The Great EFT Schism: Testing Johnson's and Greenberg's Alternative Models of What Drives Couple Satisfaction

Emotion-focused therapy for couples (EFT-C) is organized around two theoretical accounts: Johnson's (2019) attachment-based model, which treats attachment as the primary motivational system in romantic relationships, and the Greenberg-Goldman (2008) multi-motivational model, which adds regard and attraction to attachment as three co-equal systems. Their relative explanatory power has not been directly compared. The present study tested whether the multi-motivational model explains more variance in relationship satisfaction than an attachment-only model in a non-clinical community sample. A nationally quota-representative sample of 1090 individuals nested in 545 couples completed measures of relationship satisfaction (CSI-16), attachment behaviors (BARE), interpersonal attraction (IAS), and level of regard (BLRI). Hierarchical regression and relative weights analysis compared model performance, with generalized estimating equations and cluster-bootstrap confidence intervals accounting for non-independence within couples. The attachment-only model explained 47% of variance; adding attraction and regard increased this to 70.5% (ΔR² = 0.235, Cohen's f² = 0.80). Contrary to expectations, regard emerged as the dominant predictor (41.3% of explained variance), followed by attraction (29.8%) and attachment (29.0%). Perceived partner regard uniquely predicted satisfaction (p < 0.001), whereas self-reported regard for partner did not (p = 0.663). Conclusions about clinical mechanisms cannot be drawn from this cross-sectional, non-clinical design. Nonetheless, the findings are inconsistent with the strong form of the attachment primacy hypothesis and consistent with the Greenberg-Goldman multi-motivational account. Comprehensive assessment of distressed couples may benefit from attending to regard and attraction alongside attachment.