Infidelity among Chinese Married Couples: An Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) Approach to Treatment

In contemporary Chinese societies, infidelity is an increasingly significant problem best understood in the context of historical and cultural factors. Utilizing evidence-based literature along with culturally-competent clinical input gained from Chinese EFT experts regarding this issue, this clinical dissertation discusses a culturally consonant model for treating infidelity in Chinese couples using Emotionally-Focused Therapy (EFT). Clinicians knowing how to engage Chinese couples in therapy via being mindful of culturally-defined shame, guilt, face, and fear issues are critical. Issues on working with Chinese hierarchal and patriarchal values, conceptualizing patriarchal values from an EFT perspective, understanding how husbands' primary emotions and unmet attachment needs are masked under their rigid patriarchal frozen images are discussed. The thesis also examines the gap that exists between decisional forgiveness and emotional forgiveness; namely, how Chinese women often achieve decisional forgiveness which aids in their decision to stay in a relationship after their husband's infidelity, but they do not necessarily experience emotional forgiveness. Culturally, the injured partners experience familial and societal pressure that pushes them to forgive the offending partners in order to preserve family harmony and the wellbeing of children. In addition, as Chinese culture is a high-context culture, clinicians must be attentive to the clients' non-verbal cues such as tone of voice, micro-expressions of the face/body, and eye-contact to closely track the client's emotions. Hence, through EFT, clinicians can assist Chinese couples to stay with their deeper emotions longer, and describe and heighten the couple's emotional experience by sensitively reflecting back their internal working attachment model.