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Articles & Ideas

Core Issues

A clever method for finding core issues

Important Note: This article was written prior to 2010 and is now outdated.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

Hi Everyone,

Timothy Hayes offers this very useful idea for getting to the real issues that are bothering clients. While he aims his technique at our responses for when we are upset with someone, the idea has far wider application. Use your own creativity and see how far you can go.

Hugs, Gary


By Timothy J. Hayes, Psy.D.

Dear Gary,

I am a psychologist who has been using EFT with great success for almost two years and I teach it to all of my patients who are willing to learn it.  I also recently listened to a lecture by Dr. Michael Ryce titled: Why Is This Happening To Me Again.

In that lecture Dr. Ryce suggests that in order to accelerate your growth process, you make a column on a piece of paper and list everyone who has ever offended you.  Then make a second column and list what each person did to offend you.  Then make a third column and list your advice to the person who offended you.  Once you have completed all three columns go back to the first column and cross out the names of the people listed there and write in your own name.  Now follow the advice you wanted them to follow.

Recently I had a client who had been very upset with someone, for several days.  Discussing the situation and tapping on it were only marginally successful.  So I suggested that my client figure out exactly what it was that this other person had done that was so upsetting.  We discussed what the traits were that this person displayed that were so upsetting to my client. 

My client realized that he was upset because the other person had been so “impatient”.  I asked my client to think of a situation in his life where he has been impatient.  He was shocked that I would suggest such a thing, but quickly realized that there was a major pattern at his work about which he was upset at himself for being so impatient.

I had him tap on “Even though I am so impatient at work”, and after two rounds of tapping, his disturbance level was at a zero out of 10.  Then when I had my client focus on the other person, whose behavior had been so upsetting to him, he found that he had no negative emotions attached to that person or to the event that had been bothering him for days.

This process helps explicitly acknowledge that every emotion I have is something I am creating and that the various people and situations that I get upset with, are simply resonating with unresolved issues inside of me.  The other person or situation is not making me feel hurt, angry, sad or insulted, the other person or situation is simply a stimulus that triggers those emotional energies and thoughts inside of me. 

This has worked several times and I find that it gets much quicker and more complete results than tapping on my being angry or hurt because of a situation or something that another person has done.  Once I identify the action or trait in another that is upsetting me, and connect that with something I have done, or am doing, that I am not pleased with, I will be in direct contact with the issue, memory or emotion in myself that I need to release or resolve.  This process has consistently saved several rounds of tapping and in one case, facilitated resolution in a client who seemed hopelessly stuck.

Thanks for reading! 

Timothy J. Hayes, Psy.D.

FOR MORE EFT HELP ...

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