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Fears And Phobias

General

Creative EFT session brings up many specific events underlying a tunnel phobia

Important Note: This article was written prior to 2010 and is now outdated.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

Study this case in detail and learn how Sarah Marshall from the UK gets behind a tunnel phobia to discover many foundational specific events. You can use the threads presented here in many other cases. Just use your imagination.

Hugs, Gary


By Sarah Marshall

Hi Gary

'Anne' contacted me after reading that EFT was good for phobias.  She had freaked out on a recent trip when the car she was traveling in had entered a tunnel.

Anne had suffered with claustrophobia for as long as she could remember but it had gotten worse over the previous 5 years for no seemingly obvious reason.  She was becoming more and more fearful about leaving home in case she got into a situation that she was unfamiliar with.

When Anne started to tell me about the recent tunnel experience, she started to panic so we started tapping, following the physical sensations she was experiencing:

Even though I have this hot panic rising in my chest…

Even though I have this light-headedness in the top of my head…

Even though I feel out of control…

We did this until Anne felt calm and in control again.  It then felt right to ask Anne if she remembered an earlier time of being out of control and although she felt it was completely unrelated, she had felt very out of control when her youngest child was taken into the hospital.

As she remembered the event, she started feeling panicky and experienced it again as 'hot panic rising in her chest' and light-headedness so we again tapped until the sensations had subsided.  I then got Anne to tell the story and we tapped on the aspects that came up:

Even though I have this tightness in my chest when the doctor rang…

Even though I have this panic rising in my chest…

Even though the doctor said she had to come in straight away…

At this point a lot of emotion came up and Anne felt it was a good thing and we just kept tapping until she felt calm again.  We then tapped for a 'thick foggy feeling over my left eye' that she was left with.  We then continued tapping through the event:

Even though I thought she wasn't going to come out…

Even though I didn't know what was happening…

Even though I was collecting her things together I didn't know what was going to happen…

Even though I cried all the way to the hospital…

Even though I had this tightness in my chest at not being in control…

Even though I felt I should be looking after her and not the doctor…

At this point another memory came up.  She had her child in a difficult time in her relationship with her partner and she wasn't able to bond straight away with her child so we worked through this:

Even though I felt guilty I couldn't hold her…

Even though I felt guilty I didn't want to hold her…

Even though I'm a bad Mother…

And we kept tapping until her intensity came right down.  She then realised that she had blamed herself for her child's illness and she had been trying to make it up to her child ever since so we tapped on:

Even though it's all my fault because I didn't hold her straight away…

Even though I have to make it up to her…

We tapped until she was calm and was able to say it easily without experiencing any emotion.  She then realised that she had been treating her youngest child differently; she had been more protective and given her youngest child a lot more attention that her elder child.  

She then remembered that she had bonded with her child soon after her birth and she realised that it wasn't her fault - she wasn't a bad mother, it was just very stressful for her at the time.  She also felt comfortable with the memory of her child being in the hospital.  She realised that she had been in control as she had gotten her child to the hospital and her child had been OK.

In our second session together, she was very happy with her progress.  She’d been to the cinema, a place that she had not been able to go to before.  She had felt slightly panicked when she first went in but quickly calmed down and enjoyed the film.  She had also taken a big step back from her child - and her child was loving it!  Her child had been away and Anne said she would have normally been worried about her the whole time but she had felt quite relaxed about her being away.

We started again with the incident of Anne 'freaking' in the tunnel to clear the second part of it. She started feeling anxious so we tapped on:

Even though I have this anxiety in my stomach…

Even though I have this trapped feeling when I'm think of the tunnel…

She then realised that it had all become worse 5 years ago when she had got together with a new partner and her stepdaughter had moved in with her.  She felt her stepdaughter had had a difficult life and Anne felt a lot of anxiety at making the wrong decision for everyone.  She felt that having a stepchild was more responsibility than having her own children.  So we tapped through the story on the different aspects:

Even though I was anxious about making the wrong decision…

Even though I was anxious about upsetting my children…

Even though I was more anxious about upsetting my stepdaughter…

Even though I felt pressured and responsible at having to make up for my stepdaughter's difficult start in life…

She also felt guilty that she didn't have a good relationship with her stepdaughter.  Once we tapped on this she realised that her stepdaughter was just quiet and they did actually have a good relationship.  We then checked how she felt and she felt calm and was able to talk about the time calmly.

She then had, in Anne's words, a 'flash' of memory of when it all started - during a power failure when she was a child.  So I got Anne to tell the story as we tapped on the various aspects that came up:

Even though I felt the dark was closing in on me...

Even though I felt trapped in the dark…

Even thought I was frightened…

Even though my Granddad teased me for being frightened of the dark…

Anne then started to experience hot anxious sensations in her chest, so we tapped on these sensations and chased the sensations up into her head until she was no longer experiencing them.  She then felt calm about the memory.  We tested it by Anne talking it through again, and she felt calm all the way through.  We then went back to the original event in the tunnel and tapped on the remaining aspects:

Even though I'm silly for 'freaking' out…

Even though I spoilt everyone's fun...

We tapped until the event was cleared.

It was now coming to the end of the session and Anne mentioned that she had not been able to go into a toilet and shut the door, not even the ones that had a gap at the bottom and top.  She now felt like she could go in and not only shut the door but also lock it.  In my clinic the toilet is in a room of its own so when you close the door, there are no gaps.

We went up to the toilet and Anne went in whilst I stood outside the door.  She went in, shut the door and then locked it - a double first for her!  When she unlocked the door she started panicking slightly in case it didn't open so I got her to tap.  She then shut and locked the door again and when she opened it a second time she felt fine, and surprised.

I didn't see Anne again but I did get an email from her a couple of months later to say that everything was good and she was really happy with what she had achieved.

With warmth and love,

Sarah Marshall

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