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Tapping energy
Similar to acupuncture but without the needles, Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) involve tapping on the body's energy points to stimulate your mind, body and emotions.
- By Shiva Kumar Thekkepat, Staff Writer
- Published: 23:34 September 13, 2007
- "I want to be able to help people with the body, mind ... (holistically)," says Zarina Halani, an EFT advocate who finds psychotherapy "too medical".
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"Is there anything bothering you at the moment?" asks Zarina Halani, who practises EFT.
I think for a minute. "Well, I have this nagging thought that I will never catch up with my work, which is rather depressing."
"And that makes you feel emotionally flat?"
"Yes."
"How flat - on a scale of 1 to 10?"
"About 6."
A minute later, she is simultaneously tapping various parts of my body and I am repeating, mantra-like in sync with her: "Even though I have this feeling that I am never going to catch up on my work, I love and accept myself without judgment."
All the fun of a New Age therapy in a modern glass and metal themed office in Dubai. Welcome to the weird and wonderful world of EFT.
Confusing and acronym-riddled
Some argue it is an obscure science. Some don't even acknowledge it as such, though now there is some research being done on it (see box on right).
And you will never understand it if you do not have a knack for acronyms. From EFT, one moves on to METs (Meridian Energy Therapies) and from there to such arcane sub-disciplines as NAEM (Negative Affect Erasing Method) and BSFF (Be Set Free Fast). It is a bit like a quiz show but without a fruity-voiced anchor.
"Yes, it can be confusing," agrees Zarina. "A few simple ideas and theories have evolved so rapidly that each practitioner could be said to have a slightly different approach."
Zarina, a commerce graduate who dabbled in teaching children as well as adults, before stumbling upon EFT, describes herself as a student of life. "Psychotherapy is too much of a medical model for my taste," she explains.
"The therapist is telling the patient there is something wrong with them, which needs to be fixed - by therapy. It becomes self-perpetuating. You can be in therapy for decades without any tangible results."
Her own approach is holistic, affirmative. "I tell my clients that they are creative, resourceful and whole. Traditional psychotherapy has placed far too much emphasis on the mind. I want to be able to help people with the body, mind ... (holistically)."
This may account for EFT's growing popularity. "It really has picked up in the UAE in the last 17 months," says Beryl Comar, the first fully-certified EFT practitioner in the country.
"When I first started, people used to ask, 'EFT? What's that?' Now they seek me out for sessions."
The legion of the technique's followers is growing in the US and Britain, not least because it's easy, free and anyone can do it.
Described as a personal development therapy, it is used for confidence building and for attitude and behavioural problems. Supporters also claim it can help with a variety of health conditions.
The technique was created in 1995 by Gary Craig, an American engineer at Stanford University-turned-minister. Also known as "acupuncture without needles", it is said to work by balancing the body's 13 "energy meridians" while patients "link up" with their problem by talking it (their problem) through.
The idea is that the meridians, or energy circuits, become blocked by negative feelings, resulting in emotional or physical conditions.
EFT clears and resets the circuits, simply by "tapping". The technique involves "manipulation of energy'' found in and around the body to relieve emotional traumas that create psychological problems such as fears, anger, phobias, depression, sadness, compulsions and obsessions.
The goal, advocates say, is to eliminate destructive emotions associated with memories from events that may be decades old.
Stimulating energy points
Craig describes it on his website (www.emofree.com) as resembling acupuncture, but instead of needles "you stimulate well-established meridian points on your body by tapping on them with your fingertips.
The process is easy to memorise and is portable (ie, your fingers) so you can take it anywhere." He describes the technique as a "common sense approach that draws its power from:
1. Time-honoured Eastern discoveries that have been around for more than 5,000 years and
2. Albert Einstein, who told us back in the 1920s that everything (including our bodies) is composed of energy."
Meridian energies operate at a largely unconscious level, Zarina says. "Pioneers in METs, such as Roger Callahan and Gary Craig, developed methods of healing which made the body reveal secrets which, to the conscious mind, were obscure."
One early experiment involved lightly tapping the muscles in a patient's arm, then inviting him to make a series of statements. If the statements were true, the muscles would resist; if they were false, the arm would go limp.
The tappings could thus, by a process of trial and error, be used to identify previously hidden conditions such as an allergy to strawberries. Zarina demonstrates it on me. I am impressed, but I don't admit it.
The protocols are based on EFT and consist of a combination of clear, repeated statements and systematic tapping of specific body parts, from the eyebrows to the fingertips.
This is the ritual I am undergoing now: tapping merrily away while repeating a verse which encapsulates my problem. It is surreal. Half of me feels like shrugging off all this mumbo-jumbo, but the other half is relaxed and at peace with myself. The negative feeling is still there, but it is not so pronounced. Zarina then asks me to assess my feeling again. Three on a scale of 10, I say. Then she repeats the procedure. This time there is a definite feeling of lightness. I am convinced, but reluctant to admit it. Zarina is understanding.
"There is no hocus-pocus involved," she assures me. And over time I realise she may be right. Having arrived a sceptic, I am starting to glimpse why EFT practitioners, such as Beryl Comar, have a raft of satisfied customers, from disturbed youngsters to middle-aged housewives.
"I had been teaching NLP and hypnotherapy courses, when suddenly in 1999 everybody was talking about EFT, both negative and positive," says Comar. "But the more I heard about it the more I was interested in it, and I started searching around for where I could learn more.
I found from the Association of Meridian Therapists in the UK that two lady therapists had just trained with Gary Craig in the US. One of them happened to live in my hometown just outside Manchester. She was willing to teach me."
"(In this region), it all turned to nought as no one had heard of it. So, I carried on with my NLP and hypnotherapy and suddenly about 18 months back, boom! Suddenly, everybody had heard of it from different sources in South Africa, Australia, America, Britain, the Netherlands ... and wanted to try it. That's fantastic because for five years people did not know what it was!"
So much so that google 'Emotional freedom technique' and close to 1,860,000 results will pop-up.
How to learn EFT
So, how does one choose a practitioner? The general consensus is to check the antecedents. Many learn the course through distance learning (ie, the internet), which need not necessarily be a negative. The level one course (six hours) teaches the basic technique.
Level two (two days) is a training course that enables participants to use EFT to practitioner level. Level three consists of training to an advanced level for professionalism - a peer group experience more than a training course. Trainers are required to contribute their own perspective
at workshops.
However, the good news is that you can get started by yourself. Just download the free EFT manual online and start tapping. It's that simple.
The trouble seems to be that there are no guidelines as to who can become practitioner. "That's the problem," says Comar. It's not an exact science and "people are still learning it," she explains.
"But as long as it works for people, it's OK." As to criticism about EFT not being a science, she notes "if you look up the websites of EFT you'll see that they (the practitioners) are all doctors.
My husband is a doctor and he was amazed once when he had a headache and I just tapped for him and it cleared like that.
Stress treatment
Thomas Ventimiglia, professor of counselling at the Palomar College in California, also became an advocate of EFT after a life-altering experience.
"I was treated by therapist Sue Hannibal for symptoms of fibromyalgia," he recounts. "When the symptoms improved, I decided to get trained by her and Gary Craig's training manual and DVDs. After it worked on me, some friends and my family, I decided to use it on students. I am a counsellor at Palomar College."
According to Ventimiglia, people are open to learning about EFT in San Marcos, where he resides. "I have not come across any opposition," he says. "But I know the VA (the Veteran Affairs department) is still closed-minded about EFT, even with thousands of veterans being helped and completely healed from their post-traumatic stress disorders (PTSD)."
This was partly the reason he decided to spread the message about the treatment and became involved in a TV programme on EFT. The finished product can be downloaded for $19.99 at www.palomar.edu/pctv/eft, as is a free manual that instructs people how to do EFT on themselves.
Cynic turned convert
For Thurstan Davies, a computer engineer in the construction industry (who was introduced to EFT by Comar when he went to learn NLP), it was precisely the scientific nature of the therapy that appealed to him.
"What fascinated me was that there was this science of acupuncture, formulated 5,000 years back, that has been rediscovered and adapted and simplified for everyday use," he says.
"Acupuncture involves sticking needles into people, which - let's admit - not many really like, pain or no pain. So the theory (of EFT) that was discovered worked equally well by tapping and was simplified by narrowing down the points to be tapped from thousands to a basic 13 (which works on all points). Now, isn't that great? That got me hooked!
"Just imagine, when somebody cuts across you on the road, you get angry, your palms are shaking. The emotion causes the physical reaction. Doctors would simply look at the physical reaction. How about if you could go to the emotion that causes the physical, and have freedom from the emotion? That's what EFT does, simply by tapping the points," says Davies.
"The beauty is you don't need to believe in it. Science has shown us that these points exist. Research has shown that tapping on the points releases energy. So, the cynic is converted in one session - like I was."
So much so that he plans to complete the second level training in EFT soon. "Because I've seen it works, and it works for me," he says. "I've come to the point where I've seen it work so many times, not one failure so far. I teach it to anybody I come in contact with who has a complaint. Back pain, migraine, who doesn't come across these every day? Stress, fear, anger, guilt ... just about anything. Stress at traffic jams! Tap away and just glide through!"
The most powerful argument for EFT, he adds, is this: (a paracetamol) takes 30 minutes to work on a headache. EFT takes five minutes, without any chemicals - and it's free.
EFT has gone from the personal to the corporate realm too. Corporate coaching accounts for some of Comar's work. "Happier people make better workers. It's pretty simple," she says.
Comar is fond of talking about her "ah-ha moments" - little epiphanies when the world suddenly makes more sense. I had that moment when I was tapping with Zarina. It's an odd thing to do, and the idea that it can relieve problems that patients might have had for 25 years is hard to accept. But anyone who thinks I won't complete my work on time again: I'm tapping.
Note: It is important that those suffering from any health condition consult their doctor before discontinuing any medication and resorting to EFT.
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