ABSTRACT
In this chapter readers are guided through the Stage 2 EFIT process (Restructuring Self and System) with a combination of didactic teaching, case illustration, and practitioner-relevant exercises. The experiential concept of changing into more of what one is, rather than trying harder to be what one is not, is key to understanding the Stage 2 process. As clients deeply engage in, claim, and congruently express previously unformulated or avoided experience in the presence of a trusted other, this expands the sense of self and the person’s repertoire of interactional responses. It is in this second stage of therapy that core definitions of self and other become available and open to modification, and that intrapsychic and interpersonal – self and system – shift into a new integration. In this integration, core emotions are fully experienced and reprocessed and the client moves into what Carl Rogers coined “existential living.” In EFIT terms, the client literally becomes FIT, not only to manage their inner and interpersonal world but to expand and grow these worlds into a full, rich life.
