just baloney." And then people kept coming and saying, "No, you can't do this. You've got to, you've got to have a whole training program. And you've got to take us through into competency and then when we get competent, you've got to give us something." So I thought, Oh, bloody hell.
Jim Coan
That's a lot of work.
Sue Johnson
I was trained as a as an adult educator.
Jim Coan
Yeah. So you got-
Sue Johnson
So then that training kicked in. And I thought, Okay, fine. I'll do it.
Jim Coan
We'll do it.
Sue Johnson
So we create, we create a structure we create a whole way of learning EFT. We create better and better trainings, the trainers group grows, we get better and better at training, to the point now where we have actually two research studies on our four day externships. You know, I think, I don't think I'm egotistical. And I say, we give the best training and couple therapy on this planet ever. That's the feedback we get, we get five out of fives on all of our evaluations. And I think it's because we put our heart into it. We're not into it, to make money. And we're not into it to be popular, famous, we're into it. The people who work with me, are driven by the same passion, that keeps me going, and that makes me thrilled when a new couple walk into my sessions and I realize I'm hopefully going to help them. But I'm also going to get to discover things from them, I'm going to learn from them. This passion to understand what human love is about, to link clinically with attachment theory, which is gold. It I can't, it never lets me down.
Jim Coan
Very rich, it's very generative, and very rich.
Sue Johnson
It has never let me down once in a session, it has helped me understand every single client who's walked into my office. I mean, obviously, there are some clients that I can't help in the way I want to help them. But, attachment theory always helps me understand the drama, helps me get my emotional balance, helps me listen to somebody's emotions, helps me see somebody, see past their problem or their diagnosis to who they are. It always takes me to a deeper level. So the people I work with are fueled by that passion. And we are interested in creating communities and taking the field of couple therapy into new places, which we are, I mean, you know, what, I just did a...
Jim Coan
What we opened the conversation with. You're now taking it online.
Sue Johnson
And also, we just, I'm very proud of the fact that the Hold me Tight educational program, which is based on the book, is now being adopted by the Heart Institute in my city.
Jim Coan
The Heart Institute?
Sue Johnson
The Heart Institute came to me and said-
Jim Coan
What is that? Is that like, cardiologists?
Sue Johnson
Yes.
Jim Coan
Oh!
Sue Johnson
It's, they said, "listen, we've read the research that the best predictor of whether you have another heart attack, it's the quality, it's the quality of your most intimate relationship that-that predicts best whether you're going to another. So our patients wives are telling us that we are letting them down. That we are giving all the stress programs to the patients. And in fact, the wives are dying, and the relationships are dying. And when the relationships go downhill, our patients don't take their meds, and they won't turn up to class. And they have another heart attack. So would you come and do this program?" So we're now adapting the Hold me Tight education program based on EFT to things like heart patients, and I've already had people ask me if they can do manuals for postpartum depression, for diabetes-
Jim Coan
Well this is one of the things I need to talk to you about. I just talked with Sue Carter. She was just visiting UVA. And we talked about how if you take basically, essentially any health problem, and you factor in the quality of social relationships-
Sue Johnson
Yeah.
Jim Coan
-for the individual going through that health problem-
Sue Johnson
Yeah.
Jim Coan
-it makes a huge difference.
Sue Johnson
You better believe.
Jim Coan
Yeah, that's right. And, you know, I gotta say, I don't doubt that you have such a great training program going on. I feel the-that passion you're talking about. That's one of the great things about knowing you Sue. Because I sense that real interest in what you were doing and what this was all about. I think that's, that's one of the key ingredients in making not only something prosocial really happen, but also one of the key ingredients in grasping for better understanding, deeper understanding. You gotta want it.
Sue Johnson
Yeah it's got to be like a hunger. It's so interesting because people say, "Well, why did you leave England?" And it's very hard to explain. I mean, I felt imprisoned, I felt constrained. But I also felt starved. And I think what I said to myself is, "it doesn't matter too much if I have a happy life, or an easy life. But I want a rich life. I want to be alive. And I can't be alive here. So I have to get out." And I think that has always pulled me in my life to go for what's rich, you know and what's really interesting is now, at this advanced age. I mean, I do crazy things in my life, right?
Jim Coan
You got wisdom.
Sue Johnson
Yeah. Like, you know, I decide to adopt two children and my wonderful husband goes along with me, and I've made these crazy leaps in my life. So about eight years ago, I decided to learn Argentine Tango, which is really stupid okay? If you've never danced in your life, you have no balance. You have the coordination of a large snail. Argentine Tango, if people don't know, it is a bloody complicated dance. And it's much more - it's not ballroom dancing on steroids - it's like it's it's not over sexualized nonsense like you see on Dancing with the Stars. It's a very intricate, complex, intimate conversation that happens to music in a in a period in a in a 15 minute period of time because you dance four dances with somebody in a row. And the reason for that is it takes you one dance often to tune in. But what fascinates me is, put it into movement. It's the same thing as you do in therapy in your dream relationships. And it plugs me in, like, I went and watched... at the first one. And I sat there and I thought, Okay. There's something magical happening in this room. This isn't ballroom dancing, these people aren't following set steps and patterns. So how the hell did these people move together? In all these different movements on time, in the same way, in complete synchrony? How do they do that? I want to do that. So I went to my Tango teacher, and he said, what I knew, "well, basically, you're too old, you have no balance, your coordination is terrible. You've never danced before. This is crazy." And I said, "Yes. So shut up and teach me." And he said, "Well, what makes you think you can do this?" I said, well, "first of all, there's something here, that's the same as my work."
Jim Coan
Yeah, you've got, you've got that.
Sue Johnson
And I'm passionate. But also, I'm just me. So I'll just work 18 times harder than everyone else, and I'll do it. And when I dance, it's the same kind of discovery as when you sit with a couple, and they move into their emotions, which they don't know about. And that's unfamiliar to them. And they don't understand the dance they're doing together. And you go in with them. And suddenly, a new piece of music emerges. And somebody does a new step. And the other person instead of blocking them, or moving away from them, and going off balance, joins them. And suddenly this beautiful new thing happens. And that's just like tango, but so it's, there's something there about human connection, and disconnection that fascinates me. And I think it really did start in the pub.
Jim Coan
I was just going to say it reminds me of you, watching your dad have that conversation with the person visiting the pub.
Sue Johnson
That's right.
Jim Coan
And seeing that, that emotional dimension in addition to that informational exchange.
Sue Johnson
That's right. And you know, that pub wasn't really the cliche of a pub, it was actually a community center. The old people would come in, and my dad would give them a beer and they'd sit with one beer, and they'd play drafts and they talk to each other. And everyone would go up and talk. "Hello, Lil, how you doing lil? How's your cat?" "My cat is fine." I mean, I basically didn't say anything. They didn't say anything.
Jim Coan
Oh, I know.
Sue Johnson
But it's- but it's about community and connection
Jim Coan
It's about community and connection.
Sue Johnson
You know, we went on holiday to Morocco. And on the one hand, I've gone through all the books in Morocco. And I've, I've looked at all the historical facts about Morocco. And I understand what I want to buy in Morocco. And I'm, I'm a typical tourist, you know? I'm sort of devouring Morocco from this sort of consumer point of view. And somebody said to me, "what is the most important moment that happened?" And all I remember, and this is what we're talking about, okay? Is I was it was in Meknes, and I was walking through this souk, and there's women, elderly ladies occasionally begging. And there's this figure of this old woman all hunched over. You can't see her face. And her she's holding her hands above her head in supplication. She wants arms. And we walk past her, and I and suddenly I can't walk past her and I say to my husband, "give me all the money- how much money we got?" So we haven't got hardly any money. We've only got about $5. "Give it all to me." "Don't do this." "Shut up, give the money." But so I take the money. And I go over and I can't even remember how I knew this, but somebody had taught me the Arabic for "bless your mother," right? No, not bless you something like "this is for you, mother" I knew a little bit of Arabic. So I I say to her, I put the money in her hands. And I say to her, "this is for you, mother." Right? Now she's a stranger. I don't know who she is. Right? She looks up at me, I can't talk about this without crying. She looks up at me and imperfect English, she says go "God bless you, my child." And that's all I really remember about Morocco. Because that's it. I mean, that's what matters in life. And I burst into tears. My husband came and grabbed me. And all I remember is, suddenly I'm in this stupid tourist bus and I don't give a freak about the tourists book anymore. Or the trinkets I bought in the market. And that's it. I mean, that's what life's all about, isn't it?
Jim Coan
Yep.
Sue Johnson
What else is it about? I don't know.
Jim Coan
There's nothing else that it's about.
Sue Johnson
So we have to study that. Because without that life's meaningless, isn't it? This is what we have to understand. And you know what, Jim, if we don't understand this, we're going to die as a species. So psychology as far as I'm concerned, needs to get off it's bloody academic. And teach people this stuff.
Jim Coan
You know, one of my old mentors, we'll close with this. One of my old mentors said to me, literally a week before he died, he was, he was struggling with cancer and ... crest. He said, "you know, the problem with psychologists is that they're not interested enough in what people really do."
Jim Coan
In what people really do!
Jim Coan
So let's go to the pub.
Sue Johnson
Yes, that's right.
Jim Coan
Thank you, Sue.
Jim Coan
Okay, folks, that's a wrap! Part two is over. And with that we say farewell for now to Sue Johnson. And thanks to of course, for her candor, and passion. And for all the hard work she's logged in order to make life a little bit better for all of us. Thank you, Sue. I couldn't be happier that I get to talk and think and laugh with you like this. Folks, the music for this episode of Circle of Willis was written and performed by Tom Stauffer of Tucson, Arizona. For information about how to purchase Tom's music, as well as the music of his band the New Drake's check the about page at circleofwillispodcast.com. Circle of Willis is produced by Siva Vaidhyanathan and brought to you by VQR in the Center for Media and Citizenship at the University of Virginia. And Circle of Willis is a member of the TEEJ.FM Podcast Network. Find out more about that at Teej.fm (now wtju.net). Special thanks to VQR Editor Paul Reyes, WTJU FM General Manager Nathan Moore, as well as NPR reporter and co founder of the very popular podcast invisibilia, Lulu Miller. If you liked this podcast, how about giving us a little review at iTunes and letting us know how we're doing? It's super easy, and we'd like it. Okay? We really do, so do that. It's easy, like I said already. Or go the more direct route by sending us an email at circleofwillispod@gmail.com. That's circleofwillispod@gmail.com. You can also contact us by visiting circleofwillispodcast.com and clicking on the Contact tab. Sometimes it feels like I can't breathe, because I'm saying too many words. Stay tuned, folks. I'm feeling like we're on a bit of a roll here at the old podcast headquarters. Next up is my conversation with Brian Noseck, social psychologist, open science advocate, and indeed the founder and director of the Center for Open Science right here in Charlottesville. As always, lots more to think about. Until then, bye bye.