Review To feel is to heal—introduction to Emotional Awareness and Expression Therapy 2025 Maroti et al

Abstract

Background
Persistent physical symptoms (PPS), including (primary) pain, can, according to Emotional Awareness and Expression Therapy (EAET), be precipitated, perpetuated, and prolonged by emotional processes related to unresolved trauma and psychosocial conflicts. EAET is a novel, short-term, psychodynamic- and emotion-focused psychological treatment that targets these etiological factors, intending to substantially reduce or eliminate pain and/or somatic symptoms.

Objective
This article provides an overview of EAET’s theoretical background, core treatment principles, and empirical evidence from randomized controlled trials (RCTs) in alleviating somatic symptoms in people with PPS. Moreover, the potential of EAET and future research directions are discussed.

Methods
We report a selective literature review synthesizing the foundations and treatment characteristics of EAET and the findings from RCTs investigating EAET since 2017.

Results
Grounded in psychodynamic theory, with influences from affective neuroscience and emotion-focused therapy, the core treatment principles are reframing symptom explanations, fostering emotional processing, and facilitating corrective interpersonal experiences. EAET has been implemented in various formats, including individual therapy, group therapy, and internet-administered self-help. Since 2017, seven RCTs have been published, demonstrating efficacy in reducing symptoms, which appears superior to cognitive–behavioral therapy.

Conclusion
EAET is particularly effective for treating chronic (primary) pain conditions such as fibromyalgia and musculoskeletal pain. However, further studies are required to evaluate its long-term efficacy, determine patient characteristics associated with positive outcomes, and better understand its most active mechanisms.

Open access

 

yikes

 

Google gave me this:
A corrective emotional experience, or CEE, is an event that disproves the negative beliefs about oneself that are formed by trauma.

An example would be someone experiencing that somebody wants to spend time with them despite their belief that nobody likes them due the childhood bullying.

 

Here’s an overview of EAET (my bolding except for titles)

The first part is mostly just make-believe and gaslighting.

I can see how it could be useful to get some help going through your complex emotional experiences, gain increased emotional clarity and develop strategies for addressing conflicts. If they only did this - I would have no objections to this approach.

It only becomes (very) problematic when they are tying this to a decrease in persistent physical symptoms.

As for the second process, the third also include some reasonable elements like trying to help them solve conflicts in their important relationships.

Where they go wrong, is when they again tie this to a decrease in persistent physical symptoms.

 

For those who are not aware, Daniel Maroti of the Department of Psychology at Stockholms University is collaborating with the Swedish members of the Oslo Consortium (Anna Andreasson, Martin Jonsjö, Mats Lekander and Elin Lindsäter and others). More info on this in season 2 episode 6 of the podcast Maran by @MittEremltage. Full transcript available on her blog:
https://mitteremitage.wordpress.com/2024/09/20/maran-s2a6-den-svenska-grenen-av-natverket/

More forum threads about some of Maroti's work:

https://www.s4me.info/threads/inter...zed-controlled-trial-2022-maroti-et-al.30326/

https://www.s4me.info/threads/istdp-for-patients-with-treatment-resistance-pps-maroti-et-al.42259/

https://www.s4me.info/threads/the-mind-body-syndrome-study-2019-maroti-et-al.10769/

https://www.s4me.info/threads/emoti...ally-unexplained-symptoms-maroti-et-al.36715/

https://www.s4me.info/threads/is-co...tic-syndrome-2021-maroti-and-johansson.23448/

 

I have personal experience with parts of process two and three in a therapy setting, but my therapist never claimed that she could do anything for my physical symptoms.

Working through my emotions really helped my mental health and it also reduced some transient physical symptoms that were cause by anxiety in specific contexts. If I had experienced constant anxiety, those physical symptoms would probably have been within the scope or PPS.

I started therapy shortly after getting Covid (which caused my ME/CFS), and the only thing my therapist did wrong was when she talked about trying to avoid developing an activity aversion as a result of my prolonged illness.

That being said, she was very open about how she didn’t know anything about my physical illness, and she let it be up to me to hold back if that was correct for me. So I believe it was mostly a way of trying to avoid a worsening of my (then) depression. She never pushed me to do things and made sure that I always was comfortable saying no.

This is in no way an endorsement of EAET, but I just want to highlight how parts of the method could potentially lower some physical symptoms. Although probably not through the mechanisms that the methods says it works through.

So some positive results might not mean that the underlying assumptions are correct. It might be that the results were gained despite of those assumptions and the steps derived from them.

 

Good point. It doesn’t seem like it should be applied to abuse cases.

Edit for context: Part of my anxiety that I describe above stems from bullying. My therapist never asked me to consider what the bullies thought or felt.

 

They're quoting the thing about what the thing does as evidence of what the thing does? Damn. Races to the bottom really look plain silly when you're sober. I especially love that they point out that it's novel/new, which it isn't but whatever. So, according to this new thing, this thing can do this evidence-based thing. Good grief.

Basically:

Imagine how silly it must feel to have done so much homework for so long, to get some advanced diploma, and they could have pulled the trick of just writing down the grade they feel they must have on every exam, instead of actually answering it.

Somehow, "according to neuroscience" has basically become a joke. Neuroscience shows no such things, but it clearly doesn't matter, because it feels like it could be true, and when you believe in your heart of hearts, it's the same thing as being true.

Also notable that they included some BS narrative review of "RCTs", by which they simply mean clinical studies but it sounds more legitimate to pretend otherwise, and found 7 such trials. Meanwhile a review of exercise trials for LC published yesterday 'found' only 8, even though there have easily been 50+.

They keep using systematic, and it literally never is. Just like with holistic, never is. Same with patient-centered. Hell, is there even a single actual label they use correctly in this entire corrupt industry?

I don't think it's much complicated than a simple: because they can. Because there is no adult supervision, no accountability or oversight. Random nonsense is just what people naturally do when they're encouraged to do random nonsense. It's easy, no one ever expects anything out of you, and you can just ride out your entire career never doing any real work. It's a perfect grift for people who aren't interested in putting any effort.

 

Never let anyone tell you that LLMs aren't useful. They can produce... this:

 

I have massive problems with that as well!