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Fears And Phobias

General

Young boy's eating phobia aided by a fascinating intuitive/surrogate session

Important Note: This article was written prior to 2010 and is now outdated.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

Dr. Wendy McCarty takes us step-by-step through a first class session involving both intuition and surrogate EFT. She works with the mother of a 6 year old boy that suffers from a severe eating phobia. You may want to study this 2 or 3 times.

Hugs, Gary


By Wendy Anne McCarty, PhD, RN

The following is an excerpt from Dr. McCarty's keynote address at the Association of Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology and Health 2005 Congress and was recently published in the ACEP Energy Field newsletter.

In prenatal and perinatal psychology, we know that what happens at birth establishes foundational life pattern imprints. We also know that babies are conscious, aware, and absorbing information and experience from multiple perspectives-their own, their mother's, and everyone's in the room. One of the most striking findings is that babies have omni-awareness of thoughts, feelings, and intentions, similar to what has been found in near-death research. We know that babies can absorb verbal messages at a literal level that sets in motions belief patterns. Birth experiences and imprints are holographic, including non-local, energetic, and physical levels. An appropriate description of babies I use is sentient beings-sensitive human beings.

I want to share with you a clinical story in which having this understanding from prenatal and perinatal psychology of birth imprinting played a critical role in my ability to make an effective one-session family intervention when combined with EFT.

I gave a seminar in another country to parents of babies and young children concerning what we have learned in PPN about how early experiences in the womb and during birth set in motion life patterns and how parents may identify resulting stress patterns in their babies, children, and themselves. Afterwards several parents came up saying they had made the connection of current problems their children were having and their births. They all wanted help of how to work with the patterns. One mother insisted I work with her six-year old. I agreed and asked that she and I meet the next day without her son. (I have found meeting with the parents alone and surrogating for the child is often the most effective first-stage intervention.)

Normally when I work with families, I take an in-depth prenatal and birth history, but in this circumstance, we just began the session with her description of the problem. She related that her six-year old son was small for his age, actually he was smaller than the normal weight of a four-year old. She said they'd tried everything and the doctors were about to do more invasive tests and interventions.

As she described his daily fear, anxiety, and dread about eating, it was clear that this phobic concern about putting anything in his mouth was a pervasive and debilitating life pattern. He didn't want to go to school or his friends' houses because he is afraid they would make him eat. He never asked for food, would only eat four foods, and it was a daily struggle at that. There was no sense of any normal hunger-eating-satiation cycle. I thought this ninety-minute intervention would be my only encounter to help this family. I quickly went to work.

I asked the mother if it was all right if I make contact with her son energetically. I closed my eyes and with my intention made contact with her son. I quietly spoke out loud my communication with her son and my impression. I asked the mother to just get quiet herself and tune in to her son and share with me as we went along what she felt or noticed. I asked him if we could help with his difficulty with food. (In this description, I'm omitting some aspects of the non-local communication for brevity.) With permission, we began the work with his energetic presence being an integral part--the three of us working together.

I had a sense of the current issue for the boy. I sensed complexity of several aspects to this pattern. One concept I use is the concept of the family field. I often find it more effective to work with related patterns in appropriate family members first, prior to working with the baby's or child's specific pattern. The mother related that eating and weight had been an issue in her family growing up. Her father then and now was "cruel" and "demeaning" to her mother and the girls in the family concerning weight and looks. If they gained weight or ate foods he disapproved of, he would say no one would ever want them, etc. Clearly, that was a strong family issue concerning food. I energetically intuitively checked in with the son to asked if this was at the heart of the matter, no.

The mother then said she was always dieting, eating more than she should, etc. Clearly the ambivalence and attention around eating was a life issue for her, yet as I checked in again, that did not seem to be at the core of her son's issue. So, here we were - the son's current pattern and a three-generational pattern "online" as we were working. Yet, the core had not emerged in my assessment. (I use my intuitive energetic skills for asking and sensing responses. Many of you may use muscle testing in this aspect of your sessions.)

I then went to my knowledge base from prenatal and perinatal psychology, understanding that what happens during pregnancy and birth can set in motion life patterns. I quieted and ask the son energetically, where is the heart of this issue? I immediately was inspired to ask about his birth and if there was talk about eating and food at that time. The mother acted surprised and said, "Yes, just before I was going to give birth. I had gained so much weight and was pre-eclamptic. I was huge. I was in the delivery room and I pulled the doctor over by tugging his arm, and said (rather dramatically), "Don't ever let me eat again! I never want to eat again! I'm so big! Don't let me ever put a thing in my mouth again!" Shortly after this emphatic plea she had her baby boy. With this birth moment recalled, everything felt like it fell into place, with this as the heart of the current problem.

Now we could utilize the energy psychology tool, EFT, to help shift the patterns. With the remaining 30 minutes, I explained EFT to her and suggested I surrogate on me for efficiency, while she held her attention on the pattern. I asked her after each tapping sequence to notice any change in the pattern. She surprised herself to find she could readily sense the changes with each tapping sequence we did. The notion of the family field organized my approach. As I held the overarching intention of healing for the six-year old child's eating phobia, I tapped for each member's limiting or dysfunctional patterns. My intention wasn't so much an intervention for that person, rather an acknowledgement of the issue as it relates in the family field to the child's issue.

We began with her father's patterns. I asked the mother to bring to mind a memory of her father's abusive, demeaning behavior with her and her mother concerning weight and eating. The mother sensed the pattern. (The following words are approximate to the ones tapped for each pattern). "Even though my father was and is abusive and demeaning to mother, my sister, and me about eating and gaining weight, he deeply accepts himself. " The mother felt the pattern soften and lessen in intensity. We moved on to her pattern. As she sensed it, I tapped on me for, " Even though I am always dieting, feeling I'm too fat, and obsessing about this, I deeply accept myself." Again she felt the shift of the pattern lessen close to neutral. Good enough.

We then came back to her son energetically communicating to him that he didn't need to do any thing, we were just going to acknowledge his patterns and tap for him. I had mother picture him expressing his anxiety, dread, and fear in his daily life. As I resonated with the pattern, I told her my description of what I was sensing and she concurred that that was her sensing too. When I felt I was clearly with the field of the issue, I tapped on my body for him, "Even though I am sooooo afraid to eat and afraid somebody will try and make me eat, I'm a good kid." With this, we both felt a lessening of the intensity, yet there was still more there.

I then went to the messages at birth. In front of the mother, I spoke out loud what I was communicating to him non-locally. "You know, sometimes babies when they are born hear things and take them on as their own. I think that happened at your birth. You mother made some very strong statements about her weight and her not wanting to eat again. I think you thought that was a message for you, but it wasn't, it was meant only for her.

You are a growing little boy and it is good for you to eat and gain weight and get bigger. That is what you are supposed to do as you are growing up. I think your system got this confused back when you were a baby being born. So, we are going to help that baby not hold that message anymore, since it wasn't meant for him." With that, I asked the mother to go back to the image of her making that empathic statement in the birthing room as I tapped on me for her son as the baby, "Even though I heard those statements about never eating again and being too big and got confused and took them on as mine, I deeply and completely love and accept myself and now can let those go and find my own relationship with food, enjoying food and eating."

Afterwards, both mother and I felt a dramatic shift with the whole pattern seemingly dissipated. We returned to his pattern. I asked the mother to sense him in that dread, anxiety, fear of eating pattern. Neither one of us could feel any charge in it now. She was stunned that she could sense that change--an empowering moment.

I suggested to the mother to not try to coax him to eat and to just be receptive to see what he would do now after the session. The next day when I was presenting another seminar, her relative came up to me to give me a message from the mother. The mother said that the family felt "a miracle had happened." She related that within one-hour of her returning home, for the first time in his entire life, her son spontaneously came up to her and said, "Mama, I'm hungry. Would you feed me." Never before had he requested food, wanted food, or even expressed the sense of being hungry. Clearly the pattern had been changed.

This story of healing inspires me greatly. Two of the most exciting new fields in psychology and health to me are prenatal and perinatal psychology and energy psychology. Combining them together opens new horizons of efficient and effective healing. No matter if the client is a baby, child, or adult, our earliest experiences can hold the key to recognizing and healing our current limiting and debilitating life patterns.

Wendy Anne McCarty, PhD, RN

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