Rapid Emotional Healing: Description of Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT)
An Alternative, Short-term Treatment - Long Version
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In my practice as a "Personal Performance Coach," I now use some energy-based modalities, including Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT). Energy treatment often reduces or resolves limiting emotions when the client gently taps on specific acupressure points on the body.

Here are two examples of my results with phobias: * A 12 year old who suffered a trauma five years ago related to water, feared going to a swim class. After 20 minutes of EFT, she felt fine about the swim class and no longer felt plagued by the memories of the trauma. * A 45-year-old suffered from claustrophobia for over 30 years. After one hour of EFT, he was riding elevators and testing his new-freedom further by locking himself in a small, windowless bathroom in my office building and turning out the lights. He said he would never have tried these things before EFT.

Psychologist Roger Callahan, who calls it Thought Field Therapy (TFT), developed this energy method. It has been refined and named Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) by Gary Craig, a Stanford engineer. These techniques focus the client into his thoughts, feelings, or images of the situation (emotional or physical) that he wants to correct, while tapping on and stimulating specific acupressure points, thereby balancing the right and left hemispheres of the brain. EFT is especially effective for eliminating the effects of past traumas, anxiety, depression, and fears. Immediate and dramatic relief is often experienced. It is also highly effective for enhancing productivity, such as in sales and sports performance.

The first manifestation of an emotion, either positive or negative, is a change in the body's electrical state. Our thoughts are constantly creating patterns of electrical energy that cause the release of neurotransmitters, hormones, and other chemicals in the body that we feel as emotions. When there is a disruption in the body's electrical flow, there is a reaction. If the disruption continues, it can lead to emotional distress and even to physical problems. When the disruption is removed, the distress stops.

That is, their "intensity level," also known as the "Subjective Units of Distress Scale (SUDS)," levels drop immediately. This is a reliable and replicable finding. Treatment continues until the client has no distress while thinking about the problem or challenge. In many cases, the typical client will get to this point of no distress on the presenting problem within a single session. Treatment on an issue cannot be considered complete until the client reports that the problem no longer bothers him in his life, or it has reduced significantly. This may take a few hours, but in many cases, the change occurs even after one session.

This treatment is particularly effective in removing the distress associated with past traumas and lingering negative emotional states, such as frustration, sadness, and anger. But it is also extremely effective in treating panic disorder, depression, pain, and addictive cravings. (Some of these problems may require more extensive treatment.) In addition, these interventions have shown exciting promise in the area of performance enhancement.

None of these changes relies on the usual "working through" of the problem. This is not an insight-oriented treatment, nor is understanding for the sake of understanding thought to be the mechanism of change. What is fascinating is that when the energetic aspects of the problem are treated, the cognitive, emotional, and physical elements of the problem resolve immediately. Clients will typically acknowledge spontaneous and dramatic cognitive shifts instantly after tapping. It is for this reason that this treatment appears to be "on-line" with reality. Again, this is all very strange to conventional therapists, but isn't so unusual to people more familiar with energetic healing. And it is entirely consistent with the tenets of Chinese medicine.

Acupressure is a wonderful self-care tool that one can learn in minutes. While doctors and chiropractors use acupuncture, that method requires years of education and experience to use properly. However, acupressure is easily taught and uses a similar system to that used in acupuncture. The client, to assist in his healing, is directed to tap specific points on the body, mostly on the face and the neck. The technique is gentle, quick, and painless. It often brings about rapid and lasting relief. Acupressure works by neutralizing disruptions in the body's electrical system, which then stops the chemical chain reaction and frees the client from emotional and physical discomforts. As the client gently taps on a point, the neural receptors under the skin convert the pressure to an electrical impulse that is transmitted to the brain. It is similar to using a VCR remote control or tapping a key on a keyboard to send an electrical signal to the computer.

When clients are instructed in the use of EFT by a skillful clinician, they "tune in" to the distress, such as a phobia or trauma while they tap.

Acupressure has been practiced for over 5000 years in the Orient, however its successful application to correcting problematic affective states is relatively new. Through EFT, stimulation of these meridians brings about psychological and physical change. Energy meridians are in fact measurable fields that surround and permeate our bodies. Our mental and physical states are influenced by our subtle but detectable electromagnetic fields. A common example of this can be found in our reaction to pain. For example, a woman in labor sometimes is tuned into the pain and, at other times, is distracted from it. Her pain is not likely to be constant. Later, the pain reasserts itself in her awareness and she hurts again. Our experience of pain, therefore, is influenced by our attention to it. Our attention does not create the pain, but it tunes it in -- calls it into awareness. The same is true of all distress.

Today, the energy modalities are used to treat a wide range of issues, including physical pain, trauma, stress, anxiety, fears and phobias, anger, depression, migraines, asthma, and addictions. They are also used to improve personal performance in academics, business, sales, and sports by removing anxiety, doubt, and negative self-talk.

Although these techniques, like any other method, are not always completely successful, their success rate cannot be ignored. I estimate that about 85% or more of emotional issues treated with these processes are eliminated within four sessions, with the majority of them being resolved even more quickly.

Here are a few examples from my practice. All of the results I report have been long lasting over time. *A 34-year old suffered a rape trauma 20 years ago. She said it colored all of her relationships. After 90 minutes of EFT, the trauma was resolved. I hear from her occasionally. She loved EFT because it was "gentle." *A 56-year-old suffered from kidney stone pain. Using EFT when the pain would reappear, we managed to keep it totally under control for the three weeks it took for the stone to pass. *An 88-year-old woman was depressed and fearful the night before her mastectomy. After 50 minutes of EFT, she felt calm, and actually happy. She had no problem with the surgery or her recovery. She said EFT gave her a sense of peace about the procedure. *A 15-year-old with migraine headaches found relief after about five minutes of EFT. *A 53-year-old suffering from anxiety found relief after about 12 minutes using EFT. *A 73 year old with rapid heartbeat (She carries a diagnosis of atrial fibrillation.) found that EFT reduced her palpitations and made her more comfortable in about 15 minutes. *A 42-year-old witnessed a car crashing into his house, killing the driver and gravely wounding the passenger. He complained of flashbacks and nightmares until we had an EFT session. Those troubling symptoms left him by the end of the session. *A salesman was reluctant to make "cold calls." After 40 minutes of EFT, he had no hesitation to make the calls. He became the top producer on his company's team.

It may be difficult to believe that simply by thinking about a distressing emotion and tapping a few points on the body can significantly reduce or eliminate all traces of that distress. However, it happens regularly in my practice. Many of my clients appear thrilled when they first experience this result. They often accept the positive changes in themselves easily and naturally and do not need to look any further for an explanation. Others want to understand why it works. I have tried to explain some of that in the paragraphs above.

This phenomenon called "thought tuning" accesses recalled or anticipated experiences and also accesses specific associated energy fields. These fields are associated with memory, but are also separate from them. Proof of this can be found with the trauma victim who is "cured" of the trauma through EFT. She still remembers what happened to her, but she no longer experiences nightmares, rapid heart beat, sweating, or fear when recalling it. The event and the emotional experience of the event exist separately. The emotional experience was brought about through imbalances in specific energy fields.

As a personal performance coach, I use many of the new modalities in energy treatment, including EFT, as well as other new and effective therapeutic methods to promote rapid healing and recovery. Only a few visits or phone sessions are usually necessary to clear energy blockages and restore healthy emotional and physical functioning. Some of my colleagues who practice energy therapies have reported significant remissions in other conditions, including: chronic pain, stress, arthritis, lupus, allergies, fibromyalgia, multiple sclerosis, HIV+, chronic fatigue, low self esteem, sinus problems, diabetes, addictions, athletic performance, anger, and habit control.

EFT is not the same as acupressure, although there is some similarity in that it utilizes the acupuncture meridian system. Unlike acupressure, EFT is specifically psychologically oriented.

Phone sessions are available for personal performance coaching.