What therapy to improve emotional intelligence please?

[Longhotsummers]

What sort of therapy would address an individual’s lack of emotional intelligence resulting from being bought up in an environment where emotions weren’t shown, and they now repress emotions etc. This is impacting their relationship.

I can think of several types of therapy:

Contextual therapy gives great insight into the impact of your childhood and even the values that are passed down from one generation to the next onto the person you are today. How loyalty to your family line can hold you back from developing the skills you need to become the kind of person you actually want to be today.

Psychoanalysis can be good for uncovering what's been repressed, finding a way to connect with your own body, your emotions, your needs and your desires and finding constructive ways to bring them into the world.

Gestalt therapy is all about getting out of your head, unlearning what you've learned and what's holding you back from being true to yourself, being authentic. Using your body and your senses to guide you rather than your brain.

Psychosynthesis or Voice Dailogue can help you work through which parts of your identity have been overdeveloped and which parts haven't had enough space to be developed. The overdeveloped parts tend to take over on autopilot, meaning that if you have an overdeveloped rational/repressed side and an underdeveloped emotional side, you tend to jump to the first reaction even if the situation would benefit more from the second reaction. VD teaches you to develop the lesser developed sides and give them a fair chance to be included in your list of potential behaviours.

Personally I'd look into integrative therapy, because that usually means you get the best of all of the above and a therapist who can dance from one therapeutic approach to the next. Although I'm biased because I'm an integrative psychotherapist myself, for full disclosure 😆

Does the person in question want therapy/to learn/change? If so they will and can through most therapy types / practicing and self help books.

if you are trying to sort this for them and they are not motivated to change then they won’t change - regardless of the therapy type

Is this a relationship that you are in with someone who you think would benefit from this therapy op?

Thanks all, that’s really helpful. The person does want therapy and I’m supporting them to access it. They do not want to rely on self help books.
@Girlmom35thanks for all the detail. Where would you recommend that I look for such a therapist please. Is there a particular website you’d recommend? Thanks again.

If they want help

they should be looking for a therapist op

the fact that you are having to do it…. Is not a good sign

Actually, plenty of my clients ended up with me because someone helped them on their way.
Starting therapy is a huge step and can be very overwhelming for some people.

I agree that they shouldn't be passively sitting by waiting for someone else to figure everything out. I would never take on a client who hadn't contacted me personally for example. I don't care who found my website or my name, who referred them to me. But I want them to call me personally. As soon as I get called by someone else, I know the odds are incredibly high the actual client either won't show up, or be completely uninterested in the sessions.
But there's nothing wrong with having a friend, family member or partner figure this out with you. Not everyone has the knowledge on where to find therapists and how to choose the right one for you.

Maybe less drastically OP, I would advise you to help him. Helping means that he's the one leading the search and you're contributing where you can, not the other way around. You can encourage him, talk to him about it, offer advice. But he has to take the actual steps.

I'm not actually from the UK myself, so I wouldn't know what the proper channels are there. I could tell you where to look if you happened to live in Belgium.
Hopefully someone else can help you out there.
Or maybe have him ask his GP for a referral? I get half of my clients through their GP.

I also helped someone close to me find a therapist as part of their ‘problem’ was burnout and feeling very overwhelmed. I used https://www.bacp.co.uk/search/Therapists and then sent lots of options to them. That helped narrow down whether they wanted a man/woman and then the bio from one of the therapists ticked a lot of boxes in terms of what they needed help with.

A year and a half later and they are still seeing them and it’s genuinely been life saving. So don’t worry bout helping someone, as long as they are making the final decision I think it’s okay to support them. I do think it’s important to discuss the fact that the first person they talk to might not be right and that’s not the end of the world. The important thing is that they feel safe so if it takes a few tries to find the right person, thats okay. Good luck!

Does he think he lacks emotional intelligence or is that your feeling about him? I’m asking because any therapy he engages in will take his lead and he may choose to work on other stuff, which is right and proper. What are you hoping he’ll get from therapy and, more importantly what does he want?

I actually think it is about finding a great therapist and the mode is largely irrelevant because most modes deal with emotional awareness and developing better emotional intelligence as a core tenant.

I know you said no to self help books but I found developing a genuine interest in emotions via audiobooks (not Instagram actual books people committed to) was beneficial in addition to therapy and really helped the process.