Emotional Freedom Technique (AKA Tapping)
What is Emotional Freedom Therapy (EFT)?
EFT is a healing mind-body therapy. It is a combination of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) and modern psycho-therapeutic tools such as Behavior Therapy, EMDR, Neuro-Linguistic Programming and Transactional Analysis.
EFT involves a gentle tapping procedure on pressure points to stimulate energetic pathways in the body to help resolve emotional and physical issues. The therapy is a bridge between talk based therapies and body based therapies.
Conditions we work with
- ADHD Symptoms
- Anxiety
- Depression
- Pain & Physical Symptoms
- Phobias
- Trauma & PTSD
- Weight loss
- Cravings
- Addictions
The theory of how it works
Adapted per explanation of Dr David Feinstein, clinical Psychologist
- A clinician assists a client to mentally activate a problem or desired positive mental state. This will often trigger an alarm response in the amygdala. The objective of the clinician then becomes to reduce the intensity of the alarm response.
- Tapping on various pressure points sends a deactivating response back to the amygdala initiating an opposing, often calming response. The clinician works to reduce or eliminate the alarm response although the trigger is still present.
- With a few repetitions, the trigger ideally no longer evokes the same alarm response. This new memory of the trigger reaction now gets stored in the hippocampus.
Scientific Research
According to https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6381429/ “Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) is an evidence-based self-help therapeutic method and over 100 studies demonstrate its efficacy”.
Dr David Feinstein’s review at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.explore.2018.11.003 concluded that” a growing body of evidence indicates that acupoint-based energy psychology protocols are rapid and effective in producing beneficial outcomes in the treatment of anxiety, depression, PTSD, and possibly other conditions.”
Per https://www.eftuniverse.com/research-studies/eft-research#anxiety “EFT has been researched in more than 10 countries, by more than 60 investigators, whose results have been published in more than 20 different peer-reviewed journals.
These include distinguished top-tier journals such as Journal of Clinical Psychology, the APA journals Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, Practice, Training and Review of General Psychology, and the oldest psychiatric journal in North America, the Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease.
EFT research includes investigators affiliated with many different institutions.
In the US, these range from Harvard Medical School, to the University of California at Berkeley, to City University of New York, to Walter Reed Military Medical Center, to Texas A&M University, to JFK University. Institutions in other countries whose faculty have contributed to EFT research include Staffordshire University (United Kingdom), Lund University (Sweden), Ankara University (Turkey), Santo Tomas University (Philippines), Lister Hospital (England), Cesar Vallejo University (Peru), Bond University (Australia), and Griffith University (Australia).
The wide variety of institutions, peer-reviewed journals, investigators, and settings that have, in independent research, found EFT to be efficacious, are one indication of the breadth of existing research results.”
For specific information on research please see: