By Dr. Patricia Carrington

If I had to sum up my comments on a bright prospect in a few words, I would say that these amazing healing methods may well be gearing up now for what has recently been referred to as "the tipping point".

Tipping points are sudden moves that trends can take that catapult them to a totally new level. It may be that our highly valued tapping methods are now ready for just such a move.  Here is some recent evidence which suggests this possibility…

The Tapping Summit is the largest, most successful conference ever conducted in this area. As you may have read, it features a group of major tapping experts, including a number of meridian tapping practitioners who had been designated as EFT Masters by Gary Craig in his EFT Masters program (that program is no longer in operation but the Masters are still active and influential, see http://www.eftmastersworldwide.com). This title is one of the highest honors in the world of meridian tapping.

The significance of the annual Summit conference is that thousands of people, many of whom are new to the tapping techniques, register for this online event for a period of nine consecutive days. This kind of attendance is unprecedented in our field, and in many others.

What is particularly important is that this program followed the wonderful example of Gary Craig who has for many years had given away, entirely free, his EFT Manual and has only sold products, in the form of Gary's DVDs, to those who were highly motivated to learn more about this amazing method. This type of generous dissemination of information brought EFT to the pinnacle of the meridian tapping field.

In a similar vein, Nick Ortner, the producer of the documentary film Try It On Everything and creator of the Summit conference, also presented the public with a giveaway of unprecedented proportions in the meridian tapping world when he offered the entire nine days of the Summit at no cost to those who wanted to listen online. The result was that 95% of those who registered for the Summit  attended it free of charge, with only 5% of the registrants electing, for purposes of review or to fill-in missed sessions, to purchase the actual physical CDs of the conference.  Thousands of people who would otherwise not have known about the tapping techniques were thus beneficially introduced to them and thousands more reinforced in their knowledge of them by this giveaway policy.

I am predicting that massive giveaways, which are funded by only minor sales to those particularly interested in going further, may be the way of the future for many of the tapping techniques, and that because of this generous policy they will spread to ever greater and more enthusiastic audiences.

Incidentally, in case you don't remember the details of how these techniques developed, here they are:

The history of meridian tapping began with Dr. George Goodheart, a leading chiropractor who found he could use acupuncture points beneficially for physical conditions by just "tapping" on them (no needles were needed!)

An Australian psychiatrist, John Diamond, M.D., then took this discovery a step further.  He began using verbal affirmations as the patient was stimulating the acupuncture points. This was a major step forward as it introduced a psychological tool into the process.  But still the treatment method lacked a cohesive "engine" to drive it forward with real effectiveness. That engine was supplied by Dr. Roger Callahan, an American psychologist specializing in anxiety disorders.

Dr. Callahan's contribution was immense and has been well documented. Through his interest in acupuncture and his awareness of the use of the value of tapping on acupoints, he made a key discovery upon which all later meridian tapping methods are based. Callahan found that if a person is focusing on a specific fear at the time they tap, that fear can be removed, often permanently. He developed his discovery into a complete system and concluded that there was a correct tapping sequence for every emotional issue, and that this could be determined for each individual through the use of muscle testing. He called these tapping sequences "algorithms" and his treatment later became known as Thought Field Therapy, or TFT.

Dr. Callahan's work, although brilliant and groundbreaking, was however quite complex and difficult to master because different algorithms were required for each one of the numerous disorders studied.

The next step was the creation of simplified versions of Callahan's technique. These were known as "single algorithm techniques" (i.e. they did not require diagnosis or muscle testing). My own early method, Acutap, was one of the very first single algorithm methods, predating EFT by about seven years and there may have been others who devised similar adaptations of Callahan's method.

Then, in the 1990's, quite independently arrived at and without his knowledge of any former single-algorithm method, one of Roger Callahan's star pupils, Gary Craig, unveiled a major development of the meridian tapping techniques which he called Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT). Today his single algorithm method, EFT, leads the world in the development and teaching of the meridian tapping approach to healing.

It is interesting to note that the meridian tapping techniques are now moving beyond EFT as highly skilled experts create tapping approaches that are beginning to differ from Official EFT in many respects. This is an exciting development that promises to grow in a spirit of friendly cooperation between all  these methods, as they become better known throughout the world.

Speaking of the world, those who are involved with the tapping techniques are also celebrating the recent recognition of Roger Callahan's TFT method  by Virgin Airlines' program for combating flight fears. Did you happen to see Whoopi Goldberg's YouTube video demonstrating the great help she received from tapping for a long standing flight phobia of hers, under the guidance of this airline's program?