Dates:
Module 1: December 11-12, 2025 (Online)
Module 2: February 26-27, 2026 Hybrid (Location TBD)
Module 3: April 9-10, 2026 (Online)
Module 4: May 29-30, 2026 (Online)


Time:

The first day of each module is from 9am-5pm

The second day of each module 9am-2pm

Location:

Online

EFCT 48 Hour Core Skills Training

If you have completed the EFT Externship, are legally authorized to practice psychotherapy in your state, and are eager to deepen your mastery of Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), we invite you to join our EFCT Core Skills Training. This advanced training is designed to enhance your confidence and effectiveness in using the EFT model with couples.

A Supportive, Experiential Learning Environment

Core Skills provides a safe, engaging, and highly interactive setting where therapists can practice the art of EFT. Through hands-on exercises, role-plays, video demonstrations, and collaborative case consultation, you will develop the ability to:

  • Conceptualize couple distress patterns in an attachment frame
  • Access, explore, deepen, and expand emotional experiences and understanding of the couple’s patterns of distress and disconnection.
  • Facilitate new conversations that promote secure attachment processes, closeness, and connection
  • Small-group learning allows for direct feedback, peer support, and individualized attention from experienced EFT Trainers and Supervisors.
  • Strengthening Your Clinical Voice
  • This training highlights the essential strengths of EFT and attachment theory, helping you integrate them into your natural style as a therapist. You will learn to:
  • Attune to and track emotional and attachment processes
  • Recognize and shift negative interactional patterns
  • Stay grounded in empathy, curiosity, and compassion while engaging couples in transformative conversations
  • Stay focused and intentional with your interventions grounded in the foundation of EFCT


Through guided practice, you will discover how to trust your instincts and general therapy resources while applying the EFT steps, stages, and interventions with confidence.

Working with the Music of Emotion

In EFT, emotion is at the heart of change—it is, in many ways, the music of the relational dance. Core Skills will help you sharpen your ability to “tune in” to this music, supporting couples in creating new, healthier dances characterized by safety, intimacy, and connection.

Case Presentation and Certification

If you plan to pursue EFT Certification, this 48 hour extended Core Skills track meets the required training for ICEEFT’s certification.

Space is limited — we encourage early registration to secure your place.

EFT Trainers

Lisa Palmer-Olsen & Sam Jinich

Dr. Lisa J Palmer-Olsen

Dr. Lisa J. Palmer-Olsen, Psy.D. is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist practicing in San Diego, California for over twenty years. She is also a Certified International Emotionally Focused Therapy Trainer and AAMFT approved Supervisor. Dr. Palmer-Olsen’s primary clinical and research interests are in the area of family systems and high conflict couple work, specifically with clients dealing with trauma and attachment related injuries. As a founder and Co-Director for Renova San Diego Inc, a non-profit 501(c)(3) based out of San Diego, she is committed to providing quality San Diego services accessible to all who seek it. Dr. Palmer-Olsen is passionate about providing affordable, high caliber training to mental health clinicians around the world. Dr. Palmer-Olsen completed her dissertation research on how to train and teach Emotionally Focused Therapy to professionals. Lisa was trained directly by the founder of the EFT model Dr. Susan Johnson.

Sam Jinich, PhD

Sam Jinich, PhD is a Certified Trainer in Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy (EFCT). He has been a clinical psychologist in private practice since 1995, specializing in working with couples from diverse backgrounds. Dr. Jinich was born in Mexico City and received his PhD from the University of California/San Diego State University’s Joint Doctoral Program in Clinical Psychology where he focused on couples and family therapy. He did his postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine’s Center for AIDS Prevention Studies. In 2013, he founded the San Francisco Center for Emotionally Focused Therapy where he is the Director. More recently, he co-founded (with Natalia Gilabert,EFT trainer for Argentina) EFT Academiain Argentina, providing EFCT Master Classes, workshops, webinars, and supervision to clinicians around the world. As a bilingual and bicultural trainer in EFT, Dr. Jinich has been responsible for establishing EFCT in Mexico, Argentina, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Panama, Brazil, Chile and Spain through mentoring and supervising therapists in these countries toward becoming EFCT practitioners, supervisors, and trainers. He was involved in the planning and supervision of therapists in the first-ever multi-national randomized clinical-trial research study in Spanish on the effectiveness of couples therapy in general, and specifically of EFCT. Dr. Jinich is particularly known for his creative and passionate presentations on EFCT.

Clinical Psychologist

Natalia Gilabert

Natalia Gilabert is a Clinical Psychologist with 25 years of experience as an individual and couples psychotherapist. She is a certified trainer by the International Centre of Excellence in Emotionally Focused Therapy (ICEEFT), and has trained therapists in Latin America (Argentina, Peru, Chile, Uruguay, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador) and Spain. She is the Founder and Academic Director of the "EFT Argentina" center, aimed at providing official ICEEFT training in the Spanish-speaking world. She conducts and leads emotional "Hold me Tight" workshops for couples in Argentina and Chile. Co-Founder and Co-Director of the International Center "EFT Academia", dedicated to providing Specialization Courses in Couples Therapy based on the EFT model (Infidelities, Highly Conflictual Couples, Erotic Intimacy). Co-founder, Co-Director, and Instructor at CEAP International Center for Adult Attachment Specialization, aimed at offering Diplomas and Postgraduate Training Courses in Adult Attachment. She provides supervision for therapists at an international level, and is part of the Supervisors Staff for Research in EFT Couples Therapy at the University of Navarra. She participates as a lecturer in postgraduate and Magister programs at Chilean Universities and is a prominent speaker at Latin American Congresses as a reference in Adult Attachment and Couples Therapy.