In this country-and around the world-we spend immense amounts of money trying to help people overcome PTSD, painful childhood experiences, abuse and physical pain and illnesses. Usually, we use various medications, surgery, chiropractic and other methods. There’s one method, however, that ends up being relatively inexpensive and often surprisingly quick. It’s called EFT-Emotional Freedom Techniques.

To give you an example of what EFT can do with PTSD and physical pain, here’s one client’s story-I’ll call her June. (I’ve changed details to protect her privacy). June had suffered from several incidents of cancer. She had also experienced a number of traumas in childhood and in her teens.

PTSD Symptoms

She came into my office because she had recently been kidnapped and held at gunpoint for several hours, and was experiencing various symptoms of PTSD – Post Traumatic Stress Disorder: she had trouble being near where she had been held; she was very jumpy whenever people came up behind her. She often felt nauseated, almost to the point of vomiting; she had a hard time getting out of bed in the morning and was in bed in the early evening, but then couldn’t sleep. She was afraid to leave her house and had difficulty motivating herself to work at her job. She felt extremely apathetic about everything in her life and had difficulty concentrating on anything. She became angry very easily and memories of the incident kept intruding into her mind. She said she felt like she wasn’t herself anymore, she felt lost and cried easily and was avoiding places where the perpetrator made her drive in her car while he was holding a gun to her side. Before the carjacking, she had been a very social, cheerful, competent person.

In addition to the above trauma, June had just recently had surgery for recurring cancer, and was still recovering from the pain of surgery.

Here’s how EFT works

You’ve probably heard of acupuncture, or even experienced it. I remember going to an acupuncturist for allergies, and it helped very quickly. Another time, it was the only thing that helped with sciatica. With EFT, we tap on the energy meridians that acupuncture uses to heal all kinds of issues, from physical pains and illnesses to emotional pain caused by stress, traumas, PTSD, phobias, dysfunctional childhood, and much more. And it’s often way quicker than medical or psychotherapy interventions. Where EFT has an additional advantage is that it aligns the part of us that has the intention to get better and the part of us that may have some unconscious hesitations or fears and gets in the way.

First EFT Tapping Session

PTSD When a person goes through something very traumatic, it’s often too intense to remember the event. What we do with this, with EFT, is to have the person put the memory to the side and just guess, if they were to think about the details, how intense it would be. Usually their guess is that it would be very intense. Then we give the event a name, in this case “The Kidnapping,” We focus only on the title and EFT Tapping decreases the emotional charge. This happened with June. After several rounds of tapping, the emotional pain was lowered. Then we went into some of the details, and especially the emotions that arose when she thought of the event.

Loss of Innocence, Anger

The first thing that June realized was that she had felt a kind of innocent trust in life, which was shattered when she was kidnapped. Then she became angry at the kidnapper for taking away her innocence. All these were calmed down with EFT Tapping.

Physical Pain

Physical pains also arose as we focused on the event. Her throat tightened, she felt nausea in her stomach and pain in her sternum. These pains had been chronic for a while. With EFT Tapping, all these physical pains disappeared.

Second EFT Tapping Session

When June came back after her first EFT Tapping session, she felt improvements in her emotional state. She had slept better and was less depressed and apathetic. It was easier to leave her house. She also said that she had been more assertive with co-workers and her partner, and was developing clear boundaries. We went through some of the things we had cleared last time, and she was able to stay calm. Then we moved on to what was left, going into further details.

Fear, Guilt

Here, again, various kinds of emotional pain and physical pain arose. She was afraid that her attacker would seek her out and hurt her again. Like many people who have been held captive, she felt guilty about betraying him so that she could escape. And she felt that she may have a wound that could not be healed. With EFT Tapping, all these symptoms of emotional pain were calmed quite quickly.

Physical Pain

The physical pains that arose included a powerful headache, constriction in her throat, pain in her stomach, and tightness in her neck. And, most interestingly, a pain in the wound in her chest, where she had just had a cancerous mole removed. This wound had been very painful for several days. An image came to me of June metaphorically being shot in the heart. She agreed that is how it felt. So I had her focus on that and we tapped on it. With EFT Tapping, each physical symptom eased. And, amazingly, the pain of the wound that had been so intense ever since the surgery completely disappeared!