Question: At what point should one consider working with a professional trained in EFT, rather than attempting to solve a problem on one's own.  I'm beginning to thing that working with a professional might be less frustrating than trying to deal with all the aspects on my own and might enable me to progress more quickly.

 
Answer: If a series of aspects seems so overwhelming to you that you don't know how to proceed (as is happening with you), this may well be a signal that you need someone else's perspective –– outside help from a very experienced person.

We all have things that we feel sufficiently uncomfortable about so they simply do not come to our minds when we're working alone.  No matter how conscientious we are about applying the method, we bury them from our own sight.  However, a professional working with us can help us to gently and safely confront some of the areas in our lives which we may presently be avoiding (without having any awareness of doing so). 

If you are looking for a therapist trained in EFT to work with you on this issue, you may want to opt to do EFT by telephone, although of course this depends upon where you live.  Telephone EFT sessions are probably more often conducted now than in-person sessions because of the far-flung locations of many EFT practitioners.  You can download our free e-book on Guidelines for Finding an EFT Practitioner and browse our list of EFT Practitioners.

Dr. Patricia Carrington, EFT Master

This question is an unusually challenging one and I will try to summarize the quite lengthy e-mail inquiry so you can know all that is involved.

This reader's inquiry addresses not only the question you see in the title above ––  whether one can actually overdo EFT –– but is an example of how easily more fundamental considerations can be covered up by more surface ones.  As you will see, the woman who wrote this presents us with a more serious and deep seated question which emerges as she tells her story.

She describes herself as suffering from DID (Dissociative Identity Disorder), a condition formerly known as "split personality" in which various sub-personalities or "alters" are split off or "dissociated" from the main personality.  It is a seriously disabling condition in which often one sub-personality does not know what the others are doing.

Our reader describes herself as being fragmented in many directions, having many alters or sub- personalities.  She has been working diligently with a therapist to help bring together these many fragmented parts of herself, although at times this has seemed to her to be an almost hopeless endeavor.

Like so many people who suffer from DID, she was severely abused in childhood.  She is a ritual abuse survivor who is hoping that EFT, which she has been using on her own for some time now, will help her deal with her painful memories.  Fortunately it has been doing that to some extent, but she finds that even the use of EFT (although it seems to help clear certain feelings) AFTERWARDS results in painful emotions, disturbing memories of the ritual abuse and often uncontrollable crying.  She relates that she has tried the Tearless Trauma Technique but that it hasn't worked for her. However, she describes her crying reaction as "just part of the grieving, it just has to be done is how I see it."

It appears that agonizing tears and grieving is, in fact, a continuing part of her life.  She reports being re-traumatized by "poor therapy" in the past, where she was told to get all her painful memories out and that the more she remembered them the faster she would heal, but in fact the opposite happened.  Over the course of the 13 years in which she was in this form of therapy and constantly recalled the agony of her childhood, the main result was that she developed severe phobias and panic attacks because of the terrifying memories that were NOW shared with the whole system and no longer locked away in little compartments of her personality.

She writes that since she started doing trauma work she has been told that "it is a painful journey and that you have to get through the pain to get the healing, and you have to do this over and over again".  She also says that everyone she knows who suffers from DID (she belongs to a DID support group) has had this "really drummed into their heads" and are suffering through a lot of pain now, whether in or out of therapy.

Obviously this woman's question has many aspects to it.  Here is my response:

Question: You mentioned on your videotape that when there are multiple Aspects to a problem, each Aspect will need to be tapped down individually.  While that sounds fine in theory, if this is a complicated problem that could take a lifetime!

 
Answer: You’re right but fortunately though it doesn’t work that way.  What happens is more like the effect of knocking a single domino down in a row of dominos.  You knock one of them down, it knocks the next one down, and it the next, until the whole row has toppled and a ripple effect has started. 

When we use EFT on an issue that has many aspects– let’s say prolonged childhood abuse — the first few experiences that are recalled will certainly have to be individually tapped down using the EFT protocol.  However, after that, the person may suddenly find that many, many other traumatic situations which have a similarity to the ones that have already been tapped down, have lost their “charge” and are now much easier to handle.  They seem to have become neutralized by association with the other traumatic memories. 

Gary Craig calls this phenomenon the “forest-trees” effect and speaks about it in his work with Vietnam veterans suffering from multiple traumas incurred during wartime.  He discovered that reducing ten or more such traumas by having the person work individually with EFT on each one of them often resulted in this having a beneficial effect on many other instances of wartime trauma encountered by that person.  This is extremely encouraging because it means we don’t have to ferret out and treat every instance in most cases.

Dr. Patricia Carrington, EFT Master

Question: I have suffered from a fear of speaking and reading aloud in public for many years. One of the problems I've had with using EFT to treat these fears is that I can think of so many aspects to each problem that I become overwhelmed and don't know where to start. For example, some of the aspects for the public speaking include: fear of people staring at me, fear of being trapped, fear of embarrassing myself, fear of voice shaking, fear of being unable to express my thoughts clearly, fear of mind going blank, anger at father for not listening to me, etc.

 
Answer:  Whenever there are multiple aspects and you are uncertain where to start, a good rule of thumb is to start with the earliest memory about the issue and deal with that first.  It may be back of much of the problem and clearing it can, at times, dispense with the entire difficulty.  You indicate that you have anger at your father for not listening to you, so I suggest that you target this memory first.

If you do so, however, don't expect that this will necessarily be a simple matter.  It is likely that the difficulty that you experienced when your father didn't listen to you (perhaps this happened many times in your childhood?) will have a number of aspects of its own, each of which will have to be addressed in turn.

Question: You mentioned on your videotape that when there are multiple Aspects to a problem, each Aspect will need to be tapped down individually. While that sounds fine in theory, if this is a complicated problem that could take a lifetime!

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QUESTION:  My husband's father is on the verge of dying from cancer. My husband and I are both new to EFT (we're in our early 30's) and he is concerned that he won't like not feeling the pain of his father's death. He wants to feel it, not in an incapacitating way but in a human way. Would EFT make him feel hollow or emotionless at his father's death? Would he 'not feel' the sadness? Could he undo the treatment if he didn't like it?

ANSWER:  Actually, yours is a question which can be answered with a good deal of clinical evidence to back it up.  I have often been asked whether EFT will take away from a person a response that is healthy, normal, and desirable.  People are frequently concerned, for example, that if EFT removes their fear of heights, they may then recklessly walk on the edge of cliffs without appropriate safeguards in place.  In other words, they are afraid they will lose intelligent caution because they have tapped away their irrational fear.  

However, as Gary Craig has pointed out many times this is not what happens.  EFT never takes away a response that is useful for the system.  With respect to your father-in-law's impending death and your husband's natural wish and need to feel, as any caring son would, the impact of the loss and the emotional meaning of the transition — – I can say with great certainty from my experience with EFT in situations somewhat similar to this, that EFT will not take away these desirable human responses.

So, I would like to suggest to you some ways in which EFT might be used, not only to support your husband during this difficult time, but also to enrich the meaning of your father-in-law's passing for all concerned — including, quite possibly, for your father-in-law himself.

Here are some EFT Choices which your husband may want to incorporate when he taps for this situation.  If you do not know about the EFT Choices Method (on which these recommendations are based) you may might want to read Chapters 11 and 12 of my Choices Manual which talks about the use of Choices in times of disaster.  While yours is not a natural disaster as described in the manual, it represents a shock to the family.  Impending death and loss of a close family member is a challenge to anyone, and many of the Choices suggested in the manual for use with such extremely difficult circumstances as those of September 11th, for example, should help your husband, yourself, and other family members, in this transitional period.

My advice here, however, depends upon the particular issues with regard to your father-in-law that concern your husband.  A number of possible issues come to my mind which might apply under circumstances like this. Such as…

Is EFT just a form of distraction?

QUESTION:  What about the possibility that it’s just distraction that makes EFT work?  It is distracting to tap and say those phrases?

ANSWER:  There may well be a distraction element in EFT, but we know from experience as well as research that distraction alone does not create the kind of solid, long lasting effects that we so often see following learning of EFT.

     For example, if you distract a child or puppy from something that is bothering them, this particular event or person may not bother them later providing they happen to forget about it.  But suppose that child or puppy (or it could be an adult for that matter) has an ongoing problem, such as a fear of spiders that they have had all their life.  You simply can’t distract a person from a fear such as this more than momentarily, that fear will simply snap right back in place.  But the opposite happens with EFT, if the method is applied correctly with all relevant Aspects addressed, the problem is usually gone permanently.

     Another point to think about is that in EFT, the Reminder phrase, which you repeat at every tapping point, focuses your attention on your problem, rather than distracting you from it.  You keep repeating words which bring back the problem to your mind over and over again as you tap.  This suggests that it cannot be a distraction effect or at least not a type of distraction which is similar to any that we have seen previously.

Do other people have these kinds of doubts?

Yes. Some people don’t know whether EFT is the agent that is helping them and they may then conclude that it is not the cause of their feeling better. 

QUESTION:  If I get over my fear of heights by using EFT, will I tend to go near the edge of a dangerous precipice or an open window and lean out too far?  Isn’t fear self-protective?

ANSWER:  Fear is self-protective and a necessary part of life, but that useful part of fear is never lost through EFT.  What EFT takes away is unreasoning fear and panic, and this leaves you much better able to cope with any difficult or even dangerous situation.  Panic disorganizes us and clouds our thinking.  Calmly focusing on the danger, as occurs after we rid ourselves of the irrational fear, allows us to be at our very best and cope with the danger most effectively.

EFT Master, Dr. Patricia Carrington

QUESTION:  I am wondering about the difference between thinking about something and having your fears reduced to 0, and actually going out and confronting the object of your fear. I noticed that on your videotape, you told about peoples’ anxiety sometimes coming back again when they had to fact the real life situation.

ANSWER:  Anxiety can often rise slightly when the person confronts the actual situation again because there are often other Aspects that are evident in the actual situation, which were not there in the imagining of it.  Gary Craig gives an excellent example of this in his manual.  He describes a woman whose fear of spiders was reduced to 0 while she was just thinking about them.  Often, of course, this is enough and the fear stays at 0 even when the person is confronted with a real spider.  But to make sure, the person working with her, took this woman to a pet store to see a Tarantula.  The woman became very fearful when she saw the real spider and ran crying out of the store.  This was not the fault of the first round of EFT.  Rather it was an indication that the real spider brought up new aspects of the fear that weren’t present when just the thought of spiders was going on. 

After a few more minutes with EFT, this woman went back into the pet store and calmly viewed the Tarantula.  Her fear was gone.  Such aspects as a moving spider (rather than a stationery one) or the hairiness of the spider, or its darting motions, might not have been anticipated when imagining it, but when she actually saw the spider, these Aspects caused enough trouble they needed to be tapped down in their own right.  It is not necessary always to know what the Aspects are that are being tapped down, but further tapping can be required when you get into the actual situation. It may not be needed after that, however.

Interestingly, in the above example, a few days later this woman called the therapist who had worked with her to report that she was at a friend’s house who owned a pet Tarantula (it had been surgically rendered harmless). She said they took the spider out of the cage, and this woman let it crawl on her.

This is a most interesting example of the power of a technique such as EFT.  Even people without a noticeable fear of spiders are unlikely to easily let a Tarantula crawl on them, even if it is no longer dangerous, but this woman was perfectly relaxed about it.  She now had even less fear than the normal everyday citizen.  It should be noted however that EFT does not make people careless or allow them to lose their own self-protective impulses.  This woman would not have let the spider crawl on her if it was indeed dangerous.  EFT removes the irrational portion of phobic fears, but does not reduce normal caution.

EFT Master, Dr. Patricia Carrington

QUESTION:  In those cases where EFT seems not to be working, what reason, other than hidden Aspects, can be an explanation for this?

ANSWER:  EFT will not work if a person is affected by an allergy like reactions, which is referred to as the effect of “energy toxins”.  This is a new branch of health science which no doubt will become much better known in the future.  In effect, for some people, things they eat, drink, breathe or come in contact with become “irritants” to their energy systems.  They are thrown off balance because of these.  These irritants or “energy toxins” serve to interfere with the balancing effects of EFT.  As long as they are present, EFT (or most any other type of healing) will be handicapped.

Different energy toxins affect different people in different ways, and there is no standard list that everyone must avoid.  Some people are affected by tobacco, while peaches or hand lotion affects others.  An excellent handbook for handling these allergy-like reactions and their surprising consequences in everyday life has been written by an expert in this field, Sandi Radomski, who employs EFT among other techniques, to deal with these energy toxins.  Her work is extremely useful for anyone wishing to apply EFT to allergy like reactions, and often an eye opener.

Learn more about Sandi Radomski’s method of handling these allergy like reactions, or "Allergy Antidotes."

EFT Master, Dr. Patricia Carrington

Does EFT have lasting effects?

QUESTION:  Do the effects of EFT last or are they just around for a while and then wear off as most suggestion techniques do?

ANSWER:  Again let me quote Gary Craig on this question.  He writes as follows. 

“EFT’s results are usually permanent.

The case histories (seen in Gary Craig’s course and those reported by many others) are filled with reports of people who have had lasting results…even though the problem was relieved in moments.  This is still more evidence that EFT is addressing the true cause of the problem.  Otherwise, the remedy would not be so long lasting.

Please remember, however, that EFT doesn’t do everything for everyone.  Some problems seem to reappear and that is usually caused by different ASPECTS of the original problem showing up at a later time.  The experienced student of EFT will recognize this and simply reapply the method to this new aspect.  In time, after all aspects have been addressed, the problem usually goes away completely and does not return.  Sometimes the cause of reappearing problems is due to ‘various physical causes’ such a ‘energy toxins’, a phenomena discussed elsewhere.”

EFT Master, Dr. Patricia Carrington