Giulia Altera – Trainer

Director of the EFT North Italy Center

“Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT): when everything finds its meaning.”

I’m Giulia Altera, a Psychotherapist and Clinical and Forensic Psychologist. I am a Certified Trainer, Supervisor, and Therapist in Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) with ICEEFT.

I am also a Cognitive Behavioral Psychotherapist, graduated with honors from the Miller Institute for Cognitive Psychotherapy, and I hold a Level II Master’s Degree in Forensic Psychiatric Sciences from the School of Medicine and Surgery at the University of Genoa.

Above all, I am a person, a human being.

I discovered Emotionally Focused Therapy almost by chance. Throughout my life and career, I have always tried to give great importance to relationships, emotions, and love. In truth, I saw love everywhere—I heard it in my patients’ stories, in conversations with my friends, and in so many aspects of life. But before encountering EFT, I struggled to fully integrate it into my clinical work and give it the honor and significance it deserves from a professional perspective. Not in the way I longed for. Based on my previous studies and experiences, I didn’t believe it was possible.

One day, I attended a conference on love and sexuality, driven more by personal passion than by any conscious professional need, and there I met Sue Johnson! Meeting Sue profoundly changed my life. During several conversations with her over those evenings, she personally chose me as a future Trainer. And how could anyone say no to Sue? Just two hours later, I enrolled in the EFT Externship she was leading a few weeks later and started this journey that has led me to become a Trainer, Supervisor, and Certified EFT Therapist authorized to teach EFT by the International Centre for Excellence in Emotionally Focused Therapy (ICEEFT).

I co-founded the EFT Community Italy with my colleague Andrea Pagani, and I am the EFT Center North Italy director. I have also co-founded and coordinated the initial development of the EFT Sul-Sudeste Brasil and EFT Nordeste Brasil communities.

My publications in EFT

I have had the honor of contributing to the diffusion of EFT by translating and editing essential works:

I have a private practice in Casale Monferrato, but I also offer online therapy, supervision, and training worldwide.

Before EFT, I worked in a High-Security Psychiatric Hospital and several maximum-security prisons, focusing on the treatment of addiction to drugs and alcohol.

During that time, I completed international training in the treatment of trauma and dissociative disorders with Dr. Kathy Steele (International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation – ISSTD). Additionally, I am a Certified Schema Therapist. I have completed the foundational training in AEDP with Diana Fosha, offered by the AEDP Institute.

In every aspect of my profession, I strive for simplicity, emphasizing the importance of relationships, the non-judgmental acceptance of human diversity, and the refusal to pathologize anyone. I believe in embracing the complexities and nuances of human beings, putting love at the center of everything. Working with EFT has brought together everything I had read in novels, heard in songs, seen in movies, and witnessed on the streets during my travels. It aligned scientific research on relationships and emotions with my lived experience, giving me a model that not only helps others but also helps me navigate life and the world around me.

I have traveled extensively, which has allowed me to become fluent in Italian (my native language), Portuguese, English, and Spanish. I offer therapy, supervision, and training in all these languages. I also conduct training programs outside Italy and am responsible for EFT training in Brazil, while also collaborating on EFT training in Portugal, Iran, Ucraine, Poland, Usa and more.

With great warmth and passion, I mainly work with couples facing challenges related to trauma survivors, personality disorders (both individual and couple-focused), emotional and relational difficulties, and LGBTQI couples.

EFT has not only changed me as a therapist—it has reorganized me. It gave me a sense of clarity and order, both within myself and in my profession.

It helped me see myself without judgment, without criticism, embracing and understanding myself as a normal, reasonable human being, just like all of us when we manage to give meaning to our story, to our pain, to our emotions, and to our relationships, even the ones that have ended.

And it brought all of this into my work: organization, a clear map to follow, validated by more than 30 years of scientific research. EFT offered me a way to welcome my clients without judgment—not just as a personal tendency (I believe I was born without the capacity to judge anyone)—but with the ability to help them find meaning in themselves, to show them that they are neither pathological nor deserving of criticism. Simply by contextualizing their experience through the evolutionary lens of attachment theory, everything starts to make sense—every emotion, every reaction, even every non-reaction.

Love and emotions are exquisitely logical, understandable, and meaningful once we learn how to read them through the right lens.

I am deeply grateful to Sue Johnson for developing EFT, and to my Trainers, Mentors, Supervisors, and Colleagues who have helped me feel supported, accepted, and encouraged to keep growing on this EFT journey (which never truly ends!).

What does it mean to be a Trainer in Emotionally Focused Therapy?

Being an ICEEFT Certified Trainer in Emotionally Focused Therapy is a tremendous honor and responsibility, as well as one of my greatest sources of satisfaction and joy in recent years.

As of July 2023, there are 80 EFT Trainers worldwide. In North America, in Central America, Mexico, Costa Rica, in Argentina. In the Netherlands, England, New Zealand, Australia, Hawaii, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Greece, Switzerland, Romania, Poland, Bulgaria, Serbia, Turkey, and Sweden. Trainers also teach regularly in Asia, Brazil, Portugal, Estonia, Iran, Israel, Norway, Russia, China, Taiwan, South Korea, Slovenia, South Africa, Central and South American countries, and Spain.

Trainer candidates are currently considered only if they are fluent in at least one language other than English and/or in areas outside North America. There is currently a moratorium on new Trainer candidates in North America. This is because ICEEFT guarantees trained Trainers and their level of qualification, preparation, and accountability for the states they care for.

Responsibility and coordination of ICEEFT Certified Trainers

ICEEFT Certified Trainers are key leaders in promoting ICEEFT’s Mission of educating mental health professionals and increasing public awareness of the effectiveness of EFT and its role in strengthening relationship bonds.

The role of an EFT Trainer is challenging. Trainers in EFT conduct Externships, Core Skills, Workshops, and Masterclasses as well as advanced training on specific topics and offer supervision.

Typically, a Trainer is affiliated with an EFT Center and often serves as its director.

Trainers’ responsibilities typically include:

  • Developing and/or promoting an EFT Center
  • Serving as the primary liaison between the ICEEFT Board of Directors and a local EFT Center
  • Serving on ICEEFT committees
  • Contributing to EFT practice development, supervision, training and research.
  • Collaborating and supporting each other in the development of EFT training events and resources

Following the core values of ICEEFT, EFT Trainers seek opportunities to support the development of EFT Centers and/or Communities through innovation, collaboration and advocacy in the best interests of EFT practitioners.

As ambassadors and stewards of the EFT model, Trainers seek opportunities to actively collaborate and cross-train with other Trainers, promoting EFT skills development globally and locally.

When training opportunities or invitations involve overlapping interests and expertise, Trainers will contact their colleagues in the area of interest to consult and coordinate any training they wish to offer with existing training programs and local community initiatives.

This open and cooperative consultation respects the considerable effort and investment of all Trainers and community organizers and reflects the collaborative and generous nature of the EFT model.