- Other Emotional Issues
- Anger Management
- Getting over a gang rape--including a follow-up
- EFT alleviates horrendous self-hatred and rage
- Calming down Teddy, an emotionally disturbedboy
- EFT for anger underlying ALS
- Releasing anger at parents allowed healing of ulcerative colitis and headaches
- Suppressed anger expelled via the stomach
- EFT for self righteous anger
- Intuitional work with anger
- A First Class use of Surrogate EFT for Bill's anger and behavior issues
- EFT Transforms "hopping-mad" anger
- An unusual anger release
- Anger in a homeless shelter
- A murderous rage is calmed with EFT
- Anger case history from a client
- EFT for workplace anger
- Josh: Building rapport with children--anger & behavior problems.
- EFT for anger helps both Ann and her angry husband--note the surrogate approach
- Unbearable hatred toward classmates
- Anger and Hostility are Proven to Damage Lungs; Simple Acupressure Technique Offers a Solution
- Brandon's Story--anger problem becomes history: (including an update at the end)
- EFT for deep seated anger
- EFT and severe mental illness--a murderous impulse
- An interesting approach to EFT and road rage
- Using EFT for on-the-spot "hopping mad" anger
- Surrogate EFT for fighting neighbors
- A client talks about her abusive childhood and her relief via EFT
- Resentments relieved 22 years after a poor birthing experience
- EFT resolves long term resentment
- The EFT Cooling Tower Technique for Letting off Steam
- Anger management approach for a polarity responder
- The cause of our anger isn't always as it appears
- A client resolves lifelong anger on her own
- Clearing anger and self loathing with EFT via introduction to inner child
- Stubborn anger issue falls to 0 with emphatic "say what you feel" wording.
- Road Rage and hives disappear in one session after getting to the core issue
- Press Release: Can a One-Minute Anger Management Technique Reduce Injury Risk and Chronic Illness?
- Releasing anger patterns with EFT
- Employee overcomes anger at supervisor
- Jonas uses EFT for deeper meditation - dangerous PSA reading is now only 0.4
- School Counselor on anger and tension,
- Getting behind a successful EFT anger case
- New Technique Helps Avoid Heart Damage by Diffusing Anger Within Marital Arguments
- The client who continually felt resentful
- Anger case--the urge to explode
- Even dropping the kids off at school provides tapping opportunities - an anger issue
- Using EFT to self-calm an intense anger tantrum
- Useful thoughts on anger by Stewart Robertson
- Football Star Uses New Acupressure Technique to Calm his Road Rage -- No Drugs Needed
- Transgender person with abusive mother relieves rage with EFT
- Depression
- A successful but involved depression case--"I don't want to tell you how well I'm doing"
- EFT resolves 12 years of postnatal depression
- What was REALLY causing Anne's depression?
- EFT student eases his wife's suicidal thoughts
- Louella: Depression, pesticides and low blood sugar
- Maggie eliminates her own depression
- Surrogate tapping and its effect on depression.
- Persistent EFT by Email on depression, anger and anxiety
- Cross dressing, sexuality and depression
- Long term severe depression gone in ten minutes
- Jaqui Crooks used EFT to overcome her Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Was it really a manic/depressive disorder?
- A textbook depression case--a "one minute wonder" complete with belief changes
- Approaching Depression with the Tearless Trauma Technique
- After 15 years of therapy, including shock therapy, EFT helps release depression
- A case that didn't work--and some suggestions
- A first class look at using EFT for a complex case - depression, guilt, grief and abandonment
- A mis-diagnosed manic/depressive disorder
- Depression with numerous underlying issues
- Major results for anxiety, depression and social issues from one thorough EFT session and consistent EFT "homework"
- Success with a skeptical, depressed scientist - follow up included
- Depression, low self esteem and childhood traumas
- Persistence and a challenging case - Incest, abuse, depression, anxiety attacks, nightmares and flashbacks
- A non-therapist does superb work on depression--including her own.
- Newbie uses EFT on depression, allergic reactions and more
- Hair loss and facial blemishes fade after EFT relieves important emotional issues -- Depression too!
- Adrienne, a physician
- Gary discusses depression and some new ideas
- EFT on personal depression--"I was angry at myself"
- Press Release: New Method for Depression Often Works When Nothing Else Will
- 30+ years of depression gone in 2 minutes
- EFT saves a life by rapidly resolving suicidal depression
- Depression and confusion about God
- When depression comes from a related issue
- Depression Drugs and Migraine Drugs Don't Always Do The Job
- Dr. Patricia Carrington on depression--a detailed discussion, including meds
- Depression, height phobia and claustrophobia eliminated in one session
- Depression related to guilt
- EFT instead of shock treatments?
- From depressed and suicidal ... to ... "I laugh all the time
- Depression on Death Row
- EFT Newcomer eliminates his own deep depression and anxiety disorder
- An intimate look at Depression
- Panic And Anxiety
- Persistence and Panic Attacks - Quality results on a stubborn issue
- Getting to the core of "Mark's" anxiety
- EFT for overeating and panic attacks
- Performance anxiety at a music camp
- Gayla uses EFT for panic
- Travel Anxiety--using the Tell the Story Technique
- Febrile convulsions and related panic attacks subside--not one attack in the two years since she learned to use EFT
- Successful surrogate tapping for surgery anxiety
- Two surrogate tapping cases: Dental anxiety and severe stomach ache
- Panic Attacks: Getting behind the thought process
- Husband relieves wife of major panic attack
- EFT newcomer rids himself of social anxiety
- Relief for another stress related cough
- Using EFT for panic when nobody is around
- New Method for Treating Anxiety Works When Conventional Treatments Fail
- Clearing social anxiety with EFT
- A Quality "How To Do It" Session for Fear and Anxiety
- Diagnosed as a schizophrenic, Gregoire had anxiety, stress and insomnia
- Current "in your face" anxiety and stress case
- EFT makes good progress with panic, agoraphobia and feeling like a failure
- Detective work crucial in relief for panic attacks
- Combining EFT with the Inner Theater approach for panic attacks
- Testing your EFT work: Feeling trapped and panic attacks
- Anxiety and the fear of being alone
- EFT student uses tapping to immediately calm down after a major car accident
- Medical school test anxiety--from C's and D's to A's and B's
- Success story with 10 day anxiety attack
- Sports anxiety, heat sensitivity, being away from home, loneliness, fear of insects.
- 20 year old abduction anxiety calmed with EFT
- Collapsing a client's anxiety from the 9/11 disaster--with 4 year follow-up
- Detective work provides help for an anxiety disorder
- Imagination tapping on the finger points reduces stress level to zero
- Using EFT for a client who feels out of control.
- One EFT round with Deborah's daughter relieves performance anxiety
- Surgery anxiety and EFT
- EFT helps adult learners overcome school and math anxiety
- EFT on a case of extreme separation anxiety in a dog and the importance of Core Issues for Animals
- Study Shows Simple Drug-Free Acupressure Technique Reduces Dental Anxiety
- Anxiety, eating and more
- Success in neutralizing unwanted memories without the client disclosing the content
- Newcomer uses EFT to collapse his own panic-attacks and writes letter to "Quackwatch"
- A detailed panic attack case
- Eric Robins, MD and Lisa Cox on surgery anxieties
- Severe anxiety client has his life back
- EFT Newbie resolves her own major trip anxiety
- Panic attacks and heart palpitations subside after doing EFT on dreams
- Courtroom anxiety AND anxiety about calling employers
- One EFT phone session resolves driving test anxiety -- and the benefits expand
- Panic attacks and fear of darkness
- Addressing Generalized Anxiety Disorder by aiming EFT at specific events
- Non-therapist relieves stress in the form of a temper tantrum
- EFT for panic attacks
- Who Would Have Thought That Acupressure Could Relieve Social Anxiety Better Than Drugs or Therapy?
- Daddy left me. Will my new boyfriend leave me too?
- Daily tapping for Panic Attacks
- Anxiety related to atrial fibrillation is calmed with EFT
- Performance anxiety and many aspects
- EFT brings relief for trauma, anxiety, and an overactive bladder, all in less than an hour
- Test anxiety
- Using EFT for Social Anxiety Disorder
- Surgeon Uses New Acupressure Technique to Lower Surgery Risk
- Overcoming Test Anxiety with New Drug-Free Technique: 80% Success Rate
- Abuse
- OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder)
- Stuttering
- Grief
- A grief case with many aspects
- Uncontrollable grief resolved with EFT
- Attorney helps client by using EFT for long term unresolved grief
- Relieving grief over the death of Higgins the dog
- When certain music triggers grief and sadness
- Freedom from grief in only 15 minutes
- Using EFT for Bereavement
- EFT turns grief into beauty
- EFT eliminates unnecessary grief emotions and softens the grieving process - includes 2 month follow up
- EFT brings healing to a whole family while one woman heals her grief
- Community relief from grief with EFT
- This new Widow was helped in many ways by EFT
- EFT for grief and pet loss
- Getting to important emotions by doing EFT while looking in the mirror
- Tapping through grief leads to incredible insight and relief
- EFT for pain and grief for a birth mother who wasn't allowed to see her child -- a touching story with a happy ending
- An easy grief case with an aspect that showed up later
- Imaginary tapping sends grief away
- EFT setup statements for grief
- Fresh grief and a double benefit.
- Grief changes to smiles
- EFT may be a great relief to grief-stricken nurses who lose patients
- Relationships
- Using EFT to improve a relationship
- EFT, One Minute Wonders and Opening to Love
- EFT by telephone smoothes out a tense family reunion
- Insights into picking up another person
- EFT heals a broken heart in rapid time
- Relationships, EFT and Spirituality
- Improve relationships by Tapping in the Positive
- Using EFT for relationship issues--a detailed case
- Tapping on relationship issues
- Interesting way to use EFT & Tappy Bear for a broken heart
- "I didn't like kissing my wife after she drank coffee."
- Jack improves his relationship with his grandson using surrogate EFT
- Addressing relationship and family issues by tapping on photographs
- Tapping into a state of Love
- EFT resolves a 10 year heartbreak
- Relationship Issue: "My husband was being a jerk"
- Using EFT to prepare for a difficult encounter
- How clearing an intense cough led to improved family relationships--an EFT two-for-one EFT benefit
- MD introduces an innovative idea that brings relief for stubborn relationship issue
- Finding the love you want by healing the inner child
- Relationship issue: A humorous approach
- What holds you back from your lover?
- EFT is instrumental in bringing a couple back together
- Relationships - on "Being Right"
- Instant relationship fix?
- Love, Intuition, Patience and EFT help a schizophrenic 15 year old.
- EFT for Couples
- Combining role playing with EFT for relationships and other issues
- Using EFT for a Broken Heart
- The Healing Power of Forgiveness
- Using EFT on "blocking thoughts" to good relationships
- Surrogate EFT heals a broken heart for a 16 year old boy
- Retired Stanford professor fixes his wife's computer with EFT
- Relationship success after finding core issue
- EFT to heal family relationships
- Shared tapping provides benefits for relationship issues
- EFT Instead of the psych ward after a relationship breaks up
- Taking relationships work to a new level--The Odd Couple
- EFT and meditation for a broken heart
- EFT for love pain
- Guilt
- Reframes (seeing things differently) for guilt, shame and sorrow
- Restless leg syndrome linked to guilt - 20 years of restlessness gone in 2 sessions
- How to reduce guilt via an EFT "Tapping Circle" -- keeping privacy for everyone
- The "Tapping the System" Technique
- The Rolling EFT process
- Using EFT for unnecessary guilt - Did EFT get someone's husband to cook dinner?
- How Guilt and Shame Block the Law of Attraction
- Stubborn guilt finally subsides after doing a search on our website and DVDs for ideas
- EFT and infertility
- A bout of cystitis turns out to be a bout of guilt
- Writing a letter
- Stress
- New Acupressure Discovery Reduces Stress 4 Ways: 80% Success Rate
- Many Stressed Women Abandon Healthy Lifestyle Habits: Simple Acupressure Technique Offers a Solution
- To Physicians: New Discoveries in Acupressure Promise Everything From Alertness to Pain and Stress Management
- A new do-it-yourself approach to acupressure alleviates stress and, in turn neutralizes cold, flu an
- Psychotherapy Dramatically Improved By New 'Acupuncture Without Needles' Technique
- Eating Disorders
- Love, diligence and an eating disorder
- Michal describes what it is like to be free from an eating disorder
- Two Year Bulimia Problem Gets Major Assist in One Hour
- A Bulimia "one session wonder"
- Bulimia in Brazil
- "Acceptance Tapping" - A powerful EFT treatment variation for severe compulsive disorders and bulimia.
- Joe resolves his Anorexia...and more
- Anger Management
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Other Emotional Issues
Eating Disorders
"Acceptance Tapping" - A powerful EFT treatment variation for severe compulsive disorders and bulimia.
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
David Lake, MD from Australia provides us with an easy-to-use approach that has proven effective for even the most difficult of cases....such as OCD and Bulimia. He calls it "Acceptance Tapping" and, in essence, he has the client accept their condition the way it is without trying to change it. They simply tap continually while the behavior is going on.
This complies beautifully with the EFT theory because the client is clearly tuned in to the problem while they are engaged in the behavior. This is when the unwanted energetic or emotional issues are likely to be present for balancing with EFT.
I've used a version of this idea myself and have more recently added it to my personal "Art of Delivery." To do this, I engage the client in conversation about whatever the problem may be (a form of reframing talk therapy). Then, while the conversation is underway, the client taps continually (remember, they are tuned into the problem when they talk about it). For the right client and the right circumstance this is a highly effective way to deliver EFT.
David adds much more to this idea in his 2 Part article.
PART 1
Here is a simple method of beginning treatment for many conditions - especially the "difficult ones". It follows the work of Milton Erickson by "pacing" the experience of the client with a problem, and so meeting them in their view of the world; the techniques of Buddhist awareness, and the Focusing work of Eugene Gendlin (I am also indebted to David Hall of Sydney, a mind-body practitioner, for his useful suggestions). It prepares the way for real rapport with both the client and their problem. It paves the way for acceptance of the reality of the problem, and reality testing, which is often the missing link for sufferers when progress is blocked. And it can produce surprising results.
The basic principle is to pay attention to and work with what's there instead of changing it. If you try to change it, it often comes back. The solution is in the symptom, so be present to it. In essence you accept that the problem is there before anything else is changed. Then you simply add "continual tapping" into the problem pattern. Steve Wells and I have come to call this simple process "Acceptance Tapping".
In paradoxical therapeutic techniques it is common to prescribe the symptom as a means of changing the problem. In Acceptance Tapping, you work with the problem using meridian stimulation simply as an added pattern to the way the problem presents. I have taught continual tapping of any useful points (either the seven point shortcut EFT sequence, or the hand points) for the treatment of compulsive disorders and bulimia, for example. It can work with all common behaviors that we don't feel in control of. Any time you tap while the negative feelings are intense it can be disproportionately helpful.
This process can be taught simply and quickly and clients typically comply, gaining the relaxation of E.F.T. if nothing else. Paradoxically though, I have found that if you make direct suggestions to the client about change in the beginning, these usually fail. Possibly they are too difficult to achieve logically and rationally. In this variation you tend to sidestep the thinking mind and just tap.
For example, a young woman with a compulsive disorder, who was unable to leave her house in under an hour because of her extensive (life-long) compulsive, anxious routine of 'checking' every lock, window and appliance (then re-checking!), used continual tapping while she did her usual checking during the week. Note that she was not instructed to stop doing anything, merely to add in the tapping routine that I taught her. I only showed her a simple tapping variation (using her finger and hand points one-handed, using the thumb to tap on the other fingers where possible)
She found that she was much calmer generally; and that the tapping somehow interrupted her obsessive thinking to a degree, but most significantly she was able to leave the house after some 20 minutes at the end of that week. Her re-checking stopped too. This change was effortless for her and quite surprising. She has maintained these changes by using the technique a lot, and now leaves the house in 5 minutes.
In the difficult condition of bulimia, just tapping throughout the cycle of bingeing and vomiting as a new positive 'habit' can bring significant changes in the feelings around having to vomit, and focus the awareness of the client in a new way. Importantly it is a technique which can be introduced as an 'experiment' to 'see what happens' and which is a neutral, non-judgmental agreement between the helper and the sufferer. The client's usual self-criticism, judgment and self-punishment often abate a lot as well during the experiment.
When I did apply this idea to 'bulimic behavior' I found that clients could talk about their habit with much less of their usual shame. One girl, while tapping, was able to 'observe herself' getting ready for a vomiting episode, and found that she could think about doing that, and not doing that (before tapping the habit was unstoppable) although she did actually do it at that time. The difference now involved being able to think more clearly. Her 'triggers' for the frustration and anxiety were still there-mainly about feeling 'fat'-but now she could begin to see both sides of the issue more calmly: the reality (I weigh 60 kilos), and the hallucination ('I am fat').
This simple technique works equally well in mental rehearsal of a positive behavior, where presumably unconscious blocking beliefs might be an issue.
In many such situations I have found that the addition of tapping does change the routine behaviours of the problem significantly-and that kind of change is a sign we want in the beginning. It's a way of getting the client's attention in a new way, and of working creatively with the most intense part of the behavior while deciding on the best intervention, and the next part of the individual treatment.
Dr David Lake
PART 2: REPORT OF A SUCCESSFUL OBSESSIVE COMPULSIVE DISORDER TREATMENT USING ACCEPTANCE TAPPING
"Diane" was a young woman of 30 who came to see me because she wanted to become pregnant-but not while taking prescribed antidepressants. She thus wanted to be drug-free and cope with her Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) with other methods. She had been taking medication for a decade, and had never been able to relinquish it before, because of severe anxieties, and was under the care of a treating psychiatrist. She had good support and was highly motivated. I asked her to see her therapist for the relational aspects of the reassurance she needed from time to time while I attended to teaching her E.F.T.
I considered her request a tall order because of the severity of the condition, my limited success with severe OCD using E.F.T. and the potential complications for her. Nevertheless I thought that teaching, and her using, meridian stimulation would be worthwhile. I did not know whether Diane would be able to cease medication at all-and I told her this. I notified her psychiatrist that I was teaching her a relaxation and stress-management technique, that possibly could provide more in some cases.
Her symptoms included severe compulsive 'checking' of details about the house when going out, and re-checking in most instances as she 'forgot' whether she had really been certain of a detail. The process might take an hour. She also suffered panic attacks and generalised anxiety. She had recently developed a fear of flying and was due to fly shortly. I told her that we would make an experiment using E.F.T. and see how much benefit it returned to her.
Initially I taught her the variation of meridian stimulation I call "continual tapping" with good results. She noticed a great lessening of the compulsive urge and was particularly pleased to know a self-help technique. After a week, we began to explore her limiting beliefs about her OCD using formal E.F.T. and also using the provocative style that Steve Wells and I have found brings great focus and leverage to a problem. Some of her greatest fears were that she would never get over this and that she would have it for ever, that there was nothing she could do about it, and that it could get worse. Sometimes the fear during an anxiety attack was 'paralysing' and 'terrifying'; her ultimate fear was that 'I can't be reassured'. There were several such intense panic incidents that needed a lot of work to desensitise with tapping, using Gary's excellent "Tell The Story" technique.
Diane continued her practice at home mainly using continual tapping for convenience. She used the tapping I taught her more often and more effectively than anyone I can remember.
At the end of the third session she told me that she had ceased her medication since she felt so well using E.F.T.! I was alarmed, since these medications should be ceased gradually, but because she seemed well we pressed on. She also told me that her fear had once returned but it was manageable. She was scared but the fear did subside with the tapping after half an hour. This was a revelation to her and to me. Her fear of flying was '95% gone' because of E.F.T. treatment when she did fly around this time.
On another occasion about six weeks into our treatment, she had a panic and anxiety attack lasting many hours, which did not respond so well to E.F.T. This was a setback to her; nevertheless we continued the experiment. There was another episode like this a few weeks later.
Diane remained in control of her symptoms thereafter, using E.F.T., and had what I would call ordinary anxieties about becoming pregnant and being a good mother. Her confidence increased and she functioned with a better balance, more accepting and less self-critical. Her old checking habits and anxieties were still there in a minor way, but did not interfere with her life. We had some 3 months of E.F.T. over 6 sessions, and she became pregnant about 6 months later. During the later stage of her pregnancy she did come to see me about an anxiety she 'couldn't shake', related to whether her worrying would harm the baby, and if the baby was in fact alright. We dealt with the new fears in the same way as all her original fears and presenting worries - a lot of continual tapping and traditional E.F.T. on every specific aspect we could think of. There was also the fear of the 'unknown', of looking after a dependent baby, and whether she would cope with the responsibilities.
Considering how universal these fears are in mothers-to-be, I was struck by how 'normal' their degree was for Diane. She did not lose control and she did face up to the reality very well, learning more coping skills and just understanding how other people cope too. I don't think she will need medication in the future if she keeps up the effects of this good work.
Her progress from the beginning was very surprising to me. I have not had this kind of rapid success before in such a severe case of OCD, and with relatively few sessions. Because E.F.T. must have had a lot to do with her new balance, the practice of continual tapping at home and while 'in trouble' or while doing one of the compulsive rituals ("Acceptance Tapping") would have contributed many hours of help. As a variation of E.F.T. it could not be more simple. Diane certainly found it so. I think her main block was 'the fear of the fear' and a degree of helplessness when feeling anxious. E.F.T. has eliminated most of this block. I found that she could hold on to reassurance as well as most, despite everything.
Dr David Lake
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