EFT was developed by a counsellor, Gary Craig, who was looking for a way to help people in emotional distress to process their feelings and recover their emotional balance as quickly as possible. It was only later that he became aware of its potential to shift physical symptoms and disease.

Gary Craig was used to counselling people and seeing how emotions changed as a result, but he recognised that this was a slow process, and people often remained in therapy for years. Treatments that seemed to work more quickly were those that involved working directly on the body’s energy flow, such as acupressure, kinesiology, or Thought Field Therapy (TFT). Gary had trained with Roger Callahan the originator of TFT (which combines tapping on the energy meridians with talk therapy) but went on to develop and simplify the system. Although Craig insists that EFT therapists must meet his training requirements if they are to offer EFT to other people, he has also placed basic training manuals and information on the internet and on DVDs, which are readily accessible to all, and can be used for self-help.
The people he treats in his workshops, report instant release from pain, and improvements in other mental/ emotional, as well as, physical symptoms.

How does EFT work ?

Energy flows through our bodies along meridians or pathways that connect to each other, and to our organs. These resemble an electrical circuit. You will not find them described in western medicine’s anatomy books, but oriental medicine has understood their importance to human health for centuries.
If the organism is under stress of any sort – either emotional or as a result of a physical or a chemical mismatch such as a food intolerance – then the energy meridian most affected will shut down, or become blocked. There can be a cascade effect as other connected meridians try to take over and keep the energy flowing, but eventually they too become blocked, and often the result is pain and other symptoms or feelings of dis-ease. Gary Craig claims that the cause of all negative emotions is a disruption in the body’s energy system, and so the way to dissolve negative emotions is through clearing the energy blockage and getting the energy to flow once more.

EFT and allergy

In the specific context of allergy tapping can often reduce or resolve symptoms and I have used tapping in conjunction with homeopathic remedies to successfully treat allergic reactions on a number of occasions. Gary Craig’s EFT website (www.emofree.com) includes a number of similar reports.
Obviously, if you suspect that the reaction may be serious you should still use all the usual emergency techniques (EpiPen, call the ambulance etc) but tapping while you are waiting may help to reduce the tension and buy a little extra time.
EFT sounds an unlikely treatment for allergies until you realise that our emotions affect the course of any disease; they can speed up or delay healing and can frequently precipitate physical symptoms – such as allergic reactions.
We may not realise at the time that our hay-fever may have started after a period of resentment and anger at our boss, or that our child’s eczema first appeared after they had spent a weekend away from home, and probably been homesick, although nothing seemed amiss at the time. When we repress our emotions the body finds other ways of expressing them.

How do I use EFT ?

It is worth investing in a book, or reading the information on Gary Craig’s website (www.emofree.com) before embarking on any EFT self-treatment. Alternatively you might wish to have a session with a trained therapist who can show you exactly how to get started. They will explain the process in stages.

Stage 1

To begin you need to decide what you want to tap ‘on’. This might be a negative emotion such as anxiety or a physical symptom such as pain. Focus on the sensation or the emotion and decide how intense it is. In EFT we assign a score to this out of ten, with ten being the most intense.

Stage 2

Next you need to do the ‘set-up’. Simply tap on the karate chop (KC) – outside of the hand – see diagram – point while saying out loud the set-up phrase, which includes exactly what you are thinking or feeling at the time. Repeat this three times.
An example might be: ‘Even though, I have this pounding headache and I feel sick and dizzy, and I am so angry about how horrible work was today, I deeply and completely love myself’. It is important to use the words in italics before and after your specific description of how you are feeling – see below.
The set-up is important for two reasons. Firstly, it enables you to focus on the problem and any feelings or symptoms associated with it that may have caused an energetic disruption in the system. Only when this disruption to the energy flow appears, can it be dismantled, and an unimpeded flow re-established.
Secondly, using the words, ‘Even though’ and ‘I deeply and completely love myself’, are a means of accepting that you have this problem, but that you can still love yourself, and are ready to change.
In some situations our subconscious may try to block change, mistaking it for a threat to our well-being, and when this happens the energy system remains disordered. In EFT this is known as psychological reversal (PR) and explains why some people cannot completely clear their symptoms with tapping.
There are several techniques for dealing with PR when it happens, but by using the correct set-up you have already begun to clear the problem.
Interestingly, some people report that their symptoms resolve almost as soon as the set-up is completed. Others find it difficult to say ‘I deeply and completely love myself’. When this happens, you know you are dealing with low self-esteem and will need to tap on that to clear it, but to get started you can use an alternative phrase which is acceptable such as ‘I’m OK’.

Stage 3
(Diagrams from Emotional Healing in Minutes by Valerie and Paul Lynch)

The next stage involves tapping with one or two fingers on the ends of the energy meridians flowing through the body (eg the series of points on the head and body detailed on the chart) while saying aloud the reminder phrase, which, in this case, would be something like ‘this angry headache’.
Ideally you should tap each point seven times, which usually means repeating the reminder phrase three times, but do not interrupt your tapping to count, and do not worry about being exact. If you are concerned about the exact location of the points then tap with three or four fingers rather than just one finger, and you will be sure to cover them.
Go round the points a second time, tapping each one seven times and repeating a reminder phrase which may vary slightly from the first round, depending on any changes to how you are feeling.
The ‘tapping’ is literally like turning on a water tap: as you tap (turn the tap on), the energies (water) which have been blocked can flow freely and the emotional blockage resolve.

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