EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques) is a new self-help therapy in which tapping with the fingertips on the end points of acupuncture meridians can bring rapid relief from emotional and physical complaints. Shifting energy in these meridians can help with anxiety, anger, pain, headaches, phobias, guilt, and much more.

In a face to face setting, as a generalization, EFT can be used in one of two ways. Either by working directly on whatever physical feeling or emotion an individual is currently experiencing in their energy system at that moment, or on memories or associations underneath that. Let's explore both.

Building Bridges

First, working directly on something experienced in the moment can be most readily applied for physical issues, including pain, or an emotional issue. The important thing is that the individual Is currently aware of the troublesome issue and can focus on it 100% to have the tapping have it's desired effect. Tapping on whatever is present can also help people understand and have an experience of EFT working, before they open up enough to work on deeper emotional issues.

Chasing The Pain

Many times straight tapping on the current issue will have the desired effect and clear the issue there and then. Sometimes, if working with a physical issue, some ?chasing the pain? is involved. This is the process whereby the physical issue or physical manifestation of an emotional issue shifts from place to place around the body instead of immediately resolving with EFT. Practitioners can continue to chase the pain round the body in the hopes of resolution, or can opt to zero-in on the emotional under-roots of the issue in an attempt to clear the issue at source. The emotional equivalent of this is ?daisy-chaining? , where, when working on an immediately present emotional issue, the client freely associates into memories related to the current issue and tapping continues on those.

Emotional Domino Effect

My personal preference as a Practitioner is to tap on the underlying emotions. What this means is looking for the associated memories, learnings, or beliefs, that are behind the current presenting problem, and applying EFT tapping to those. In my experience this bring extremely thorough results, and some quality detective work done in advance to root out relevant memories or associations can reap life-changing benefits for the client in the long run. Working to relieve the negative associations we have tied in at the belief level will typically lead to a greater positive cascade effect across a client's whole life as opposed to resolving just ?this headache? that's present only here and now.

Neither of the two approaches is better or more valid than the other, and I have experienced good results with both. Indeed, often one can be the doorway in to the other, or to root out a core emotional issue for the client, which when cleared brings substantial relief. If, having tried one approach with no results, try the other as a different angle to explore from. There is no right way to approach the therapeutic process, and often your intuition can be the best guide as to where to aim your EFT for best results.