Emotion-focused prayer with an emotion friendly God – My exploration of prayer with EFT techniques as a Chinese Christian counsellor

ABSTRACT This research is a self-as-subject heuristic inquiry, designed to provide in-depth qualitative data on the incorporation of a spiritual dimension into an experiential counseling approach. Training in the UK exposed my emotional block to anger, once hidden in a home culture and a Chinese Christian community. I was stuck in a position where I needed the relational capacity to form a trusting therapeutic relationship for therapy to work and yet did not have that very capacity to trust any therapist. Both Emotion-focused therapy (EFT) procedures and Christian prayer healing contributed to a breakthrough on my work with the emotional block, which fascinated and motivated me to explore the integration of the two. My personal interest in searching for therapeutic change mechanisms led me to find God as an emotion friendly Person who was helping me to become such a person. This paper aims to lend perspectives to therapists who work with clients who have a personal relationship with their God, even if the therapist has a different belief system.