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Cases

"But it doesn't work for me...."

Important Note: This article was written prior to 2010 and is now outdated. Please use my newest advancement, Optimal EFT. It is more efficient, more powerful and clearly explained in my free e-book, The Unseen Therapist™.  Best wishes, Gary

by Gary Craig

Hi Everyone,

"Madeleine" wrote to me to follow up on a session we had at a workshop in Portland, Oregon. I will be sharing her feedback with you a little later but first I need to establish some helpful background.

Madeleine is not a therapist. She studied EFT on her own and diligently applied it to her own issues. The result???

Nothing.

She made no discernible headway on her own issues but kept hearing of the quality results others were getting--even non-therapists like herself, and she was quite frustrated. Why, she thought, did EFT seem to work so consistently with others but was a dud with her? Her understandable lament was....

"But it doesn't work for me...."

Was something wrong with her? Did she have intractable problems? Was she doing it wrong?

Frankly, I didn't know. EFT is not perfect and doesn't generate 100% miracles for everyone who tries it. The "why" behind its ineffectiveness on a small percentage of people is a mystery that prods us to look deeper into the mechanism. This is healthy because it allows us to discover more about the healing process.

Through such investigation we have found that sometimes a person's problem (e.g. anxiety, panic attacks & depression) is due to an allergen (energy toxin) in their system. It is the allergen that is really causing the problem and, until it is removed from the person's environment or diet, the problem will persist no matter how much tapping we do. If someone drinks a gallon of gasoline, for example, their resultant ailment is best handled by a stomach pump and not the agile fingertips of a well meaning EFT'er. Similarly, wheat, sugar, pesticides and a long list of other substances can be allergens (gasoline, if you will) that literally cause the problem we are tapping for. Thus the difficult client--the one that makes no headway after repeated EFT'ing--is challenging us to look for other causes.

Other possibilities behind "But it doesn't work for me...." are (1) stubborn psychological reversal, (2) lack of specificity in what one is tapping for and (3) core issues that haven't been discovered and thus aren't being addressed. These latter items, in my experience, are much more likely to be causative than allergens.

Now back to Madeleine. When she heard I was going to be presenting in Portland, she signed up for the conference in hopes that she would learn something that would make EFT work for her. I really admired that persistence so, on the final day of the conference, I asked her to have a "demo session" with me. This was our chance to roll up our sleeves and see if the phrase "But it doesn't work for me...." was truly valid.

Her issue was that she "felt stupid" and thus inadequate. This, of course, is a real limit and causes one to live like a turtle, i.e. always retreating into one's shell at the first sign of having to be "out there." As I recall it, Madeleine had great difficulty asking questions as a conference participant and she certainly didn't enjoy being up there with me in front of everyone talking about her personal "stupidity." Nonetheless, she was determined. So there we were.

Before doing any tapping I tried some reframes on her stupidity feelings. I know that's not an official part of the EFT protocol, but I did it to set the stage for what I hoped would be a later lesson for the many healing practitioners in the audience. As it turns out, this lesson unfolded nicely.

My original attempted reframes included pointing out to Madeleine the superb intelligence it takes for her to simply walk across the room and all the trillions of brain cells that must intelligently coordinate in rapid fire fashion in order for her to carry on a conversation or catch a ball or drive a car. None of them landed. She just sort of nodded her head--but was unmoved. These things were true, of course, but they didn't do a thing for her feeling of stupidity.

Reframes, in my experience, don't land UNTIL there has been adequate cognitive change for their acceptance. Many practitioners try to use reframes to cause this cognitive change but I think they are whistling into a hurricane. I think a reframe that lands is EVIDENCE of a change, not a CAUSE for it. In Madeleine's case, I was hoping the tapping would bring about cognitive change (it usually does) so that later reframes would land in a big way.

As it turned out, her feelings of stupidity came mostly from her father. He was a highly educated man (an engineer or scientist, as I recall it--ahem!) who, to Madeleine, was a source of wisdom. His opinion was gold plated because of his education and he made sure everyone around him knew it. As I heard Madeleine's description of her father, I perceived an insecure man who had to flaunt his main strength (his degrees) by belittling others (including Madeleine) and making sure they could never match up to his Mountain of Mental Muscle. Madeleine, as a result, was repeatedly told of her "stupid" ways. Her father, incidentally, had a severe drinking problem--an issue which was useful near the end of our session.

So I used EFT on several very specific past events regarding her father's belittling comments. We tapped on Madeleine's response to them and addressed as many events and aspects as we could find. I don't remember all the details but I do remember the essence of our last tapping sequence. We were making headway on the many specific events and she was beginning to speak of her "stupidity problem" a bit differently. So I ended with the following EFT sequence (using the advanced phraseology taught in our advanced tapes). The language contained some useful reframes and it went pretty much like this...

GC: OK, Madeleine, tap the karate chop point while you say, Even though my father...
M: Even though my father...

GC: was a highly educated man....
M: was a highly educated man...

GC: with degrees that I don't have...
M: with degrees that I don't have...

GC: I deeply and completely accept myself.
M: I deeply and completely accept myself.

GC: And even though he had no degree...
M: And even though he had no degree....

GC: in human understanding...
M: in human understanding...

GC: and even though he didn't see...
M: and even though he didn't see...

GC: that belittling his own daughter...
M: that belittling his own daughter...

GC: was for his own needs and no one else's...
M: was for his own needs and no one else's...

GC: I somehow still gave him credit...
M: I somehow still gave him credit...

GC: for always making the right decision...
M: for always making the right decision...

GC: including belittling his own daughter...
M: including belittling his own daughter...

GC: and for drinking so much.

At this, Madeleine burst out laughing. The reframes landed--especially the one about drinking. How ludicrous to give so much weight to the opinions of someone whose personal decisions were so questionable.

All of our previous EFT'ing had cut down various trees in her "stupidity forest." And with the removal of each tree her cognition shifted so that the reframes contained in the above language could land. Accordingly, the whole forest fell and she was finally free of this issue. Obviously, a father who belittles his daughter into thinking she is stupid and chooses to drink large amounts of alcohol is not one whose opinion is to be taken seriously in all matters. But that's just logic. Unfortunately, we don't always respond to logic. Rather, it is often our emotional responses that tend to run our lives.

Was this shift in Madeleine's "stupid feelings" a permanent one? Here is the letter she just sent me (a year and a half after our session).


FROM MADELEINE

Gary, remember the session we had at the seminar in Portland, Oregon, in which I was a "demo" in front of one of the classes, and we dealt with my "feeling stupid" issues, a lot of which had to do with my dad?

Okay. With that as background, I just wanted to keep you posted on my progress. I have not done any therapy on that issue since then, and I think we spent maybe half an hour at the most addressing it at the time. I wanted to let you know that I have not had since that time ANY negative energy whatsoever on that topic. In fact, I feel so detached from it, it's like my childhood and all those negative feelings, around that one issue, anyway, happened to someone else. When I try to think about it, I feel like I just CAN'T. It's way too much effort to dwell on it, and, besides, "who cares?" are my feelings on it now.

So just wanted to let you know of the lasting power of my EFT session with you and to thank you from the bottom of my heart for working with me that day. I confer sainthood upon you.

Love,

Madeleine


Hugs to all,

St. Gary (smile)

P.S. When we hear "But it doesn't work for me...." perhaps we should look into the reasons "why not" rather than assume EFT "doesn't work."

FOR MORE EFT HELP ...

Explore our newest advancement, Optimal EFT™, by reading my free e-book, The Unseen Therapist™. More efficient. More powerful.