Remembering Sue: The Phrases That Guide My Work
We all have them — or at the very least, we all NEED them. Champions. Cheerleaders. Coaches. People who facilitate our growth. Those key others who, when we looked into their faces, reflected back to us that we can achieve our dreams.
When we look back at the cast of characters who have inhabited our world, these people show up in spades. They’re our stars, our guiding lights. Those supports that scaffolded our learning and helped us achieve new heights.
Their belief in us, their wisdom, their reflections, these become the threads that stitch together the story of who we are. If we are lucky, we get a few who leave an imprint so deep, their voice becomes part of our own.
For me, one of those people and maybe the most significant professionally, was Dr. Sue Johnson.
Now, one year after her passing, Dr. Sue Johnson’s voice continues to echo through every client session, supervision consultation, and EFCT, EFIT, and EFFT training I facilitate..
These twelve gifts — her most enduring phrases, concepts, and truths — remain the heartbeat of my work. Enjoy!
P.S. - IF you have a particular Sueism that you are attached to, send me a message and I will include it in my next instalment…here!
1. Love is not a bargain. It’s a bond.
Sue reframed relationships away from fairness and exchange toward something deeper, an emotional connection. She reminded us that people don’t thrive on tit-for-tat. They thrive on responsiveness, emotional safety, and knowing someone has their back. When couples let go of scorekeeping, space opens for real closeness.
2. One’s protection becomes their prison.
This phrase is like a key for clients locked in old survival strategies. It speaks to how the very defences that once saved us, shutting down, people-pleasing, lashing out, now keep us isolated. In EFIT and EFCT, I use this to gently explore how a client’s protection once made sense… and how it might now be costing them connection.
3. We are bonding mammals.
It's so simple yet so revolutionary. We don’t just want connection; we need it. Sue grounded our emotional needs in biology. This helps clients understand that their longing for closeness isn’t a weakness. It’s wired into who we are. It’s what makes us human.
4. Emotion is the music of the dance.
Sue helped us see that every couple’s negative cycle has a rhythm beneath it. The unspoken feelings that drive disconnection. If we only choreograph new moves without tuning into the music, the dance doesn’t change. EFT teaches us to listen to the music and help clients move in time with each other again.
5. Go slow to go deep.
This one grounds me when sessions feel rushed or clients push past vulnerable moments. Slowing down gives clients the space to feel, to access their deeper fears and longings, and to make new meaning. It’s in the slowing that the real work begins.
6. The therapist is a process consultant.
Sue changed the role of the therapist from expert to guide. We don’t fix people, rather we help them shape new emotional experiences in the therapy room. This shift empowers clients and keeps me focused not on clever insight, but on facilitating healing encounters.
7. Withdrawers are not selfish — they’re overwhelmed.
This reframe opens hearts. It helps partners stop interpreting silence as indifference and start seeing it as a signal of emotional flooding. It’s also a gift to individual clients who grew up being blamed for shutting down. There’s empathy in this reframe, and with empathy comes movement.
8. Pursuers protest disconnection — they’re not too much.
Sue helped us see the tenderness behind the intensity. Pursuers aren’t trying to control. They’re trying to connect. Their anger, their protest, their push comes from pain, from fear of abandonment, from a desperate need to know they matter. This reframe brings dignity to the longing underneath their pursuit and helps partners respond not with defensiveness, but with care. It’s a phrase that opens doors for empathy, especially in the moments that feel the hardest.
9. Secure connection is a safe haven and a secure base.
Attachment isn’t just about comfort. It’s also about courage. When people feel securely connected, they don’t just cling, they launch. This phrase helps clients see that strong bonds make us stronger, more independent, and more resilient in the world.
10. We shape each other’s nervous systems.
Love is regulation. This concept is revolutionary for both couples and individuals, as our nervous systems are constantly influencing one another. EFT helps clients become a calming presence for each other rather than a source of threat. That’s not just emotional, it’s physiological.
11. Emotion tells us what matters.
Sue taught us to trust the emotional signals. Emotions aren’t noise but rather they’re meaning-makers. This phrase helps clients begin to see their fear, anger, or sadness not as problems to avoid but as messengers trying to guide them toward something important.
12. If we’re going to guide people, we need a map.
Sue never left us wandering. Whether we’re working with a couple in distress, an individual trapped in self-criticism, or a family caught in painful cycles, we don’t go in blind. EFT offers a clear roadmap from disconnection to secure connection. This isn’t improvisation; it’s intentional movement. The map shows us how to make sense of insecure strategies, how to move through the pain, and how to help people reach for each other in new ways. It reminds us that the therapist is not just a listener; we are a guide walking alongside our clients with direction and purpose.
One year on, Sue’s voice is still in the room with me. It’s in the questions I ask, the silence I hold, the moments I dare to go deeper. These phrases aren’t just quotes, they’re guides, handrails, little lights that help me stay on course when the work gets hard. They shape how I sit with pain, how I honour resilience, and how I keep believing that people can find their way back to each other and themselves. Sue gave us a model, yes, but more than that, she gave us a language of love. And in using it, we remember her.
With gratitude and remembrance,
Robin Williams Blake
