Couples therapy · Belgrade, abroad and online
EFT couples therapy in Belgrade: finding a different way to connect
EFT couples therapy helps you understand what happens between you, especially in the moments when you care deeply about each other and still end up feeling increasingly alone.
- Belgrade
- Abroad
- Online
- English
- Serbian · Croatian · Bosnian
Are you there for me?
Understanding what happens between you
One of us tries to explain what hurts. The other hears criticism and begins to defend themselves. We repeat ourselves, become more insistent, or bring up everything we have been holding back. Our partner becomes quieter, more distant, or more determined to prove that we have misunderstood. Eventually, we may stop talking without feeling that anything has been resolved.
Sometimes there is little visible conflict. We manage work, children, responsibilities, and everyday decisions, while gradually losing the sense that we can turn towards each other with what matters most.
In EFT couples therapy, we make room for both the difficulties you bring and the experience of being together while you speak about them. We pay attention to what happens when you feel unheard, when closeness becomes uncomfortable, when a conversation escalates, or when one of you can no longer find words.
Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy offers a framework for understanding these moments and working towards a more secure emotional connection. Depending on the therapist’s training and your needs, our work may also integrate relational and somatic psychotherapy. We offer couples therapy in Belgrade, abroad and online, in English and in our local languages.
What is Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy
Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy, often abbreviated to EFT or EFCT, is an approach grounded in attachment theory, experiential psychotherapy, and a systemic understanding of relationships. It emerged from the work of Sue Johnson and Les Greenberg in the 1980s; the attachment oriented couples model was subsequently developed extensively by Johnson.1
Attachment, in this context, concerns how we experience closeness, separation, dependence, and emotional availability in important relationships. We explore what happens when we need support and are uncertain whether our partner will respond.
Some of the questions we may encounter in EFT couples therapy are very ordinary:
- Can I come to you when things get hard?
- Will you take me seriously?
- Can I disagree with you and still feel close to you?
- When we hurt each other, can we find a way to come back?
EFT brings attention to the emotional experience and patterns of interaction that shape the answers.
Understanding the pattern you become caught in
A recurring argument has a history, a context, and a sequence. We try to understand all three. Imagine a couple discussing a cancelled evening together.
One partner says“You always have time for everyone else.”
The other replies“Nothing I do is ever enough.”
The conversation quickly becomes a debate about schedules, fairness, and who has made more effort. In one possible version of this interaction, the first partner is struggling to say that they miss feeling important. The second feels that their efforts have become invisible and begins to protect themselves through explanation or withdrawal.
These are possibilities to explore, rather than meanings we assume. A similar conversation in another relationship may concern an unequal workload, repeated broken agreements, or a legitimate boundary that is being dismissed.
We look carefully at your particular sequence:
- 1What happened first?
- 2What did you notice?
- 3What meaning did you make of your partner’s response?
- 4What did you feel in your body?
- 5What did you do next, and how did that affect the other person?
Over time, this can help you recognise the pattern earlier. You may begin to notice, “I am pressing harder because I feel you moving away,” or, “I am becoming silent because I feel overwhelmed and expect that whatever I say will make things worse.”
Recognising a pattern gives us something specific to work with. It also creates an opportunity to take responsibility for our own actions while understanding how we affect each other.
We do not assume that partners have fixed roles. The same person may pursue contact in one situation and withdraw in another.
If you recognise your own pattern here, you are welcome to write to us. A few sentences are enough.
No magic wand: what the therapist does, and what only you can do
Couples sometimes hope that the therapist will finally decide who is right, or fix the relationship for them. EFT couples therapy does not work that way, and no honest approach can promise that. There is no magic wand.
The therapist does not solve your problems on your behalf. Our task is to help each of you be heard by the other, especially in the moments when you usually stop listening, and to help you learn to see what you need, and what your partner needs, underneath the argument.2
The change itself happens between you. It grows from what you try, notice, and repeat in everyday life, in the conversations after a session as much as in the session itself. Your own work on the relationship is what matters most.
So that you can hear each other
We slow the conversation down until each of you can say what is really happening, and the other can actually take it in.
So that you can see your needs
Under criticism, defence, or silence there are usually needs: to matter, to feel safe, to be respected. We help you recognise them, in yourself and in your partner.
So that you can do the work
The therapist accompanies you. The steps towards each other are yours, and that is exactly why the change can last.
What makes EFT couples therapy distinctive
Different approaches to couples therapy can be helpful. The particular emphasis of EFT couples therapy is on changing the emotional interactions through which partners experience connection, distress, and repair.
We work with the relationship as it happens in the room
You may already understand your difficulties very well. You may have read about attachment, discussed your childhoods, and agreed many times that you need to communicate differently.
We pay attention to the moment when that understanding becomes difficult to use. Perhaps your partner’s expression changes and you immediately expect rejection. Perhaps you begin preparing your defence before they have finished speaking.
We may pause there. We explore what is happening, check our understanding with you, and help you find words for an experience that would otherwise pass straight into the familiar argument.
We support new conversations between you
The therapist may invite you to speak directly to your partner about something you have just discovered in yourself. This is sometimes called an enactment: a carefully supported exchange in the session.3
It might involve saying, “When you stop responding, I feel alone, and I become frightened that I no longer matter,” or, “I want to stay in this conversation, but I need us to slow down enough for me to think.”
Your partner also receives support in noticing what they hear and how they respond. These exchanges are paced according to your readiness. Emotional exposure is not something you owe the therapist.
Understanding comes with accountability
We can understand the fear or shame surrounding a reaction while still addressing its consequences.
Feeling abandoned does not make intimidation acceptable. Feeling overwhelmed does not remove responsibility for disappearing from an important conversation without explanation. Where agreements have been broken, practical changes and consistent behaviour matter.
Our aim is to help you understand your responses well enough to develop more choice in how you act.
How the work develops
EFT couples therapy is commonly described through three broad stages. Your process may move back and forth between them as different concerns emerge.
Reducing escalation and understanding your cycle
Initially, we work towards a shared understanding of the difficulties and enough safety to explore them. We identify recurring interactions, the circumstances in which they arise, and what each of you experiences within them. We also assess whether joint therapy is appropriate and clarify your goals.
A meaningful early change might be recognising that a conversation is becoming overwhelming and agreeing how to pause and return to it. For another couple, it may involve making room for anger that has previously been dismissed.
Developing different emotional responses
As the work progresses, we help you express experiences that are difficult to communicate and explore how your partner receives them. You may begin to speak about hurt without immediately becoming accusatory, or stay present with your partner’s disappointment without assuming that you must defend your entire character.
This stage involves repeated experiences. One moving session does not automatically establish trust. We consider what happens afterwards and whether new responses become possible outside therapy.
Bringing changes into everyday life
Later work helps you use these developments in the situations that previously caused difficulty. We return to questions about intimacy, parenting, money, boundaries, family relationships, and everyday responsibilities. We explore how you recognise difficulties sooner, repair ruptures, and ask for support.
Before ending EFT couples therapy, we review what has changed and what still needs attention. Not sure which stage you are in? Write to us.
Recognising a pattern gives us something specific to work with.
Integrating EFT with relational and somatic psychotherapy
Some of our therapists combine EFT couples therapy with additional training in relational and body oriented psychotherapy. The combination depends on the individual therapist’s qualifications, their clinical assessment, and what is useful for you.
A relational perspective
We include attention to what happens between you and the therapist. If one of you feels less understood, judged, rushed, or excluded, that experience matters. We invite you to bring it into the work so that we can examine our part in it and make adjustments.
Somatic attention
We make room for bodily experience alongside words. You might notice a tightening chest, held breath, a restless urge to leave, or difficulty staying mentally present during a particular exchange.
We may invite you to notice these changes, find a more comfortable position, orient to the room, or slow the conversation. We ask what the experience means to you. A posture, silence, or physical sensation does not have one universal psychological meaning.
For example, if you become very quiet, we might ask whether you feel settled, overwhelmed, disconnected, uncertain, or something else entirely. Your account guides our understanding.
We also respect the difference between choosing a pause and being pressured to remain in an interaction you cannot safely tolerate. Any body focused exercise is explained and optional; touch between partners is never required.
A 2022 process study found that therapist interventions drawing attention to bodily expressions of emotion were followed by deeper emotional experiencing.5 The research supporting EFT should therefore be distinguished from evidence for any particular integration used by an individual therapist.
Our therapists’ EFT training
Our therapists who provide EFT couples therapy in Belgrade, abroad and online have undertaken training with two ICEEFT certified EFT therapists, supervisors, and trainers.
Kyriaki Polychroni
ICEEFT certified EFT therapist, supervisor, and trainer, and the scientific lead of the EFT Greek Network.
Bojan Vuković
ICEEFT certified EFT therapist, supervisor, and trainer, and the founder and president of the Centre for Emotionally Focused Therapy of Serbia.
Therapists within our practice have different professional backgrounds and levels of further training. Participation in EFT training and full ICEEFT certification are distinct qualifications. You can write to us and ask about the specific training, supervision, and certification status of the therapist you would be working with.
We consider professional development and supervision part of responsible clinical practice. Each therapist bears their own personal professional and ethical responsibility for their work with you.
Why do we record EFT couples therapy sessions?
With both partners’ informed written consent, we record EFT couples therapy sessions to support the therapist’s review of the work and, where separately agreed, professional supervision. Recording is always your choice. Open each part to read more.
What a recording allows the therapist to do
Couples sessions contain a great deal of information. The therapist follows two people’s accounts, the interaction between you, and their own interventions. A recording allows them to return to a moment, listen again, and examine something more carefully than memory or notes alone would permit.
They might review a point where one of you became quieter, a response that seemed helpful but was followed by withdrawal, or a conversation in which the therapist moved too quickly.
Recordings also allow the therapist to examine their own contribution. Did they understand both partners? Did their wording unintentionally place more responsibility on one person? Did they interrupt a useful exchange, overlook an attempt to reconnect, or miss an opportunity to check whether you felt understood?
This review takes place outside your appointment. Depending on the clinical work, it may involve watching selected sections, revisiting difficult moments several times, making notes, and preparing questions for supervision.
A recording is a resource for careful clinical reflection. It does not provide an objective explanation of everything happening between you, and your therapist still needs to check their understanding with you.
What your fee supports beyond the appointment
The time you spend with your therapist is one part of the professional work involved in couples therapy.
Your fee also supports preparation, clinical documentation, reflection, and the supervision and continuing development that sustain the therapist’s practice. Where recording and review have been agreed, this includes time devoted to studying your sessions.
That work can extend over additional hours across the course of therapy. A therapist may return repeatedly to a short exchange, consider it in the context of previous sessions, and discuss a clinical question with a supervisor before your next meeting.
The amount of review varies according to the work. We do not imply that every appointment is followed by a fixed number of hours of video analysis. We explain the arrangements relevant to your therapist, including what is included in the fee and any separately charged service, before you agree to begin.
How recordings can support supervision
Supervision gives the therapist a space to examine clinical decisions with another qualified professional.
With specific consent for this use, a recording or selected excerpt can allow a supervisor to observe the interaction directly. They can consider the therapist’s timing, language, and responses alongside the couple’s experience in the session.
This provides a different kind of information from the therapist’s verbal account. It may help identify assumptions, missed moments, or alternative interventions worth considering.
Supervision remains possible without a recording. The therapist can discuss the work using appropriate confidentiality safeguards and clinical notes. Consent to recording for the therapist’s own review does not automatically authorise sharing with a supervisor, a training group, or a certification assessor.
Confidentiality and your written agreements
Before therapy begins, both partners receive a written therapy agreement explaining the therapeutic framework and confidentiality arrangements. We ask you to read it, raise questions, and sign once you understand what you are agreeing to.
Confidentiality is a professional responsibility of the therapist. Your signature records your understanding of the arrangements; it does not waive your rights.
The agreement explains the scope and limits of confidentiality, how clinical information is handled, and the arrangements for professional consultation. It also addresses how individual contact within couples work will be managed.
We use a transparent approach to information relevant to the couples process. At the beginning, we discuss how separate messages, individual assessment conversations, and significant information withheld from a partner may affect the work. We do not promise to maintain a parallel secret within joint therapy.
Recording requires an additional, explicit decision from both partners. Before any recording takes place, the written information must explain:
- Whether audio, video, or both will be recorded.
- The purpose of recording and whether whole sessions or selected parts will be retained.
- Who may access recordings and who is responsible for them.
- Where and how recordings are stored and protected.
- The retention period and arrangements for deletion.
- Whether material may be shared with a supervisor, training group, or certification assessor, with separate consent for each proposed use.
- How to decline, stop a recording, withdraw consent, or request deletion, including any applicable limits.
Any proposed use for teaching, research, publication, or public presentation requires its own specific consent. Agreement to therapy or clinical review does not authorise these additional uses.
You have time to ask questions before deciding. Neither partner can provide recording consent on the other’s behalf.
If you prefer sessions without recording
Please tell us if you do not want sessions recorded. You do not need to justify your decision. We record only when both partners have explicitly agreed, so recording cannot begin simply because nobody has objected.
Either partner can ask to pause or stop recording during a session. You can also change your decision about future recordings. Requests concerning existing recordings are handled according to the written agreement and applicable requirements, which we explain in advance.
Without recording, your therapist cannot replay the exact exchange, compare moments in detail, or bring a consented excerpt to supervision. Those are the specific opportunities that become unavailable.
Your therapist can still prepare, reflect, keep clinical notes, and receive supervision. We cannot claim that recording guarantees a better outcome or that therapy without it is less effective.
A camera may itself affect how freely someone can speak. If recording makes it harder for either of you to participate, that deserves attention and respect.
Declining recording does not reduce your entitlement to thoughtful, respectful care. We discuss the available arrangements openly so that your choice is informed and voluntary.
What the first sessions of EFT couples therapy involve
The first sessions are about getting to know both of you and deciding together whether, and how, to work.
We listen to each of you
What has brought each of you to therapy, and what you hope might change. You do not have to agree about the problem before making contact.
We look at the whole picture
The history of the relationship, current pressures, previous attempts to address difficulties, and how you experience conflict and closeness. Where relevant, health, trauma, substance use, and other circumstances that may affect the work.
We check that it is safe to talk
Whether each partner can speak freely and whether joint sessions are safe and appropriate. Your therapist may propose individual assessment conversations within the agreed couples framework.
We agree on the frame
The approach, session length, fees, scheduling, cancellation terms, confidentiality, and recording choices, before you decide to continue.
As therapy develops, we review whether you both feel understood and whether the work is addressing your concerns. Questions or dissatisfaction are welcome material for discussion. If you are not sure you are both ready, you can still write to us, and we will think about it together.
When a different starting point is needed
Some difficulties require further assessment, additional professional support, or a different therapeutic setting before joint emotional work can proceed.
If there is coercive control, intimidation, violence, or fear of retaliation for what is said in therapy, we assess safety first. Harmful behaviour should not be treated as a jointly created communication problem.
Similarly, an acute mental health crisis or substance use that seriously affects safe participation may require other care alongside, or before, couples therapy.
Where one partner is uncertain about continuing the relationship, we begin by clarifying the purpose of attending together. Rebuilding closeness cannot be assumed to be a shared goal.
What research tells us about EFT couples therapy
EFT has a substantial research literature addressing relationship distress, attachment, and the processes through which change may occur. Research supports its use while leaving important questions about who benefits, under which conditions, and how findings generalise to different relationships.
Relationship outcomes across studies
A comprehensive meta-analysis combined 20 studies involving 332 couples.7 It found substantial average improvements from before to after therapy, with gains also evident at follow up. It included different study designs, so these findings should not all be interpreted as evidence from randomised comparisons.
The results support EFT as an evidence based option. They do not establish that every couple will benefit or that EFT is the best approach for every relationship.
EFT compared with behavioural couples therapy
A 2019 meta-analysis compared Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy with behavioural couples therapy.8 EFT couples therapy showed a medium effect on relationship satisfaction at the end of therapy. Both approaches were effective, with no significant difference between them. Effects were smaller at later follow ups, and the authors advise caution because of possible publication bias.
For us, this is one more reason to keep reviewing progress with you, rather than assuming that the method alone does the work.
Changes after therapy ends
A 2017 study followed 32 couples for two years after EFT.9 The researchers reported improvements in relationship satisfaction and aspects of attachment security across therapy and follow up.
This provides encouraging evidence about the persistence of change in that sample. Its small size and longitudinal design limit the conclusions we can draw about other couples.
Emotional support and responses to threat
A 2013 study examined women’s responses to anticipated threat before and after EFT, including while holding their partner’s hand.10 After therapy, partner contact was associated with changes in subjective distress and threat related brain responses. The findings are consistent with the idea that changes in a close relationship can affect how support is experienced.
This was a small study without a randomised untreated comparison group. It does not demonstrate that EFT “rewires the brain” or that bodily distress in a relationship has a single cause.
Research and our integrative practice
The somatic process study discussed above offers a reason to investigate bodily attention within EFT further. It does not establish the effectiveness of every body oriented intervention or of our practice’s particular combination of approaches.
We use research to inform clinical judgment while continuing to assess your experience and progress.
Questions couples often ask
Is this the same as couples counselling or marriage counselling?
Many people search for couples counselling or marriage counselling when they are looking for help. EFT couples therapy is a form of psychotherapy for couples, with a clear method and a research base. It is for all couples, married or not, living together or apart, and our practice is LGBTQIA+ friendly.
Do we have to talk about childhood?
We may explore earlier experiences where they help us understand something relevant to the present relationship. We also keep attending to what happens between you now. Your current concerns do not need to be translated into a childhood explanation to be taken seriously.
What if one of us finds emotions difficult to describe?
You do not need to arrive with a developed emotional vocabulary. We can begin with what you notice: a thought, a sensation, an impulse to leave, or difficulty knowing what you feel. We work at a pace that allows you to remain involved.
Will the therapist take sides?
We aim to understand each partner’s experience and examine our own assumptions. This includes being clear about behaviour that causes harm. You can tell us if you feel less heard or believe we have misunderstood something.
Can our couples therapist also be the individual therapist for one of us?
No. A couples therapist needs to stay equally available to both partners, and ongoing individual therapy with one of you would create a separate relationship and information the other partner does not share. If one or both of you would like individual therapy, we can recommend another therapist from our team. You can read more in why a couples therapist is not also your individual therapist.
Can we attend if we are unsure about staying together?
Yes, uncertainty can be part of an initial assessment. We first clarify what each of you hopes the sessions can help with and whether a shared therapeutic task is possible. EFT couples therapy does not require a promise to remain together.
How many sessions will we need?
We discuss this following assessment and review it as the work develops. The nature of the difficulties, your circumstances, and your goals influence the duration. We do not promise a fixed number of sessions or assume that continuing indefinitely is helpful.
Will we be asked to become vulnerable before we feel ready?
We discuss what makes it possible for you to participate safely. Your therapist may invite you to explore a difficult experience, but you can decline, ask for a pause, or say that an intervention does not fit.
Write to us about EFT couples therapy in Belgrade
If you are considering EFT couples therapy, send us a brief description of what brings you to couples therapy, whether you prefer online or in person sessions, and the language in which you would like to work.
We will consider which therapist may be an appropriate fit and explain availability, fees, and the proposed arrangements before you decide whether to begin.
You do not need to have a shared explanation of your difficulties. We can start with how each of you experiences the relationship and what you would like help understanding.
- psihoterapija.nada.kalo@gmail.com · reply within 48 hours on working days
- +381 63 76 22 485 · calls on weekdays 11–18h
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