EFT (Guest Blog)
Energy psychology utilises cognitive operations such as imaginal exposure to traumatic memories. Or visualisation of optimal performance scenarios. This combination purportedly brings about, with unusual speed and precision, therapeutic shifts in affective, cognitive, and behavioural patterns that underlie a range of psychological concerns.
EFT - Emotional Freedom Technique
At least three international humanitarian relief organisations have adapted energy psychology as a treatment in their post-disaster missions. Four tiers of energy psychology interventions include
- immediate relief/stabilisation
- extinguishing conditioned responses
- overcoming complex psychological problems
- promoting optimal functioning.
The first tier is most pertinent in psychological first aid, immediately following a disaster, with the subsequent tiers progressively being introduced over time with complex stress reactions and chronic disorders. What is EFT?
An analogy that can help us understand EFT is if you’ve ever had a blocked sink and used a plunger to unblock it, how does it work? Plunging a drain uses the forces of suction and compression. When you pull up on a plunger, it pulls water in the drain upward, beginning the process of loosening the clog. When you push down on the plunger, water is forced downward, moving the clog in the other direction. So, imagine your meridian system similarly, but whereas our sink plumbing system is ‘open’ at either end i.e. where we tip our waste in the sink and at the other end where it goes for sewage treatment.
Energy disruption
Energy disruption is how EFT evolved, which means an emotional trauma disrupting energy flow. It upregulates immunity genes and downregulates inflammation genes. It is safe and a good self-help practice and 1 session can treat phobias and 4 – 8 sessions can treat PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder). Good for the emotional issues faced by patients with chronic illness as well as the management of physical symptoms.It works by the retrieval of fear memories, incorporation of new emotional experiences and learnings into the memory creating a mismatch between prior expectations and reality known as a prediction error (learning by our mistakes), and finally reinforcement of the new learning. The tapping releases blockages in the 14 meridian lines (energy channels) in the body. We do however only need to tap on 10 meridian lines as some intersect with others.
There are twelve major meridians that run on each side of the body, one side mirroring the other. Each meridian corresponds to an internal organ. And each organ, with its own physiological and invisible energy functions, is not only dependent on the other organ systems but also on the greater meridian network. Your emotional blockage is somewhere in this system, so tapping on these meridian lines creates pressure on the blockage in a similar way to the plunger in our sink.
You would not live with a blocked sink, so why live with blocked emotions?
It’s never too late to have a happy childhood – EFT is great for addressing childhood trauma as well as past trauma in adulthood.
When you start you need words that associate intensity to that negative emotion, the higher the negative intensity, the greater the relief – you need to really feel it to heal it.
Deactivating signals are sent directly to the amygdala (the part of the brain that plays an important role in emotion and behaviour. It is best known for its role in the processing of fear and other negative emotions), resulting in rapid or progressive reduction of intensity of the fear or negative emotion.
EFT relies on the premise that acceptance of, rather than resistance to, a particular condition can reduce suffering. It’s like watching a movie rather than continually re-living it.
We can think of EFT as helping reboot our personal energy system in relation to the issue at hand, similar to the way we reboot a computer, which has got stuck or has crashed.
The challenge as a self-help tool is remembering to do it when we are ‘emotional’ as the amygdala hijacks the rational brain (fight/flight) so we must STOP (Stop, Think, Observe and Plan) and take a deep breath – consider practising doing this daily to start with at least so you can do it without thinking.
Thank you to Bernard for his guest blog. If you would like to know how he can help YOU then please read on...
Lots of demonstrations can be accessed on YouTube, if however you would like an online guide through an EFT session or have some specific emotional trauma to address please contact him on [email protected]
In addition. In October 2024 he is hosting a 10-day personal resilience retreat at his beautiful retreat in Southern Spain (days 4 and 5 he will be going through in depth this technique and also the Havening technique. He is accepting bookings for 2 days or more. Full details are on the red button on his website www.oldspanishmill.com
In 2025 he will be hosting specific emotional resilience retreats at the same venue. He would love to hear from you should you be interested.
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