{"id":4286,"date":"2024-04-03T23:03:20","date_gmt":"2024-04-03T23:03:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/samaritanps.org\/optima\/?p=4286"},"modified":"2025-11-14T00:58:03","modified_gmt":"2025-11-14T00:58:03","slug":"4286-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/samaritanps.org\/optima\/4286-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Interview with James L. Furrow, PhD"},"content":{"rendered":"
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1763081879814{padding-top: 12px !important;padding-right: 15px !important;padding-bottom: 12px !important;padding-left: 15px !important;background-color: #F9FFC1 !important;}”]\n

In February, we spoke with Jim Furrow, who has worked closely with our clinical staff over the last five years as a trainer and consultant. Jim is an internationally recognized leader and contributor to the practice of Emotionally Focused Therapy with couples and families. Together with EFT originator Susan Johnson, he coauthored seminal works on EFT as it is practiced for couples and families. Jim maintains an active research program examining the process and effectiveness of the model.<\/h4>\n

 <\/p>\n

Interviewer:<\/strong> What was it that drew you to psychotherapy and particularly to\u00a0therapy with couples and families?<\/span><\/p>\n

Furrow:<\/strong> I’ve always been a bit of a curious person. I grew up in a family of\u00a0scientists\u2014a biologist and chemist who were often pursuing a deeper understanding\u00a0of the nature of things?<\/p>\n

Relationship stood out to me in this regard in particular how important\u00a0relationships are in shaping people\u2019s lives. I found people intriguing. While\u00a0relationships are significant in shaping our experience of the world, they are also\u00a0complicated\u2014whether that’s a parent-child relationship or a romantic relationship.\u00a0People in relationships are often seeking something more and often finding it challenging to get what they most need.<\/p>\n

All these factors sort of pushed me in the direction of seeing what I could do to\u00a0be helpful for others in the relationships that mattered in life.<\/p>\n

Interviewer:<\/strong> We appreciate that you\u2019ve engaged your work in a variety of ways:\u00a0teaching, consulting, clinical practice, research, publishing books and papers. I\u00a0wonder if you see a certain thread that ties together all those ways of working?<\/span><\/p>\n

Furrow:<\/strong> Yes, I love the question because the work I do is truly multifaceted. There\u00a0is a core however and for me that is discovery, whether I am thinking about my\u00a0teaching, writing, research, or practice I am curious how to foster discovery learning\u00a0It’s one thing to tell somebody some helpful information. It’s a whole different\u00a0experience when you can help them find it for themselves.<\/p>\n

When they see something new about their relationship, or something new\u00a0about their partner or about themselves\u2014it\u2019s like a light bulb moment. Whether it\u2019s\u00a0with a student or a client or another professional, what I find most energizing and\u00a0what I’m passionate about is this idea that through experience we find new\u00a0understanding. We see ourselves more clearly, we see the world more vividly, we see\u00a0those we love more endearingly.<\/p>\n

It requires some amount of what I know, but also being invited into what I\u00a0don\u2019t know, and finding discovery there. This is where the curiosity comes in\u2014I\u2019m\u00a0always learning. It’s a huge privilege, whether it’s a student in a classroom or a couple in my office, or even a research subject: Somebody shares from their experience,\u00a0and I see the world in a new way. Those moments are a gift and opportunity.<\/p>\n

Interviewer:<\/strong> What has made EFT so central to your work and to your career?<\/span><\/p>\n

Furrow:<\/strong> What\u2019s been interesting to me, especially in my 30 plus years in the field, is to\u00a0see emotion move from the background to the foreground. And the more that we learn\u00a0about the neuroscience , the more we understand that emotion provides an important\u00a0integrating element between cognition and behavior.<\/p>\n

As a model, EFT sees emotion as a resource for change and also as a target to\u00a0focus on. It gives me a map for the work that I’m doing, but also a means for change–\u00a0which is a powerful combination. It\u2019s enabled me to be effective in moving toward both\u00a0transformation and reconciliation in relationships: transformation\u2014how people grow,\u00a0how they become; and reconciliation\u2014how people are brought together, which is about\u00a0belonging.<\/p>\n

Interviewer:<\/strong> At Samaritan Center, we have a commitment to spirituality as a\u00a0dimension of therapy. And in working with you, we’ve found that to be a shared\u00a0commitment. Could you say a bit about how that also informs your work?<\/span><\/p>\n

Furrow:<\/strong> Absolutely. One way to think about spiritual integration is to talk about soul\u00a0care, the care for people\u2019s sense of meaning and purpose in the world. For a lot of folks,\u00a0that has a spiritual or religious expression.<\/p>\n

The questions that come up routinely in therapy, whether they relate to parenting or to marriage and couple relationships, are at their heart questions about purpose,\u00a0about direction. What are we doing here and why are we doing it and what’s the value\u00a0here? Is it just satisfaction? Is that all I’m looking for, or is there some deeper meaning?\u00a0I think it\u2019s essential that we have a way to talk about these existential questions in the\u00a0client’s language and from their perspective\u2014honoring the importance of communities, religious communities, for example.<\/p>\n

And for me, there is something more, something that comes from my core, from\u00a0my own Christian understanding. And that is that there is a promise. It’s not just\u00a0purpose, it’s not just a direction, but there\u2019s a promise that gives hope.<\/p>\n

Of course, one thing I’m quick to say in a conversation around faith is that it can\u00a0be a resource, but it can also be a risk. There are ways that it’s been hurtful in people’s\u00a0lives, ways that it’s been constraining. And yet where it brings freedom and hope, I do\u00a0believe that it can lead to transformation and reconciliation.<\/p>\n

Interviewer:<\/strong> Finally, Jim, on this subject of hope, I wonder if you would share a bit\u00a0more about what gives you hope, professionally and personally?<\/span><\/p>\n

Furrow:<\/strong> Well, I think it\u2019s twofold. One way is very much from the ground up:\u00a0The people that I work with give me hope because I see the efforts that they bring to\u00a0seek something better in their lives, to seek understanding, to seek compassion, to seek\u00a0caring, to seek repairing, to seek growing. I see courage every day and the work that I\u00a0do. The risk to be vulnerable in a relationship with another person in marriage, in\u00a0family life, in friendship. You see and find courage, and you see the human spirit.<\/p>\n

And I think you often see the presence of Christ in the midst of these moments,\u00a0which is a second source of promise and hope that is vitally important, at least for me.\u00a0It’s not a generic hope, like \u201chopefully\u201d this is going to get better; there is a confidence\u00a0that comes in knowing that we\u2019re in this together and ultimately held in the love and\u00a0mercy of God.<\/p>\n

The critical question is, are we alone in our suffering, or can we find others who\u00a0can walk that journey with us with a sense of hope and promise? That\u2019s where I would\u00a0like to show up\u2014to provide a sense of presence, holding on to a hope that for me is\u00a0based in God\u2019s promise.[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1763081879814{padding-top: 12px !important;padding-right: 15px !important;padding-bottom: 12px !important;padding-left: 15px !important;background-color: #F9FFC1 !important;}”] In February, we spoke with Jim Furrow, who has worked closely with our clinical staff over the last five years as a trainer and consultant. Jim is an internationally recognized leader and contributor to the practice of Emotionally Focused Therapy with couples and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[262],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-eric"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/samaritanps.org\/optima\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/samaritanps.org\/optima\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/samaritanps.org\/optima\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samaritanps.org\/optima\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samaritanps.org\/optima\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4286"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/samaritanps.org\/optima\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4286\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4347,"href":"https:\/\/samaritanps.org\/optima\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4286\/revisions\/4347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/samaritanps.org\/optima\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samaritanps.org\/optima\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samaritanps.org\/optima\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}