Emotional Freedom Technique – What EFT Is, How It Works, And Its Effectiveness
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Whether you are struggling to overcome an emotional, physical or mental issue, the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) is something you really should know about.
No matter how much effort you put into leading a healthy lifestyle, or abiding by a healthy diet, so long as emotional issues (e.g. grief, anger, guilt, fear, low self-esteem, etc) persistently plaque you, your efforts to achieve good mental and physical health will be limited.
This link between emotions and physical-mental health is not new – it has long been recognized by many holistic healing systems, including Traditional Chinese Medicine, Ayurveda etc.
Therefore, it is extremely important that you deal effectively with your emotional problems. Otherwise, in the long run, emotional issues can bring about mental and physical problems.
In this article, we discuss in detail a less well-known, but nevertheless effective, method of dealing with emotional issues – the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT).
How do we know it is effective? This is because our family has made use of EFT for dealing with our emotional issues with much success. In fact, none of the other methods we have tried so far have helped us as much as EFT did. Hence, we are still using it to cope with our life problems (e.g. sleeping problems, fear of heights, incessant thinking and worrying, excessive rumination, difficulties dealing with certain situations, anger issues, etc).
And so we feel that more people should know about this technique. Not only is it self-administered (once you have learnt the steps, you need not keep paying to benefit from it) and easy to use (even children can learn to use the technique), it is highly effective.
Below is some information on the basis of the Emotional Freedom Technique and evidences on its effectiveness.
What EFT is about
The Emotional Freedom Technique is a powerful self-help technique that uses elements of Cognitive Therapy, Exposure Therapy, and Acupressure.
Based on the belief that ailments arise from emotional dysfunctions, EFT uses the same energy pathways (i.e. meridians) as in traditional acupuncture, but without the use of invasive needles, to treat emotional and physical ailments. Hence, it is sometimes described as “psychological acupressure”.
EFT involves three basic elements – (1) mentally “tuning in” to issues that bother us (i.e. elements of Exposure Therapy), (2) voicing positive self-affirmations, despite the issues (i.e. elements of Cognitive Therapy), and (3) stimulating specific meridian points on the body by tapping on them with fingertips (i.e. elements of Acupressure).
Though the underlying theories and mechanisms of EFT may sound complicated, basic EFT is very simple to learn (even children have used it with success [1]). Given that the tools for EFT are our own fingertips and our body’s meridian points, EFT can be done anywhere, anytime.
In fact, it seems that as many as 10 million people worldwide have tried the Emotional Freedom Technique [2].
How EFT works
According to Gary Craig, founder of the Emotional Freedom Technique website “emofree.com”, all negative emotions arise from a disruption of the body’s energy system. [1]
Most of us think that our memories of negative events (whether in the recent or distant past) are the direct cause of our negative emotions. Hence, to address our negative emotions, we need to do something about our negative memories. Nonetheless, not only is it painful for us to dwell into the details of these relatively traumatic events in order to deal with our negative memories (e.g. through psychotherapy), it is sometimes also ineffective, or even counterproductive.
Craig counter-proposes that this link between our negative memories and negative emotions is not direct. What lies between the two elements is an intermediate – disruption to the body’s energy system. What this means is that if a memory (even if it is of a negative event) does not cause a disruption in the body’s energy system, then negative emotions will not be created. [1]
That seeks to explain why some people are bothered by memories of certain negative events, while others are not. Craig explains that the former have energy systems that tend to become disrupted under the specific circumstances, while the latter do not. [1]
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