Save 30% on your conference fees, hotel and meals when attending the conference in Canada this year.

William F. Bengston, PhD
Author, developer of Bengston Energy Healing Method

Donna Eden
Best-selling author of Energy Medicine

David Feinstein
Award winning author and Leader in the field of EP

Helen Folsom MA, CHT
Author, Healer, Hypnotherapist, Musician

Joyce Hawkes PhD
Author, founder of Cell-Level Healing

James L. Oschman, PhD
Author, President, Nature’s Own Research Association

A paper published in the Harvard Review of Psychiatry in 1994 by Bessel van der Kolk, M.D., changed forever the way the psychotherapy field thinks about trauma treatment. Called “The Body Keeps the Score,” it persuasively argued that to effectively treat PTSD, talk therapy is not enough. Therapies that directly impact the way the brain and body are altered by trauma are required. In the subsequent two decades, a variety of body-oriented therapies have been successful in treating PTSD as well as for other deeply ingrained psychological conditions. Among the most powerful of these approaches is “energy psychology.”

Energy Psychology is a psychotherapeutic as well as self-help approach that – as it is most commonly practiced – combines imaginal exposure and other cognitive methods with the stimulation of acupuncture points by tapping on them. The most well-known among its various formulations are Thought Field Therapy (TFT) and Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT).

The standard protocols are very easy to learn. The key to your effectiveness will be based on your existing clinical skills. The approach adds for you a somatic component that rapidly changes the neural pathways involved in a target problem. It is that simple. A special track for therapists new to the approach will be offered at the Conference.

Energy Psychology works by stimulating energy points on the surface of the skin which, when paired with various psychological procedures, send signals to the brain that deactivate limbic system arousal, decrease the production of stress chemicals such as cortisol and adrenalin, and rapidly alter targeted neural pathways.

More than two dozen peer-reviewed, randomized controlled trials (RCTs) indicate that the approach produces strong, rapid, lasting outcomes for a variety of conditions. More than 7000 veterans have received energy psychology treatment for PTSD through the non-profit Veterans Stress Project. An RCT studying a sampling of these individuals (n=49) showed that 86% went from above to below PTSD cutoffs on the military version of a standardized inventory of PTSD symptoms within six sessions. Supportive research reviews have appeared in highly respected journals, including those published by the American Psychological Association. Two studies demonstrating the efficacy of the approach have appeared in the world’s oldest (1874) peer-reviewed mental health periodical, The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disorders, whose editor is a former president of the American Psychiatric Association.

Obesity is one of the most serious health challenges in the U.S. A precursor to heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes, and certain types of cancer, one in three Americans is obese (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2011). Energy psychology interventions have been shown to effectively address both food cravings and the emotional underpinnings of excessive food intake.

CASE EXAMPLE [from a report posted by John Garret at www.EFTUniverse.com]

A client, I’ll call her “Tina,” came to me frustrated with the lack of progress with her weight issue. She was morbidly obese, and had been dieting and working out intensely for six weeks with nothing much to show for her efforts.

The day before she came to me, she had experienced a confrontation with her older sister, Liz, who was a competitive body builder and personal trainer.

She had asked Liz about what to do about sore knees from doing leg presses and got a lengthy lecture about her past eating habits. Then Liz chastised her for her past food choices, as far back as when they were young children, and criticized her for allowing her son to also become overweight.

The statements were precluded with, “I don’t mean to hurt your feelings, but…”

My client was very hurt by Liz’s unsolicited criticism and became defensive and angry at Liz’s response. Liz also responded with anger and defensiveness, which created a huge, ugly confrontation.

By the time Tina expressed her feelings to me, she was ready to give up on the idea of ever being thin and fit, and felt she just had to accept her sister’s judgment. The fact that she could not remember what she had for breakfast, but Liz claimed to remember what she had eaten as a child 35 years earlier, made her incredibly self conscious.

She felt shame at being told to stop blaming genetics for her weight issues (they came from a long line of large people) and was hurt at being told that she and her son were fat simply because they ate too much.

My client was angry, but even more, she felt embarrassed and defeated.

She carried intense guilt about her teenage son’s weight issues and was horrified that he seemed to be following in her overweight footsteps. The confrontation with her sister confirmed her guilt, and had robbed her of her energy and momentum to continue working out and following a diet program. In tears, she was ready to give up.

The decision to work with me came, not directly to resolve weight issues, but from visions she had the afternoon after the confrontation. She was so disturbed by these visions that she knew instinctively that there was more going on than simple overeating.

Tina had thrown herself into her bed in tears after the confrontation with her sister. She dozed, but didn’t sleep. While in what she described as an Alpha, or self-hypnotic, state, she envisioned herself as an infant, with Liz, who was three years older, standing by her crib.

Liz reached through the bars on the crib and pinched Tina hard on her arms and legs, intentionally making Tina cry. Her sense was that Liz was intensely jealous of the new baby, and wanted to hurt her for disrupting her life, and Liz’s relationship with their mother.

Tina then had repeated visions of her sister covering her mouth and nose with her hand, trying to suffocate her. Several visions surfaced of Liz placing a pillow over Tina’s face, which caused Tina to struggle with panic.

These visions startled and terrified Tina, and was the main reason she decided to seek my help.

Tina has studied hypnotherapy and understands that these visions may or may not be “real” events. She agrees that it doesn’t matter to the mind if they actually happened or if they are simply a creation of the psyche to explain her feelings about her sister. The fact was, they felt very real to her, and that was what mattered.

Tina shared that a few years earlier her mother had told her that Liz had always been jealous of her. Liz continues to have jealousy issues to this day. Tina’s mother told her that she was very cute and outgoing as a child, while the older sister was sullen and shy.

This outgoing, happy attitude caused Tina to get most of the attention of guests and family members, and earned her the nickname, “Bubbles.”

Tina also had beautiful long white-blonde hair that caught the attention of almost everyone who saw her. Her older sister, on the other hand, had thin, wispy hair and was nearly bald until she was ten years old.

When Tina was about five, her mother, exasperated by the older sister’s jealousy, cut off Tina’s beautiful hair, making it extremely short to match her sister’s unattractive locks.

As they grew, Liz became obsessive about her body and her looks, and was always dieting and exercising.

Tina was involved in many other activities and paid little attention to her body until, as an older teen, she began gaining weight.

As adults, Tina admired and looked up to Liz, and felt pride when cheering for her at her Liz’s body building competitions. Tina, who was becoming more and more obese, also felt intense shame while attending these events, since they were so focused on looks and physique.

We began our EFT work with the statement:

“Even though I am overweight, I deeply and completely love and accept myself…”

In three rounds of tapping, her 0-10 intensity went from 10 to a 2. Tina yawned repeatedly during the tapping.

We moved on…

“Even though I have the memory of Liz pinching me….”
“Even though I have the memory of Liz smothering me with her hand….”
“Even though I have the memory of Liz smothering me with a pillow….”
“Even though Liz tried to kill me….”
“Even though my mother cut my hair to make Liz feel better about herself….”
“Even though Liz hates me….”
“Even though I hate Liz….”
“Even though I have to be diminished to make Liz feel okay….”
“Even though I have to be diminished or Liz will kill me….”
“Even though I have to stay fat to make Liz feel okay and not kill me….”
“Even though it is my fault that my son is fat….”

The yawning continued, and Tina complained of being incredibly tired. She wanted to stop several times. However, we continued until there was no charge regarding thoughts of her sister.

Then we tapped for the following:

“I choose to be thin and fit….”
“It is safe for me to be thin and fit….”
“It is easy for me to make good choices and to follow my plan to be thin and fit….”

Tina was obviously exhausted.

She said she just couldn’t do any more, then left and went straight to bed.

She reported that she slept though the night and into the next day, for a total of 13 hours of sleep.

The next day, she was stunned to find herself relaxed and content.

She had little or no emotional reaction to thoughts of her sister, and resumed her weight loss plan with optimism and vigor.

She has agreed to tap daily for any discomfort that may arise from thoughts of her sister, and to tap for accepting a new, thinner self.

She has released a lifetime of fear and pain regarding her sister, and now has the tools and confidence to achieve her weight loss goals.

CASE EXAMPLE [from a report posted by Joy Vogel at www.EFTUniverse.com]

I began a program of weight loss just over 2 years ago. I was near 400 pounds at that time, and had begun to have serious problems with my feet, legs and back.

I work nearly 10 hours a day, six days a week, as a teacher and department head, and serve as pastor of our church group as well, so I was getting worn out by my weight problem.

I have always been overweight, even as a tiny child.

In fact, my dad told me several years ago that when he first saw me in the hospital, he knew I would have weight problems my whole life (kindly meant, but not helpful, Daddy Dear!)

So I grew up believing I had inherited my mom’s weight problems, my thyroid condition; and my eating habits seemed uncontrollable.

I have never been successful at weight loss, and had tried every diet I heard of for years, and had about given up hope as I gained more every time I stopped one.

My husband, who, thank goodness, has loved me through it all, even made me promise no more diets. But I found something that I felt might be different and decided to give it one last try, and he finally, reluctantly agreed. I was surprisingly successful at first, but then began to fear I would backslide as usual.

About that time, I learned of EFT and decided to combine it with the diet, and have had great success.

As I continued the diet, along with tapping, I finally had to confront a sudden onslaught of seemingly disconnected events in my very early childhood which I had not been consciously aware of.

Putting them together, I was able to understand there has been a hideous event in my life that I must have been unwittingly protecting myself from ever since. Through EFT, I have been able to tap it into a far-off corner of my mind, where it seems now to have happened, but is no longer important.

I still tap on it once in a while, not to forget, but to make sure it is no longer a reason to hide behind my weight and try to be unattractive to men.

Now I understand myself in new ways, and feel free to be a new person.

If I am ever tempted to eat something that is not on my diet, I can now trace it to some part of my past or to a present feeling of fear or frustration, etc. and I just tap a round or two, and my craving disappears and I can go do other things and not obsess on food as I used to do.

I am not weighing any more, as I found it depressing. Even though it usually showed a loss, it just seemed I had so dauntingly far to go always. So now I just tap and diet, and sew or buy clothes. :=)

At this point, I wear a size 38 bra and 16 in dresses with a full skirt.

The goal is finally in sight, thanks to EFT! I feel I am living a miracle!

Clinical Trials:

Church, D., & Brooks, A. J. (2010). The effect of a brief EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques) self-intervention on anxiety, depression, pain and cravings in healthcare workers. Integrative Medicine: A Clinician’s Journal, 9(5), 40-44. Full Article.

Stapleton, P., Church, D., Sheldon, T., Porter, B., & Carlopio, C. (2013). Depression symptoms improve after successful weight loss with EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques): A randomized controlled trial. ISRN Psychiatry, 1-7. doi:10.1155/2013/573532.

Stapleton, P., Sheldon, T., & Porter, B. (2012). Clinical benefits of Emotional Freedom Techniques on food cravings 12-months follow-up: A randomized controlled trial. Energy Psychology: Theory, Research, and Treatment, 4(1), 13-24.

CLAUSTROPHOBIA CASE EXAMPLE [from report posted by Emma Roberts on www.EFTUniverse.com].

I have often witnessed a link between claustrophobia and birth trauma, and this link was beautifully demonstrated to me by a client recently. Cara presented with a classic tube (subway) phobia. In London, our underground system can run very deep below ground, and is a network of dark narrow tunnels.

Following the recent London bombings I have become sadly used to working in this area, often clearing phobias relatively simply by working with the specific memories available, usually images from the media of the carnage, which have become internalised in people. Sometimes it can be more complex, working with issues like the reality of terrorism and the randomness by which it seemingly claims lives. At worst, this can become generalised into a mistrust of the world, and possibly agoraphobia.

However, whilst Cara did report some increased discomfort after the July bombings her tube phobia had been with her all her life. She had got around it up until now via travelling by car and bus, but a recent promotion and change of office location meant that unless she could get on a tube she would add over an hour to her work journey each way. She already worked long hours and this would make her life unmanageable. However, to turn down the promotion would be a disaster for her career.

So she was stuck, and very anxious. She had also tried many other therapies, both mainstream and alternative, and EFT was her last hope. We started there!

Even though this is my last hope”
Even though nothing works for me”
Even though this has to work”
Even though I don’t believe it will work”

Some of the psychotherapy Cara had done meant that she already had a clear knowledge of the construct of her phobia. In EFT terms she was aware of the aspects, and what thoughts and feelings were connected, making the initial work easy … Seemingly!

We tapped through all her earliest memories of being on a tube. She had only been on it a handful of times in her life, so this was relatively quick and the memories reduced to zero. We worked through all the different aspects, the noise, smell, darkness, the crowds, and the associated emotional responses, fear, panic, anxiety, breathlessness, raised heart beat.

She could access all these components easily and they seemed to reduce to zero quickly. All the way through this we were testing, testing, testing. We never had to use the Tearless Trauma technique and Cara was OK to watch the movies, tell the stories and ultimately to vividly imagine the situation ” apparently!

But there was something which intuitively did not seem quite right and despite Cara claiming to feel comfortable with tubes now I was not convinced. I had noticed that when I asked her to imagine herself on a tube she would keep her eyes open. So I asked her what would happen were she to vividly imagine with her eyes closed. When she did that something strange happened.

Suddenly Cara began to curl up into a tight ball on the chair. She drew her knees up to her chin and said she felt like she was being “squeezed to death and had no way out’. Her breathing was becoming shallower and she felt very very hot.

At this point I was unable to reach the face points as her face was totally hidden from me, but I knew I had to keep tapping to maximise meridian stimulation as she was experiencing whatever was happening for her. I tapped on the top of her head, her wrist and her ankle points (these three points cover all the meridians and are a quick and effective way of reducing intensity), all the time talking to her, staying with her, and matching my voice speed to her breathing. After about a minute her breathing calmed down and she began to unfurl. I asked her to open her eyes and look at me, as I kept tapping and matching the rhythm of her breath, moving to continually tapping on her finger points as soon as I could reach them.

I checked how she was feeling, both physically and emotionally, and she was fine. In fact she felt both excited and positive about what had happened. She felt she had accessed something which might be the missing piece in releasing this phobia completely. So I asked her a favourite question, what did that experience just then remind her of, when might she have felt that way before? Her immediate answer was that it felt like being born. I asked her how much she knew about her birth and she said she had been born with the cord around her neck, and had been delivered by forceps as she had been stuck in the birth canal. This brought up a wave of grief, both for her and her mother sharing this trauma, and we tapped to release this for both of them.

I didn’t want Cara to re-experience her birth again yet, if at all, so we began by tapping for the baby Cara, for how she must have felt, for how scared she must have been, bringing in some reframes and Choices:

Even though baby Cara nearly died”
Even though she was trapped”
Even though she was suffocating”
Even though it was so dark…
Even though she was frightened”
Even though she didn’t understand”

Gradually progressing to:

Even though I nearly died”
Even though I was trapped”
Even though I was suffocating”
Even though it was so dark”
Even though I was frightened”
Even though I didn’t understand”

To reframes:

I was so brave
I did survive
I was amazing
I was strong
I am alive

To Choices:

I choose to remember I was a beautiful baby
I choose to remember Mum loved me
I choose to remember I did survive
I choose to know I am OK
I choose peace instead of this

This is a similar dissociation method to the Movie Technique, but using language to distance the memory, gently sneaking up until it is safe to identify with the baby Cara fully.

When I felt confident that she was feeling no intensity at the thought of the birth trauma, and we had thoroughly tested it as far as we could from a distance, I asked Cara if she wanted to close her eyes and revisit that experience, knowing what she now knew about it. I instructed her that if she felt any intensity at any point she was to open her eyes immediately and we would tap on that piece.

We did a couple of rounds on feeling safe enough to go there and then Cara closed her eyes and vividly imagined being in the birth canal. What was fascinating to watch were the body movements as she was both pushing and being pushed, very slow stretching movements, but there was NO panic, her heart rate remained calm and the enormous heat that was there before had totally diffused.

Again, I was tapping on the three points, top of the head, wrist and ankle, whilst she experienced this, to keep some form of contact with her, to keep her safe.

But she really was 100% fine, she opened her eyes and said she had felt a little uncomfortable but that she had a sense that she was going to be OK, that she knew her way out, and she had no need to panic, she just had to relax and wait. I imagine this was very different to her actual birth.

Next I asked her to go back to where we began in the session and vividly imagine herself on a tube. This time I kept contact with her by continually tapping on her fingers, wrist and gamut point whilst she did the work. We started with an empty tube, which was fine, then progressed onto a busier one, also no problem, culminating in a rush hour tube where you are crammed like sardines in a tin, with no room to move in any direction. She didn’t like the thought of that, but didn’t feel the panic when she really allowed herself to go there. She said that she would rather not travel during those peak times and thought she would arrange her schedule accordingly. This seemed totally reasonable to me, and not a phobia driven response. No one would choose to travel during the London rush hour if they had a choice!

The final test was for Cara to go on a tube by herself, which she decided to do the following day. I instructed her to just travel one stop (approximately 3 minutes) and see how she felt. She was familiar with the tapping points, including the continual finger tapping, so could manage her own state if she needed to. She rang me later that day to say that she had been so fascinated by people watching that she had missed her first stop! None of the old phobic symptoms had returned, and whilst she didn’t plan on travelling at rush hour this was a matter of choice rather than necessity now.

I find it so interesting that the body can remember even when an experience is outside conscious memory. Birth can be a traumatic event for a baby even without the obvious trauma Cara experienced. The sudden shock of an extreme change of environment, and the possible loss of perceived safety of the womb may, in some babies, create energetic blocks which emerge later in life. Thankfully we now have EFT with which to easily release them!

AGORAPHOBIA CASE EXAMPLE [from report posted by Patti Spencer on www.EFTUniverse.com].

I want to share with you the story of my friend Bob. When Bob was 17 years old, he had an emergency appendectomy. When he awoke from the surgery, he was in a severe panic and only his mother could comfort him. From this experience, he developed agoraphobia lasting for years.

His chosen profession was real estate, and years before cell phones were available, he would always need to know the location of every phone booth so that he could call for help and find a “safe” person. He had an unhealthy dependence on his mother, and a fear of dying. He saw scores of psychiatrists, and took psychotropic drugs for years. These medications caused a myriad of health problems and altered his wittiness, his great sense of humor, his level of confidence and his basic personality.

He became a self-centered and needy person, and most of his family shunned him. Eventually, he was unable to work. Leaving his home took a great deal of effort. His marriage fell apart. He moved across the country, and I didn’t see him for some years.

When I learned about EFT, I was eager to do a session with Bob, who is now 65 years old. He had made some progress in the last several years as a result of a promise to God following successful cancer and heart surgery. When he visited me several months ago, however, he was still crippled by his phobia. He was on his way to travel to New Zealand and Australia, fulfilling a lifelong dream, and brought his ex-wife, Ella, with him because being without a “safe” person was terrifying to him. He couldn’t drive anywhere by himself, and basically was extremely uncomfortable being anywhere by himself, especially an open place, such as a park.

I asked Bob what would raise his intensity level the most, and he indicated that going to a park or a large open space by himself, away from his car and his cell phone would send him through the roof. He might be able to force himself to do this, but he would be extremely uncomfortable.

We tapped for no longer than 15 minutes on this issue (this fear of being alone–this anxiety), and his intensity level went down to about a 1. I asked him if he wanted to put it to the test, and he eagerly agreed to do so. He left in the car by himself, drove to an unfamiliar park by himself, and took a walk. Ella and I were beginning to be concerned because he was gone for a full hour (we were giving him about 20 minutes to return). He was perfectly fine when he did return, and had enjoyed the walk and the time to himself.

A couple of days later, Bob and I visited again. He was experiencing a high level of anxiety because he had to drop a relative off at a doctors’ office, and then drive back to where he was staying by himself and be alone all afternoon. Another 15 minutes of tapping and I sent him off on his errand. When we met later that evening for dinner, I learned that not only was he relaxed driving by himself, but he decided to drive a significant distance further and go to the beach for a walk. He then drove to another area to visit a friend he hadn’t seen in a long time. As it turned out, he was nearly late for dinner because he was enjoying himself so much. Ella was concerned because normally, he would have been calling her all afternoon if he was alone somewhere.

Bob was able to enjoy his vacation without any elevated anxiety, and when I followed up with him several months later, I found that he had been able to nearly completely leave off his medication. He was down to only one prescription, which was a low dosage and he was only taking it every third day. Before he came to visit me, he had to force himself to leave the house to go to his substitute teaching job, even though he enjoyed it immensely. Last week he informed me that he is starting his own company, a real estate brokerage firm.

I have been amazed and grateful at the transformation that can sometimes occur with just a short session of EFT, and it makes me sad to think of all the years Bob spent trying unsuccessfully to solve his problem through conventional methods. Here’s the letter Bob sent me recently:

Dear Patti,

The progress I have made both mentally and physically since the beginning of this year 2005 has been phenomenal.

Honestly, I feel gratitude to God for my abundance of blessings. You see, I attribute much of this progress to forces beyond human comprehension. Now, to get more down to earth. When I saw you in December of 2004 in Mission Viejo, you practiced a “tapping” method with me that gave me immediate results. Forgive me for forgetting the initials of this treatment. Anyway I felt immediate relief after that one session. Combine this with my good fortune to inherit some passive income from commercial real estate and the result is relief from pressure.

I guess I am truly puzzled and overwhelmed that I no longer need all that psychiatric medicine I have been taking for years. I even went to my Internist for my annual physical and said to him, “Dr Kendall, I just don’t get it. I don’t have friends, most of my family doesn’t want anything to do with me, I’m really alone, but I have never felt better physically and mentally.” He replied by saying, “you have made a 180 degree turn since I meet you in 1999. You know who you are and are finally comfortable with yourself.” Of course the results of my physical confirmed that everything is normal. My final thought is that it is impossible for a person to be depressed and/or anxious when one’s prevailing attitude is one of gratitude. Talk to you soon.

Love,
Bob

Clinical Trial:

Wells, S., Polglase, K., Andrews, H. B., Carrington, P. & Baker, A. H. (2003). Evaluation of a meridian-based intervention, Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT), for reducing specific phobias of small animals. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 59, 943-966. doi: 10.1002/jclp.10189

Approximately 6 million adults in the U.S. suffer with fibromyalgia, a musculoskeletal disorder of unknown etiology characterized by widespread pain accompanied by fatigue, sleep, memory disturbance, and mood issues. Symptoms sometimes begin after a physical trauma, surgery, infection, or significant psychological stress. In other cases, symptoms gradually accumulate over time with no single triggering event. Diagnosis usually occurs during middle age, and prevalence increases with age. Women are much more likely (7 to 1) to develop fibromyalgia than are men. Many people who have fibromyalgia also have tension headaches, temporomandibular joint (TMJ) disorders, irritable bowel syndrome, anxiety, and depression. While there is no cure for fibromyalgia, a variety of medications can help control symptoms.

However, a number of apparent cures following energy psychology treatments have been reported:

Case Example [summarized from a case described in Brattberg, 2008, cited below].:

A 54-year-old woman was diagnosed with fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), and PTSD in March 1993. Over the next decade she was prescribed numerous medications, but she received little benefit and the side effects worsened her overall health. In February of 2005, she began using EFT. Her practitioner’s description on the database describes severe overall body pain: “It hurt to walk, sit, lie, or move. Even her eyelids hurt and pain persistently pulsed throughout her body. On pain scale of 0-10, her pain was almost perpetually at a 10. She had complained of sleeplessness for a few years but was reluctant to take sleep medication. Her cognitive abilities were thus very poor, mainly from lack of sleep.” Seven in-office EFT sessions were provided along with e-mail and telephone support for back-home application. The patient was able to discontinue all pain and sleep medication within weeks, and a medical diagnosis in June 2006 showed her to be free of the three initial conditions. The patient’s statement on the database: “I no longer have any symptoms of fibromyalgia, CFS, pain, PTSD, or insomnia. Diligent use of EFT was the only healing method that created this result.”

Sample Fibromyalgia Treatment Outcome Study:

Brattberg, G. (2008). Self-administered EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques) in individuals with fibromyalgia: a randomized trial. Integrative Medicine: A Clinician’s Journal, 7(4), 30-35. Full article.

An estimated “47% of the U.S. adult population suffers from maladaptive signs of an addictive disorder,” and a wide range of addictions (e.g., tobacco, alcohol, illicit drugs, eating, gambling, Internet, love, sex, exercise, work, and shopping) may all serve similar psychological functions (Sussman, Nadra, & Griffiths, 2011). With biological, psychological, and social factors involved, successful addiction treatment is notoriously complex. A number of reports suggest that energy psychology has been effective enough in rapidly identifying and neutralizing the psychological core of an addiction that the person reported no longer being addicted to the substance or activity. Two such reports follow:

Sexual Addiction Case Example [from a report posted by Nancy Linnerooth at www.EFTUniverse.com]

“Greg” came into my office the very model of a successful businessman. He had built a company from scratch, was in talks to sell it for a great profit, was already considering which of a handful of ideas to pursue for his next start-up, and clearly adored the talented woman he had married the previous year.

He was also hiding a big problem. As he put it, he had a sexual addiction. Several times a day, he would put everything on hold to satisfy his need for an orgasm. He spent a lot of money on Internet porn. He was finding it increasingly difficult to hide his activities from his wife, and he was disgusted with himself.

It took a lot for him to come into my office and tell me his story; he had never told anyone. He was clearly disappointed when I explained that working on sexual addiction was not something I had done in my therapy practice, but I would ask around for a referral to a good therapist who specialized in that field. Since he wasn’t keen on making his confession again with someone else, I explained what I would do if he worked with me. I would start with the assumption that his addiction was an escape from stresses in his life, that certain stressors during his day triggered it. I would use this strange-sounding tapping with him on events from around the time his addiction started to see if we could unhook whatever had set up that trigger in the first place.

As an example, I said we might look at events around the death of his mother when he was a teenager, which he had told me was a big event in his life. He assured me that his hypersexual behavior started before her death. Well, teenage boys often find themselves obsessed with sex, I noted, adding that maybe he had gotten “stuck” in that way of thinking and acting when his mother died and hadn’t been able to leave it behind.

I was just trying to give him an example of what we might find, but Greg looked thoughtful and said that my theory rang a few bells for him. So that was where we started. Despite my referral to a specialist in sexual addiction, Greg wanted to work with me.

Greg looked distressed as he started to tell me about his mother, so I stopped him and had him tap on the points along with me while he told me the story of his mother’s death. He grew up in a community in the Midwest where you just didn’t talk much about your feelings. To make matters more difficult, neither his father nor his three brothers ever talked about his mother’s death after the funeral. It just wasn’t done. As far as I could tell, Greg had never talked to anyone about her death or what it had done to him and his family before that day in my office. No wonder he was distressed.

Next we did some focused tapping on his feelings of sadness, anger at his mother, and guilt, which I pointed out were all normal reactions during grief. As he experienced how quickly these emotions came down, Greg decided to bring up an event that had troubled him since his mother’s death. The day she went to the hospital for the last time, he had a date planned with his girlfriend. They had recently started having sex, and he was understandably rather focused on that aspect of the date. During the tapping, he realized he had blamed himself all these years for not recognizing that his mother was very sick and for not staying home so he could have gone with her to the hospital instead of going on that date.

We just had time to tap down all the emotions that came up around that memory before the session ended. It had been intense, and Greg looked quite tired. However, he also looked somewhat relieved and thanked me as he left.

We hadn’t tapped at all on the symptoms of his sexual addiction or his emotions around it. I had no idea whether I had helped him with the issue for which he had come to me for help, but I comforted myself with the thought that at least he had cleared out a painful trauma he had carried around his entire adult life. And, of course, he could always go to the therapist I had referred him to!

The next week Greg gave me a huge smile as he walked in the door. “I’ve come out of my swamp,” he told me. Since our previous session he hadn’t felt any of his usual impulses. His sexual addiction of fifteen years just went away. And it didn’t come back over the following two weeks as we worked on his regrets from those years. And then he felt finished with our sessions, ready to live his life the way he wanted to.

I don’t know how many sexual addictions trace their roots back so directly to a specific event from adolescence the way this one did. As I said, I’m far from an expert in that field. Still, for anyone who has a similar problem, traumas from around the time the addictive behaviors started may be a good place to begin.

Gambling Addiction Case Example [summarized from a report posted by Karen Degen at www.EFTUniverse.com]

“Paul” suffered from a severe gambling addiction. While he presented as an intelligent and “good” person, he was unable to control his gambling habit. For example, when he sold his house, he had gambled away the proceeds before he had purchased another home.

During a single session, Paul identified various aspects of his gambling problem, which were formulated into the following statements:

By tapping on and neutralizing these and other dimensions of the problem, Paul felt by the end of the first session that “the likelihood of gambling again was low.” Three months later, he wrote:

I had one and a half hours with Karen and went from a 10 (being so wanting to go gambling) down to a 1 in that time. I did my tapping homework to work on the last little bit. I was on cloud nine for weeks. I have not played the pokies, nor do I want to, since the day I saw Karen three months ago.

The Institute of Medicine of The National Academies estimates that some 100 million Americans suffer with chronic pain and that the annual costs in terms of medical expenses, disability days, lost wages, and lost productivity exceed half a trillion dollars. An estimated 20% of American adults (42 million people) report that pain or physical discomfort disrupts their sleep a few nights a week or more.

Numerous case reports and several clinical studies (cited below) suggest that energy psychology is effective in treating chronic pain. The underlying mechanisms have not been investigated, but they are believed to be related to the demonstrated effectiveness of acupuncture in treating pain combined with the ability of energy psychology to address the emotional roots of physical conditions.

Case Example [summarized from a case reported by Therese Baumgart on www.EFTUniverse.com]:

“Sam” had scheduled an appointment with an orthopedic surgeon for an MRI, with plans of elective surgery for shoulder pain. He had been suffering for about five years from intense pain in his right shoulder and arm, emanating from a torn rotator cuff and tendonitis. He was unable to use his right arm or raise it from his side, except for a few inches, which had consequences in all areas of his life. He also had arm and hand tingling and some numbness. Physical therapy had provided some temporary relief, but the doctor explained that “bone is rubbing on bone.”

I had been seeing Sam weekly for about three months, addressing other issues. When I proposed that we focus on his shoulder pain, he was doubtful that EFT would be of any help with either his range of motion or the pain. He insisted that the problem was “physical,” but he was open to trying anything to get relief. I explained that I had no doubt it was physical, but that EFT might still be helpful.

Along with having Sam rate his intensity of pain (0 to 10) before and after each round of tapping, I asked him to report the memories or images that came to mind. Among his statements:

I have a serious shoulder injury
I have a painful tear in my right rotator cuff
I can’t use my right arm and hand and I feel useless
My shoulder and arm hurt
My shoulder is in pain
My life is painful right now
Mary [his ex-wife] is stuck in my shoulder
Mary wrecked up our marriage and threw it in the trash
Mary, you wrecked up our marriage
Mary, it’s all your fault
I still have some of this Mary pain stuck in my shoulder
I can’t put my arm around anybody
It’s too painful to put my arm around anybody
I don’t have anyone to put my arm around
My arm and hand are numb and tingly
I feel emotionally numb
I don’t want to feel certain feelings

For each upsetting memory or thought, I had him do a round of tapping, and for some I had him elaborate the memory or thought into a story that he would tell while tapping. For each, I then had him repeat the process until he felt calm and the issue felt “compete.”

After three very emotional one-hour sessions, Sam’s pain had gone from a 10 to a 0. He had full use of his right hand and arm. He was able to raise his hand completely above his head with no pain (“I can shampoo and comb my hair with my right hand again!”). These improvements persisted, which Sam called “remarkable.” He kept his appointment for the MRI, which confirmed that the rotator cuff was still torn, but the surgeon suggested that he should only have surgery if he were in pain. Since he was no longer in pain, he did not proceed with the surgery.

Clinical Trials of EFT for Pain Relief:

Bougea, A. M., Spandideas, N., Alexopoulos, E. C., Thomaides, T., Chrousos, G. P., & Darviri, C. (2013). Effect of the Emotional Freedom Technique on perceived stress, quality of life, and cortisol salivary levels in tension-type headache sufferers: A randomized controlled trial. EXPLORE: The Journal of Science and Healing, 9(2), 91-99. doi:10.1016/j.explore.2012.12.005.

Church, D., & Brooks, A. J. (2014). Pain, depression, and anxiety after PTSD symptom remediation in veterans. Explore: The Journal of Science and Healing, 10(3), 162 – 169. doi: 10.1016/j.explore.2014.02.005.

Hodge, P. M., & Jurgens, C. Y. (2011). Psychological and physiological symptoms of psoriasis after group EFT treatment: A pilot study. Energy Psychology: Theory, Research, & Treatment, 3(2), 13-23. doi:10.9769/EPJ.2011.3.2.PMH.CYJ

Ortner, N., Palmer-Hoffman, J., & Clond, M. A. (2014). Effects of Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) on the reduction of chronic pain in adults: A pilot study. Energy Psychology: Theory, Research, and Treatment, 6(2), 14–21. doi:10.9769.EPJ.2014.6.2.NO

This case is described by David Feinstein, Ph.D., in The Energies of Love (New York: Tarcher/Penguin, 2014).

When June was 24, her high school sweetheart and then husband was killed in a traffic accident, the victim of a drunk driver. The loss was horrendous. She was depressed and almost inconsolable for the next two years. Eventually, however, she returned to school, started a new career, and was able to rebuild a meaningful life. At age 31, she met Ralph and, after dealing with her sense of being disloyal to her first husband, she allowed herself to fall deeply in love with him. They married and had two sons. June’s worry about their well-being became problematic. If Ralph was late coming home from work, she would be a bundle of frayed nerves by the time he arrived. It was very difficult for her to allow either of their sons to part from her sight, and their going to school was agony for her. She would ruminate about all the terrible things that might happen. Earlier in their relationship, Ralph had been very patient with June when her worry was primarily about him. He understood the loss she had suffered. But now her worry was stifling the boys as they became more independent, and he insisted that they attend therapy.

After taking a thorough history in the first session, it became clear to me that while June had received grief counseling following her husband’s death, and had healed in many important ways, the shock of learning of his death still reverberated within her in nightmarish proportions. As difficult as it might be, the treatment had to revisit that moment. Fortunately, with acupoint tapping, it is not necessary to vividly relive a trauma. A technique called “sneaking up on the problem” uses very general terms rather than the highly specific language that is usually suggested. When working with a devastating memory, you don’t need to relive it, only to activate it slightly. So June’s first round of tapping simply used the words “That horrible day.” Her SUD rating went from a 10 to a 7 after a few rounds, but then other losses came into her mind, specifically of her grandmother when she was eight and of a pet dog when she was in her teens. We focused on each until the emotional charge had dissipated and the memory of the joys each had brought into her life could be fully experienced without intrusion by unprocessed pain about their subsequent loss.

In the next session, we returned to the moment June learned of her first husband’s death. It had come back up to a 9 and was quickly lowered to a 6 after a bit of tapping, again using the reminder phrase “That horrible day.” At this point, the approach was refined. First June was asked to describe what she was doing just prior to learning of her husband’s death and to tell the story of that day. She had already done enough work that she was able to manage this, not without tears, but without being totally overwhelmed. Then we took the account she had just presented in stages, using language that was more specific than had been used in the earlier tapping. We began with her shopping in a grocery store prior to receiving the call on her cell phone. That was not hard to neutralize. Then hearing the cell phone ring and taking it out of her purse. She could recall exactly what aisle she was in. The distress triggered by this memory was neutralized within a couple of rounds of tapping. Then hearing the doctor identify himself and say the awful words, “I’m afraid your husband has been in an accident.” Everything that followed was addressed in segments, from the anxious drive to the hospital to learning he had died to insisting on seeing his disfigured body to the long and terrible night of being home alone after it was all over.

Because overwhelming emotion is not compatible with the signals sent to the brain during tapping, the signals turn off the emotion without distorting the memory. The memory becomes manageable and stops intruding into other areas of one’s life. This emotional processing and healing changes the person’s psychic landscape. From there, it was relatively easy to identify several of the most recent times that June had been obsessively worried about Ralph or one of the boys and to tap each down to zero. Finally, we worked with some situations that had not yet happened but which she imagined might be challenging. From that point on, she was able to send her men off to work or school with a smile on her face and a heart that was at peace.

Case Example [summarized from a report posted on www.emofree.com]:

Sandy and her fiancé came to Alan Batchelder for premarital counseling. Among the issues they were concerned about was their sexual relationship. Although Sandy had been married before, she found herself reacting with uncontrollable negative feelings when her partner initiated sexual play.

He was willing to be patient, kind, and understanding, and he seemed genuinely interested that sex be a shared experience. While she freely acknowledged that she had no problems with his attitude, she still would usually become upset and turned off by his overtures. They asked for help with this problem, and a private session with Sandy was arranged.

When she came in, the therapist gently asked, “Is there something in your earlier years that you could talk about?” She immediately burst into tears. Red blotches appeared on her skin, and her words were punctuated with heavy sobbing and gasping as she began to relate her story.

“When I was 7 years old, we lived in [a small, rural town]. One day my stepfather took me for a walk down a country road. It was in the summer. We hiked up the side of a hill. Then we stopped. Then he took off all my clothes. Then he took off all his clothes.”

At this point she was scarcely able to breathe. The therapist stopped her and said that it was not necessary to go any further. He had her state her distress rating about the memory, which obviously was a 10. He then led her through the Tapping Sequence. Her intensity dropped from 10 to 6.

At this point, an Acceptance Statement that began “Even though I still feel overwhelmed . . .” was used, followed by another round of tapping. This time the intensity fell to 2. Then another Acceptance Statement was introduced, beginning with, “Even if I never get completely over this…” and a last round of tapping.

By this time, Sandy was breathing quietly. Her skin was free of blotches, her eyes were clear, and she was looking at her hands, lying folded in her lap.

The therapist said, “Sandy, as you sit there now, think back to that hot summer day when your stepfather took you for that walk down that country road. Think about how you hiked up the side of that hill until you stopped. Think about how he took off all your clothes. Think of how he took off all his clothes. Now, what do you get?”

She sat there without moving for maybe five seconds, then looked up calmly and said, without excessive emotion, “Well I still hate him.” The therapist, after agreeing that hating him might be a reasonable response and possibly a useful one to keep, then asked, “But what about the distress you were feeling?”

Again she paused before answering. This time she laughed as she said, “I don’t know. I just can’t get there. Well that was 20 years ago. I was just a little girl. I couldn’t protect myself then the way I can now. What’s the point in getting upset about something like that . . . I never let that man touch me again, and my kids have never been allowed to be near him. I don’t know, it just doesn’t seem to bother me like it did.”

After this single session, she no longer experienced negative feelings in response to her partner’s sexual advances. On a two-year follow-up, she reported that the problem was “good and gone,” and her partner, now her husband, confirmed that there was no sign of the former difficulties.

Notice also that by the end of the session she was speaking of the trauma almost casually, and she was placing it into a self-affirming framework: “Well that was 20 years ago. I was just a little girl. I couldn’t protect myself then the way I can now.”

Such shifts in relationship to a traumatic memory that has been emotionally cleared using an energy intervention are frequently reported.

Review Article on Energy Psychology in the Treatment of PTSD:

Feinstein, D. (2010). Rapid treatment of PTSD: Why psychological exposure with acupoint tapping may be effective. Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, Practice, Training. 47(3), 385-402. Abstract.

Anxiety disorders affect about 40 million adult Americans each year, causing fear, uncertainty, and diminished ability to cope effectively. Unlike the relatively mild, brief anxiety caused by a stressful event (such as speaking in public or a first date), anxiety disorders last at least 6 months and can get worse if they are not treated.

Stimulating acupuncture points while mentally evoking anxious feelings or a trigger for anxiety is believed to send deactivating signals directly to the amygdala’s lateral nucleus, its threat detection center, as well as to other areas of the limbic system that are involved with fear. Both clinical reports and research findings indicate that reducing anxiety is an area where energy psychology protocols are particularly effective.

Case Example [summarized from a report posted on www.EFTUniverse.com.]

“Venkat” reported debilitating anxiety that had persisted for two years. Describing himself as having to that point been quite extraverted, his life was narrowing as he was now unable to drive and was avoiding gatherings of people and even shopping. He reported being in a constant state of tension, with physical symptoms such as pounding of the heart and tightness in his head and left leg becoming pronounced when having to meet people or when encountering other triggers.

Several treatment sessions were administered over the phone. Venkat also complied with instructions to self-apply the protocol between meetings.

In the first session, Venkat identified a precipitating event two years earlier when he was having a dizzy spell at his workplace and eventually fainted. Even though people were there to help him, he felt “helpless,” “out of control,” and “weak.” After this incident, he had constant fear and anxiety that he would faint again. Attempts by others to help with advice such as “It’s all in your mind” and “You just need more willpower” served to further isolate him.

The therapist moved in very slowly, even with the initial 0 to 10 SUD assessment of the precipitating event. Rather than being asked to recall the incident, Venkat was asked to rate what he thought the rating would be if he were to bring it to mind. The generic phrase, “dizzy incident,” was chosen as the reminder phrase. After a few rounds of tapping using this phrase, he was more in control and able to talk about the details. At that point, he was able to visualize the incident and tap on specific elements of it until the SUD was down to a zero.

With that achieved, Venkat began to feel regret that he had lost two years of his life and had suffered so much pain. The wording now focused on this regret, and also on the sense of powerlessness and weakness he had experienced. After the emotional charge on these issues had been eliminated, the wording became more future-oriented, with phrases such as “I take my power back.”

Another area of focus was on the somatic dimension of his anxiety, such as his pounding heart and the tension in his head and left leg. All were in the 8 to 10 range on his early SUD ratings. They came down to around 4 without having been a specific area of focus, and were completely resolved by the end of the treatment.

On follow-up a month after the final session, Venkat reported that he was driving again, was comfortable meeting people, was no longer terrified of crowds, and that he had made two trips without incident.

Clinical Trials: Several clinical trials showing energy psychology to be effective in treating anxiety disorders are reviewed in “Acupoint Stimulation in Treating Psychological Disorders: Evidence of Efficacy” which appeared in the APA journal Review of General Psychology (2012, 16, 364-380).

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Approximately 1 of 9 people in the U.S. will suffer during their lifetime from a phobia or self-limiting irrational fear. The first published, peer-reviewed, randomized clinical trial demonstrating the efficacy of acupoint tapping with an established DSM diagnosis investigated the treatment of specific phobias, focusing on insects and small animals (Wells, Polglase, Andrews, Carrington, & Baker, 2003). After a single 30-minute session, the acupoint group was statistically superior on four of five measures compared with an active ingredient control condition. Two partial replications and a series of subsequent studies have lent support for these findings.

I’m embarrassed at my gambling and I’ve let myself down and my kids down
When I gamble money, doesn’t mean anything to me.
I’ve lost all my freedom and all my money through gambling.
I had so much luck when I started gambling, and I still think I’ll always win.
I gamble when I’ve had a bad day to cheer myself up, and I gamble when I’ve had a good day because I feel lucky.
I gamble because I like it, and I can do as I please.
You can’t make me stop.
I don’t want to stop.
I had no control in my marriage, I have no control at work, and I have no control over my gambling.
I gamble to have fun because I deserve to treat myself.

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