Thursday, 12 September 2013

What Is The Best Way To Learn EFT?

By Nurettin Buitenkamp


Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) - sometimes known as "Tapping" - is a powerful and rapidly emerging technique for the transformation of your stresses, traumas, blocks and many other emotional challenges, as well as helping with the areas of performance and achieving your goals. EFT is known to help with many issues as fear, trauma, anger, bereavement, depression, anxiety, panic, social anxiety disorder as well as sometimes dramatically helping physical issues such as back and neck pain, joint stiffness, IBS, ME and many others. Even better, it is well known as being easy to learn and use for self-help. So what is the best way to learn EFT?
[Emotional Freedom Technique EFT]


There are many books on the market for learning EFT, and also some free manuals you can download from the web (search for "EFT manual"). These can be valuable resources, and each has a different way to express the EFT process. Some are very detailed and show a large number of ways to use EFT and others teach just the basics. This is a very cost effective way to learn EFT, ranging from free to around 30. There are two big disadvantages though.

As you are tapping, you say a reminder phrase that helps you to stay focused on the specific issue or feeling that you are looking to treat. The default phrase is "Even though I have this ...... (name the problem), I completely love and accept myself". Advanced EFT practitioners will vary this phrasing considerably to approach problems in a variety of ways.

There are many You Tube videos showing EFT in action, and you can tap along with many of them, experiencing your own personal shifts and transformations. The issue here is that although you will hopefully have an experience of EFT working for you, this is a disjointed approach as there is no formal training. This means that if you try to use it on yourself without having foundational knowledge, it may work, or it may not. If it doesn't work, you could become disheartened and put EFT aside. Again, this would be tragic as, if used properly, EFT could literally be life changing for you.

This would seem to indicate that the EFT theory of the body's energy meridian system is false. However, a second study involving the use of a psychological test called the SA-45 indicated otherwise. Participants in an EFT workshop were given the test before and immediately after the workshop, and one and six months later. All participants showed significant decreases of pre and post workshop stress.

Gary Craig himself has said placebo controlled studies of EFT are unreliable if not impossible because energy meridians are influenced and manipulated by tapping anywhere on the body. Thus EFT is really unable to be tested through scientific means and this has caused its opponents to label it as pseudo science. Its reliance on anecdotal evidence and aggressive promotion on the internet have also damaged its plausibility. It has been speculated in an article of the Guardian that perhaps the act of rhythmically tapping the body while in distress simply serves as a distraction from the ailment, making it seem as if EFT is effective.

Whether or not EFT can cure an individual of phobias or other non life threatening illness is open to speculation, and it seems to be relatively harmless in that regard. It is in its claims of being able to cure cancer and other potentially terminal illness that it runs into trouble. Its claims are specious at best and there is simply no medical evidence that EFT is effective. Any proof that has been presented is purely anecdotal.

As an EFT Practitioner, I have made important additions and modifications to Gary Craig's EFT procedure to avoid side effects called 'Qi deviation' and also increase its effectiveness a hundred-fold with a variant of EFT called "EFT Qi-healers Method." The Jing-Well acu-points of the liver, spleen, kidneys, stomach, gall bladder and bladder in the feet are added to balance the Yin (lower) and Yang (upper) meridians, and Pan Gu Shen Gong, Sheng Zhen Qigong, Wuji Qigong, Maitreya (Shiva) Shen Gong, Tibetan Shamanic Qigong with tonic herbs are also integrated with EFT to remove the energy toxins and restore the Three Treasures - Jing (essence), Qi (vitality) and Shen (Spirit) - leaked by the negative emotions held in the five organs.

Tapping of the acupuncture points with intention, and loving and accepting oneself work in EFT therapy because according to the three theories of Classical Chinese Medicine, "Qi follows intention," "the heart is the supreme master of the organs and is the home of shen, the spirit. If the master is brilliant, his subjects are peaceful. If the master is disturbed, his twelve officials [the body's organ systems] are endangered," and "when the Qi obstruction or stagnation in the energy meridians is normalized through acupuncture," balancing of yin and yang, and emotional and physical healing naturally take place.

For now it would be appropriate to say that the power of EFT is unproven, but the possibilities it offers are worth looking into. The field it is exploring is a vital one, and any opportunity to learn more about the connection between mental health and physical health should be welcomed. Skeptics and proponents alike should take more time examining the possibilities before casting judgment, negative or positive.




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