What is EFT?
EFT is a form of energy psychology. Energy psychology is a branch of psychology that addresses the mind and body systems in tandem in order to address the relationship between thoughts, feelings, and behaviours. EFT is an advancement in our ability to help ourselves and others heal and grow. It integrates about 42 other helping modalities including cognitive behavioural therapy, talk, NLP and various somatic methods.
A core principle of energy psychology is the understanding that the root cause of psychological problems is emotional stress. And unresolved emotional stress can cause physical, mental and performance issues. Therefore, it is essential to address the root emotional stress when attempting to resolve mental or physical trauma.
One of the most powerful tools we have available today to address emotional stress and its associated symptoms in the areas of health, wealth, relationships and work is EFT.
EFT techniques use the fingers to tap on acupuncture points, and when this is done in conjunction with tuning into the traumatic or difficult or painful experience that is laced with emotion, the tapping process detaches the emotional charge from that thought or memory.
The technique does not eliminate the memory; instead, it removes the associated negative emotions from the memory, thus freeing the individual from paralyzing fear, stress, anxiety, and other emotional traps.
One of the greatest gifts that EFT brings to psychology, medicine, coaching and other human transformational practices is the fact that it is a gentle technique that is rapid, reliable, and accessible for people with even the most traumatic of experiences to address.
What are the benefits of EFT?
EFT is often described as an emotional healing version of acupuncture—a greatly researched and validated therapeutic method—without the needles.
EFT is:
- A gentle, non-invasive method of healing
- Easy to learn
- Easy to apply for yourself or with others
- A tested approach, verified and proven effective in of clinical cases.
- Provides rapid–often immediate—relief from symptoms
While EFT is powerful on its own, when used in conjunction with established psychological, mental health and coaching modalities and techniques, it is especially effective. This increased effectiveness is because EFT accelerates and anchoes the effects of traditional modalities in a way that produces more rapid and longer-lasting results for clients, patients, and practitioners.
Who benefits from using EFT?
The beauty of EFT is that is can be self-applied and can be taught or guided remotely by phone, over the internet, through video training, etc.
This means that EFT is accessible to a wide variety of people, including:
- Patients and clients in traditional psychotherapy/coaching relationships: EFT is proven to greatly accelerate the benefits of traditional forms of human health services, such as psychotherapy, coaching, physical therapy, and other medical interventions. Studies have shown that patients and clients that receive traditional forms of support in conjunction with EFT achieve healing faster and experience longer-lasting, often permanent improvements.
- Mental/medical professionals: As more and more professionals in the mental health and medical sectors discover the power and efficacy of these techniques, EFT is increasingly being integrated by practitioners as an essential addition to their clinical practices because it complements and improves results.
- Stressed out professionals: EFT is a powerful tool for professionals in high stress environments — particularly those that spend their time providing support and services to others. EFT helps these professionals reduce their stress, increase their resiliency, recover from setbacks faster, and become more effective in their work lives.
- People of all ages: EFT is used by millions of individuals for everyday challenges that do not require professional intervention, such as test anxiety, stress reduction, focus at work and in school, behaviour modification, etc.
What can you expect to occur during an EFT session?
Sometimes, relief is instant with EFT so one or two sessions may be all that is needed. Deeper or more complex issues may take a little longer to uncover and resolve. Anyone who has a history of mental health issues is strongly advised to seek the help from a professional with professional training in EFT as well as the mental health issue.
Adverse life experiences affect how we feel physically and emotionally. These are stored as energy that feels uncomfortable, kind of like a negative “zzzzt” that messes up our body’s circuitry.
The aim of using EFT is to release this uncomfortable energy and set you free. This usually involves you copying the practitioner in a monkey-see-monkey-do fashion tapping with two fingers on special points such as on your face and hands, while you repeat special phrases constructed to help you release negative emotions that contribute to your issue. Some practitioners may ask your permission to tap on you.
What issues can be helped with EFT?
Conditions helped are varied and include:
- Smoking
- Weight issues
- Food issues
- Childhood traumas
- PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder)
- Physical conditions (e.g. MS, ME, dyslexia, chronic back pain, psoriasis, eczema, allergies, arthritis, etc.)
- Relationship pain
- Insomnia
- Confidence issues,
- Professional performance issues
- School performance issues
- Low motivation
- Stress from pregnancy
- Bed-wetting
- Stuttering
- Trauma from physical or emotional abuse
- Bereavement
- Anxiety
- Anger/rage issues
- Depression
- Phobias
EFT is gentle enough for use with children and during pregnancy and birth.
What can you expect to feel during an EFT session?
During an EFT session the following may be experienced – all of which are normal and not harmful:
- Tightness in body
- Tingling
- Shakiness
- Feeling hot/cold
- Desire to yawn, cough, sneeze or cry
- Dizziness
- Shortness of breath
- Emotion no longer attached to memory
- Inner calm
- Tiredness
- Logical awareness (fear suddenly seems silly for example)
- Increased motivation to take helpful actions
How does EFT work?
Very often we experience pain from the thoughts we are having and the emotions that are attached to those thoughts. Therefore, when we can free ourselves from the emotions that are attached to our thoughts, the thoughts themselves will lighten as well the pain and suffering related to them.
Given that people have as many as 700,000 thoughts in a given day, it’s clear that if negative emotions are associated with those thoughts, the thoughts can trigger everything from generalized stress to traumatic suffering such as PTSD.
One of the prevailing theories is that part of the brain stores emotional memories in an area that tends to respond slowly to language and recent thoughts.
Because the emotional brain is closely related to the body, it is believed that therapeutic and coaching approaches that work with the body directly affect the emotional brain.
In other words, the mind and the body are directly connected.
The exact mechanisms of how EFT works are still being researched and evaluated by scientists at prestigious institutes such as Cornell and Harvard. There remains uncertainty in the research community as to exactly how and why these techniques are so effective, but there is consensus and evidence in the scientific community that these techniques are effective.
Other Resources
For more information about EFT and energy psychology, visit these external resources: