Leslie Greenberg
Lead developer of emotion-focused therapy.
Principal originator of emotion-focused therapy, treating emotion as a primary target of change through experiential, in-session work.
techniques
You have to feel it to heal it.
Who they were
Born in Johannesburg, Leslie Greenberg trained in engineering before earning a psychology PhD at York University in Toronto, where he directed its Psychotherapy Research Centre. Working with Laura Rice and Robert Elliott in individual therapy, and Sue Johnson in couples, he developed EFT in the 1980s, grounding it in humanistic, Gestalt and emotion-theory research. He received the Carl Rogers Award.
Terms they cared about
Ideas worth knowing
Their techniques
How the work was done
Their big idea
Emotion-Focused Theory
Emotions are adaptive signals; change comes from reaching, processing and transforming them.
The approach they founded
Emotion-Focused Therapy
Treats emotions as signals — helping you reach, understand, and transform them rather than override them.
Questions in their spirit
What they’d ask you
Sit with one. Answer online, or in the app.
Carry the idea forward
Greenberg — What they’d ask you
Psipas asks you one small, honest question at a time — and builds the picture from your answers.