INTIMACY FROM THE INSIDE OUT - IFIO
EMOTIONALLY FOCUSED THERAPY - EFT
You want to feel close again—to feel seen, understood, and cared for by your partner. But instead, you find yourselves stuck in the same patterns. You notice arguments that go nowhere, distance that keeps growing, or a tension that never fully settles. You may feel caught between trying harder and wanting to pull away. Exhausted from having the same conversations, and unsure how to stop the cycle. Part of you may even feel like giving up. But another part of you still cares—and wants this to feel different.
Why this keeps happening
When something important is at stake—feeling valued, respected, or chosen—your protective systems take over. These “parts” are shaped by your life experiences. They’re not random. They’re trying to protect you from hurt or disconnection. But in a relationship, they often show up as:
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pushing to be heard or understood
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shutting down or withdrawing
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becoming critical, guarded, or reactive
Each response makes sense on its own. But together, they create a loop where both partner feel increasingly misunderstood.
Why it’s so hard to fix on your own
Most couples try to solve this through better communication. But the difficulty isn’t just what you’re saying.
It’s who is speaking inside you when you say it. When protective parts are leading, even good intentions can come across as pressure, distance, or criticism. The more you try to fix things from that place, the more the pattern tends to repeat.
How this affects intimacy
This cycle doesn’t stay in conversation—it affects your physical connection as well. When something feels unsettled between you, desire often decreases. Partners also tend to differ in how desire works:
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for one, physical closeness helps create emotional connection
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for the other, emotional connection is needed before physical closeness
Without understanding this, it’s easy to feel rejected, pressured, or out of sync.
How we work
In counselling, we slow things down and make sense of the pattern you’re caught in—together. Often, the rupture in a relationship is not between two people who care about each other, but between the protective parts that are trying to keep each person safe. As this becomes clearer, you’ll begin to:
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recognize when a part of you is activated
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speak for that part, rather than reacting from it
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understand your partner’s reactions in a new way
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respond with more clarity and less escalation
What begins to change
As the pattern loosens, couples often notice:
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less reactivity and fewer circular arguments
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a greater sense of emotional safety
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clearer, more direct communication
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a return of closeness—both emotional and physical
You don’t have to keep having the same argument in different forms. When you begin to understand the system you’re in, you can start to step out of it—and back toward each other.
What can you expect from therapy?
You want to feel close again—but something keeps getting in the way. You try to talk it through, but it turns into the same argument. Or one of you shuts down, and the other is left feeling alone. At times, it may feel like:
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you’re becoming someone you don’t recognize in the relationship
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you’re walking on eggshells
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or part of you has started to pull back, even if you don’t want it to
You may already see the pattern. What’s harder is understanding why it keeps happening—and why it’s so difficult to stop in the moment. Part of you may even wonder if this is just how the relationship is going to feel now. In our work together, we slow this down and begin to understand what’s happening inside each of you—not just between you.
Stage 1 – Understanding What Takes Over
We start by mapping the pattern you get caught in. But instead of focusing only on behaviour, we look at the parts of you that take over in those moments. The part that gets sharp, frustrated, or urgent. The part that shuts down, withdraws, or goes quiet. These parts aren’t the problem—they’re trying to protect something more vulnerable underneath. As we get to know them, the conversation begins to shift:
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from blame → to curiosity
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from reacting → to understanding
You start to see: “This isn’t all of me—and it’s not all of you. These are parts of us trying to cope.” In these moments, we slow things down and stay with what is happening between you, rather than moving past it or trying to resolve it too quickly.
Stage 2 – Creating Safety for What’s Underneath
As your protective parts feel understood, they don’t have to work as hard. This creates space for the more vulnerable parts of you to come forward—the ones that carry fear, hurt, or a sense of not being enough. Instead of reacting from protection, you begin to share from a more honest place:
“A part of me is scared you’ll pull away.”
“A part of me doesn’t know how to get this right.”
Your partner learns how to respond to you, not just to your protectors. This is where the relationship starts to shift—through new experiences of being seen, accepted, and responded to differently.
Stage 3 – Relating in a New Way
Over time, you begin to recognize your parts as they show up—and you’re no longer taken over by them in the same way. You can pause, notice what’s happening inside, and choose how to respond. The cycle loosens. There’s more room for:
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steadiness instead of reactivity
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clarity instead of confusion
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connection instead of distance
You’re still yourselves—but with more awareness, more choice, and a stronger sense that you can face things together.
"THE MORE - THE MORE" CYCLE
Go through the videos and paragraphs below in order:
We are always looking for the cloth—to be seen and soothed: validated, accepted, understood, and loved. We want to feel safe and secure. When we don’t get that from our partner, it’s hard to tolerate. In the “nail” video, she becomes angry because she is looking for the cloth—she wants to be seen and soothed.
Note: gender pronouns can be reversed.
In the video, when he tries to help by offering advice, explanations, or a new perspective, she experiences it as the wire. She doesn’t feel understood or comforted. Her anger is not the problem—it’s how she reaches for the cloth.
As one partner asks for the cloth, the other experiences the wire.
He hears blame, judgment, or criticism—like he’s getting it wrong or is not enough. He becomes confused and frustrated, and over time this can turn into resentment. He doesn’t see the nail, so he tries to fix, minimize, or reframe the problem. But this makes her feel even less seen. She becomes more angry. He pulls back to avoid making things worse. The more she reaches, the more it lands as pressure. The more he tries, the more it feels like failure. This becomes a “the more / the more” cycle:
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The more she feels unseen, the more she pushes
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The more he feels it as criticism, the more he withdraws
Over time, both partners feel:
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alone
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frustrated
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and stuck
When caught in this cycle, there is constant rupture and little repair. Both partners are living in a state of threat and defence. There is little space for rest or safety. Even small, non-verbal moments can become danger cues, making it harder to trust. In the Still Face experiment, notice how the absence of connection quickly becomes distressing..
This same pattern shows up in adult relationships, as described by Dr. Tronick and Dr. Johnson.
FURTHER RESOURCES
Here are some short digestible podcasts that may be of interest:
In these two links, Emily Nagoski talks about Responsive and Spontaneous Desires and the ways in which our minds and bodies react to stressful situations -- the "accelerators" and "brakes."
If you’ve been anxious about sex, are struggling to connect to a long-term partner, or just want to understand yourself better, this episode offers lots of calm, informed, empathetic advice on how you can find your way.
A lot of what we ‘know’ about sex as a society is based on outdated research and cultural assumptions. Listen to Dr. Lori Brotto talk about her new book, Better Sex Through Mindfulness and explain some of our many misconceptions about sex, and introduce ways we can use mindfulness practices to feel more connected to ourselves — and to our partners — during sexual encounters.
By the end of this episode, you’ll learn concrete practices you can use to really tune into sex and make it better – regardless of your age or gender – and discover that pleasure is always there for you, if you can be there for it.
Still face – a look on our partner's face that spells d i s c o n n e c t i o n. Based on the seminal work by Ed Tronick, This podcast looks at what this might mean when we see still face when we're making love to our partner. We have to get curious about what is going on for the partner giving the still face. Could be their face actually is showing their performance anxiety, or going inward with their focus to try and get aroused. Maybe they don't realized that they've given their partner a message that they've disappeared. For the partner observing, we understand it can be unnerving. Maybe it feels rejecting or maybe this partner worries that it's a reflection on their bedroom skills. Listen as Laurie and George suggest ways to get curious and open up a conversation about still face.
Having your desire synced with your partner's may sound ideal, but rare in practice. Find out how to get back in the game when you are not in the mood.
Are you tired of having the same fight over and over? Would you like to discuss things without triggering your partner. Can you imagine that underneath your partner’s defense lies a hurt and even below that a need? George tries to help make it simple, in a nutshell there are three parts to how we react in a conflict – our protection, our hurt, and our need. Together, Laurie and George make sense of defensiveness and role play a different way to reach each other.
Sex and emotions—there’s a delicate balance between the two, an overlap that can’t be ignored. Emotions can enhance sex or inhibit sex, and sex can enhance emotions or inhibit emotions.
Borrowing concepts from the attachment theory, we dive into how sex and emotions intertwine by exploring the role of the Pursuer and Withdrawer…
While we don’t always fall neatly into a cycle, there is always a cycle, some level of interdependence. This interdependence can shift as patterns and is not concrete. A Pursuer can become a Withdrawer, or you might find that you were a Pursuer in an old relationship and a Withdrawer in your current relationship. The patterns are not your personality; they are a response to the complexity of sexual and emotional connections.
Understanding yourself and your partner requires intention but a balanced connection is worth the effort.