10 Ways Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT or Tapping) Work to Heal Trauma and Other Stresses of Life

By Jed Diamond, PhD, LCSW

When we think of people healing from trauma, we often picture people dealing with the effects of natural disasters, soldiers returning from battle, or people recovering from childhood violence or sexual abuse. But stress and trauma impact many more of us than most people recognize and Emotional Freedom Techniques, also known as EFT or Tapping, can be of tremendous help.

According to David Feinstein, Ph.D., one of the experts in the field of the emerging field of Energy Psychology, “Variations of this strategy also appear to shift, for the person’s benefit, the brain’s coding of irrational anger, jealousy, guilt, shame, unremitting grief, compulsive behaviors, phobias, PTSD, depression, addictions, and chronic pain.  International disaster relief teams have been applying it in the aftermath of warfare, ethnic cleansing, tsunamis, and earthquakes.  The method has also been shown to promote peak performance, alter self-defeating behavioral patterns, and help in attaining personal goals.”

I first discovered EFT many years ago when I was dealing with the chronic pain from a shoulder injury. I was reluctant to use drugs and resisted my doctor’s wishes to use surgery to fix the shoulder. I found that EFT didn’t just help with the pain; it eliminated the pain all together. I also used it with my clients to help with everything from arthritis to depression.

Although I found that it worked, I didn’t understand how it worked. Everything I knew at the time about trauma, stress, and healing told me that a person needed counseling and in-depth therapy that would take months or years. The idea that you could tap on certain points on the skin, and often get lasting results very quickly, just seemed too good to be true. But when I read Dr. Feinstein’s description of the mechanism of how it works, it gave me confidence to tell others about it.

In my newly released bookStress Relief for Men: How to Use the Revolutionary Tools of Energy Healing to Live Well, I describe four powerful techniques that include Earthing (grounding), Heart Coherence, Attachment Love, and EFT. I’m sure as time goes on and there will be more scientific studies on EFT that will show how it works, but for now these 10 mechanisms allow us to better understand the healing process:

*Energies—both electromagnetic energies and more subtle energies—form the dynamic infrastructure of the physical body.

*The health of those energies—in terms of flow, balance, and harmony—is reflected in the health of the body, mind, and spirit.

*Conversely, when the body, mind, and spirit are not healthy, corresponding disturbances in our energy fields can be identified and treated.

*Flow, balance, and harmony can be noninvasively restored and maintained within an energy system by tapping specific energy points on the skin.

*Tapping specific energy points while holding fearful or anxiety-provoking memories can permanently change the way these memories are processed and stored in the brain.

*When you bring to mind an anxiety-provoking memory, thought, or related cue, an alarm response is activated in the amygdala. (The amygdala is an almond-shaped group of nuclei located deep within the brain that helps in the processing and memory of emotional reactions.)

*The simultaneous stimulation of acupoints sends deactivating signals to the amygdala, initiating an opposing process.

*The signals sent by the acupoint stimulation turn off the alarm response, even though the trigger is still present.

*With a few repetitions, the trigger no longer evokes fear, and this innocuous experience, which becomes the defining memory about the trigger, is stored in the long-term memory banks of the brain.

*We still remember the event or situation that triggered the negative emotional response, but it no longer causes us problems.

In the book I describe how you can learn how to use EFT. There are also links to some of my colleagues who are experts in the field including Lindsay Kenny, John Freedom, and Nick Ortner.

Please join me on Twitter for more on EFT and men’s health: @MenAliveNow

Jed Diamond, PhD, LCSW, is the Founder and Director of the MenAlive, a health program that helps men live well throughout their lives. Though focused on men’s health, MenAlive is also for women who care about the health of the men in their lives. Diamond’s new book, Stress Relief for Men: How to Use the Revolutionary Tools of Energy Healing to Live Well, brings together the wisdom accumulated in 40 years helping more than 20,000 men, women, and children.