EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique)

…what you resist not only persists,
but will grow in size.

 — Carl Jung

What I offer…

When I work with someone using tapping, I take some time in the session to speak and go over what the issues are that you’re struggling with - and then we begin the process. We use a subjective assessment tool before and after the process to determine how things have changed, and based on that, recommendations for home practice and future sessions are offered. When sessions are done remotely, if you wish they are recorded, and may be used as a guide/reminder to help you practice on your own. After the session you will also will receive a written description of the points and their locations and a guide for how to take yourself through the process.

 
 

EFT - Emotional Freedom Technique - Tapping Therapy

You may have heard of EFT, or “Tapping” as it has gained quite a bit of popularity in the last decade, and many people I encounter have “heard of it” but have not actually experienced doing it, particularly with a practitioner guiding you through it in an individualized way.  

Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), also known as the “Tapping technique” has been around since the 1990s, brought into prominence by Gary Craig, and it’s development was preceded by Thought Field Therapy (TFT), developed by Roger Callahan.  It is considered part of energy psychology, a field of psychology gaining more prominence in recent years.  

There are many reasons I love this technique and recommend it to all of my patients, regardless of what ails them. Here are three of the top reasons I love it and recommend it:  

  1. EFT reflects the wisdom and application of three of the pillars that form the foundation of my professional work and approach to healing — acupuncture/meridian therapy, hypnotherapy, and Buddhism. How so? EFT involves stimulating acupuncture points using a tapping technique that exerts a vibration into the body, influencing the meridians, while simultaneously speaking about what is troubling you (physical or mental emotional distress) in a particular way. The sentences spoken and how they are spoken have as a fundamental basis the idea that radical acceptance of all parts of our experience - no matter how awful we may feel, how ashamed, how enraged, how much despair, how defeated, how anxious we may feel - is essential to help us move through difficult experiences. This technique helps us create a container so resilient that we can begin to hold our distressing experience with greater acceptance and compassion. This philosophy of radical acceptance is at the heart of the Buddhist teachings, and is also a fundamental tenet of much psychological research. Rather than pushing away parts of our experience, “not thinking about it,” or trying to force ourself to feel differently than we feel, this approach allows what is present to be present. While we are speaking about this very thing that has been bothering us so much, we are tapping on meridian points that regulate the nervous system, enabling a neutralization to occur - i.e., the association between our “problem” - whatever we are speaking about - and the tension that it previously created in our bodies, gets scrambled, delinked, and neutralized. When EFT is practiced with a practitioner leading you through it, it can be deeply hypnotic - repeating the phrases, stimulating the points, repeating the phrases, stimulating the points - over and over and over - can be used to bring someone into a hypnotic state. So three of my loves come together in this one technique! This is all a bit of theory, which gets me jazzed up, but of course, why I really love this technique is because…

  2. It works!  Tapping is not the end-all be-all, but in the past ten years that I have been practicing EFT tapping, I have found it to be one of the most potent tools for supporting a person to move out of stuck place in a short period of time, particularly getting to some of the underlying emotional factors that may be underneath even physical symptoms.  And, it is a very practical and portable practice… because - 

  3. Once you learn EFT, it is something you can do on your own, in the moment, to support you in moving through difficulties.  While it is a different experience to do EFT with a practitioner guiding you through it (which I recommend at least once), it is also entirely possible to practice it on your own, at home, or wherever you might be.  You don’t need any props, supplies, or professional license to practice it.  Once you learn it, it’s yours.

Lastly I will add - there has been more and more research on EFT and it’s benefits, for PTSD, anxiety, depression, and a range of conditions, that have found it to be at par or better than other common interventions used to address these issues.  Here is a link to just one of the recent studies.