If you enter the name of almost any psychological or psychiatric problem you can think of into the search engine of the EFT website (www.emofree.com), you are likely to find that someone has worked with it using energy methods and has reported some success. This does not mean that energy psychology can cure schizophrenia,¹ but it does mean that people have found ways to use energy methods to provide some genuine assistance to individuals with psychotic disorders such as schizophrenia, along with an enormous range of other conditions.

The Problems that Respond the Most Quickly

How do tapping, rubbing, doing the Nine Gamut Procedure, and saying the Setup Affirmation and Reminder Phrase combine so that an unwanted emotional or behavioral response stops occurring? Our best understanding is that between the triggering stimulus and the unwanted response is an energy reaction. As you saw in the Introduction:

• This energy reaction leads to a sequence of chemical events in the brain that result in the unwanted emotion or behavior.
   

• Mentally activating the image or situation that triggers the whole sequence while simultaneously doing the tapping seems to eliminate the energy reaction.

In many cases, this immediately ends the unwanted emotional or behavioral response as well. In other cases, a web of interrelated triggers must be identified and neutralized one by one. That is the detective work introduced in this tutorial.

The methods of energy psychology can be applied at numerous levels. The core strategy is to rewire a simple conditioned response. A conditioned response is a feeling or behavior that has been programmed to immediately occur when a particular type of stimulus appears (an internal image or external situation). You get on an airplane, and you feel panic. You hear the name of your girlfriend’s old lover, and jealous rage envelops you. You say "no" when a friend asks you to serve on a committee that holds no interest for you, and guilt plagues you for hours. A TV ad reminds you of your mother, who died in 1992, and you are, for the thousandth time, sent into inconsolable grief. Your spouse’s voice gets a bit loud when making a request, and you want to come out swinging.

When there is a clear relationship between an internal or external stimulus and an unwelcome emotion or an automatic behavior, a fairly routine application of the EFT Basic Recipe will usually interrupt the pattern. You specify the response you wish to change, and give a 1 to 10 rating for the level of distress you feel when you bring it to mind. You formulate the Setup Affirmation and state it out loud three times while massaging points on your chest that are tender. You do the Sandwich: a) the acupoint Tapping Sequence, while stating your Reminder Phrase at each point, b) the Nine Gamut Procedure, and c) the Tapping Sequence again. You do another assessment, and repeat the Sandwich with slight modifications to the Setup Affirmation and the Reminder Phrase. You continue until the distress you feel while mentally holding the image or memory has been eliminated.

Over the next few days, try this with several issues where your response to a situation you sometimes encounter might be refined a bit, such as:

• "When I start to become tired, I automatically turn on the television" ("Even though I have this weakness for television . . .").
   

• "My clothes wind up on the floor, even though I intend to hang them when I take them off" ("Even though I have this habit of leaving my clothes on the floor . . .").
   

• "Every time I sit down to do the taxes, I find myself going to the refrigerator" ("Even though I have this aversion to doing my taxes . . .").
   

• "When I see my son having fun, I begin to dwell on his poor grades" ("Even though I have this obsession about my son’s success . . .").

Once you have mastered the simple methods taught in the "Basic Basics" module, you will already be able to use energy interventions to change your clients’ internal programming in desired directions for a wide range of issues. One of the comments we hear the most frequently from the clinicians we train is some version of, "I wish I would have known this years ago."

Some brief descriptions taken from the EFT website illustrate the spectrum of issues where simply applying the basic protocol gave someone relief: performance fears for a 19-year-old gymnast, flashbacks and insomnia following two automobile accidents that occurred within a six-week period, stopping smoking after 35 years, extreme anxiety prior to a surgery, a six-year-old’s psychosomatic pains, a fear of flying, depression suffered by a single mom with two teenage daughters, reducing sugar cravings, a child’s fear of the dark, an allergic reaction to horses, a 10-year-old boy’s dyslexia, and pain after reconstructive surgery for a damaged knee. You can read details about each of these, as well as hundreds of others, at www.emofree.com.

Of course a routine application of the methods will not be effective in every situation. Even in cases where a triggering stimulus and unwanted response can be readily identified, other factors may be involved and need attention. Four considerations for increasing the effectiveness of the tapping protocol are the various aspects of the problem (first discussed in Basic Basics Module), psychological reversals (first discussed in Basic Basics, also see the Psychological Reversals module), scrambled energies (see the Neurological Disorganization module), and environmental  toxins (see the Advanced Meridian Treatments module).

In addition, given the complexities of human emotional life, psychological problems do not necessarily break down into a clearly identifiable stimulus-and-response pattern. Systematic analysis that helps you identify where to focus your attention is often required. Is the progress being blocked by hidden aspects or psychological reversals? Is special understanding required for working with a particular type of problem, such as depression or an addiction? Such systematic analysis is the topic of this tutorial. It teaches by example, describing how energy psychology has been successfully used with a range of individuals and conditions. It also gives you some insight into the dynamics of each condition. Some of the principles described under each category apply only to the condition being discussed, but others apply to treating many kinds of conditions. Each section is written to teach basic strategies as much as to address the particular problem.

Fears and Phobias

Descriptions of the use of the tapping protocol with a fear of public speaking and with a severe case of claustrophobia will be followed by a discussion of the principles involved in working with phobias and irrational fears. Subsequent sections will focus on traumatic memories, anxiety, depression, addictions, self-defeating habits, and physical conditions.

Fear of Public Speaking. Sue had a speech impediment that resulted in an intense fear of public speaking. She attended a workshop presented by Gary Craig and his associate Adrienne Fowlie. During the lunch break, Sue asked them for help with her fear. She showed them a scar on her neck where an operation for throat cancer had been performed. As a result of the operation, she could not speak normally and it was difficult to understand her. Not surprisingly, she was not fond of public speaking. In fact, she was terrified of it, with a range of physiological symptoms of phobia, from a racing heart to feelings of nausea. To make matters worse, she was a sergeant in the Army and frequently had to "public speak" in front of her troops.

Two rounds of the Basic Recipe were applied, and she overcame the fear in a few minutes, at least to the extent that she no longer felt fear when thinking about speaking in front of a group. When the workshop reconvened, Craig asked her to come up on stage to further test the results. As she walked toward the stage, she reported that some fear was upon her again, but it was "only a 3," down from the usual "10." Another round of the Basic Recipe was applied on the stage as she faced the audience, and her fear rating fell to "0." She then grabbed the microphone and enchanted the 100 people in the audience as she told the story of what happened during the break. She personified calmness and poise. Her speech impediment was still there, of course, but her fear and the accompanying physical reactions were gone. While eliminating the fear of public speaking doesn’t necessarily make someone a great speaker, it does remove the rapid pounding of the heart, the dry mouth, and other symptoms so that one is then comfortable and able to cultivate more refined public speaking skills.

Extreme Claustrophobia. David Feinstein was scheduled to co-teach a week-long class on complementary medicine, but his arrival was delayed for several days. His co-instructor decided to introduce him to the class by having him demonstrate a phobia treatment. When he arrived, he was escorted from his taxi to the meeting room, where he was introduced to the group and to the volunteer, a 37-year-old woman who had had a debilitating stroke at age 30. Placed into an MRI machine shortly after her stroke, she had become fearful and confused, began to panic, could not get out, and terror took over. She had been claustrophobic ever since, to the point that she could not sleep with the lights out or even under a blanket, could not drive through a tunnel, or get into an elevator. Besides being enormously inconvenient, this was confidence-shattering as she worked to get her speech back.

Within 20 minutes of reprogramming her energy response to enclosed places using a variation of the Basic Recipe, her anxiety when thinking about being in an enclosed space went from 10+ on the 10-point scale down to 0. To test this, Feinstein suggested that during the break, she and her partner return to their room and that she get into the closet. After she entered the closet and closed the door, her partner turned out the lights. She stayed there five minutes with no anxiety. When she returned to report what happened to the group, she said the only problem was that she found it "boring." The rest of the group, which 50 minutes earlier had witnessed her report that her distress was 10+ when even thinking about an enclosed space, was amazed. That evening she slept with the lights out and under the covers for the first time in seven years. Her partner was elated.

Six weeks after this single session, the following e-mail arrived: "You are not going to believe this! The test of all claustrophobia tests happened to me. I got stuck in an elevator by myself for nearly an hour. In the past I would have gone nuts and clawed the door off, but I was calm and sat down on the floor and waited patiently for the repair men to arrive. . .  It was an amazing confirmation that I am no longer claustrophobic!!!!!!!! Thank you. Thank you." Based upon a growing body of clinical evidence, her phobia is not likely to return unless bad fortune retraumatizes her in a situation that involves an enclosed space.

The Nature of Phobias. You can imagine the years of self-recrimination both women suffered prior to the treatments. We live in a culture that views irrational fear as a character flaw and that encourages people to act tough. Both women actually displayed tremendous courage in coping with their fears, but the internal wiring was such that the harder they tried to push through, the stronger the fears became. With treatment that addressed the wiring rather than the feelings or the behavior, the fears dissolved in minutes.

About 10% of the population suffers from one or more phobias. Phobias cause untold misery and often severely limit the lives of those who have them. There are hundreds of possible phobias, but the Basic Recipe can be effective regardless of what triggers the irrational fear. Because it involves the same neurological process, you use the same strategy whatever the trigger. Among the most common triggers are fears of:

There is a world of difference between a normal fear and a phobia. Fear is a survival mechanism, an evolutionary achievement that helps us avoid danger. It bypasses the rational mind and sets into motion a sequence of automated responses that helped our ancestors survive in the face of mortal danger. If you are driving your car and a truck pulls out of a driveway right in front of you, you don’t want lots of inner dialogue before your foot hits the brake. Some of our behaviors need to bypass the more well-considered but immeasurably slower rational mind. An automatic fear response becomes attached to a situation based on a combination of inherited reactions (e.g., the "fight-or-flight" response) and experiences that teach you about what is dangerous.

A phobia or irrational fear is a fear that has become attached to an object or a situation that, objectively, does not actually pose a danger or threat, or to a situation where the threat is better managed by normal caution than by a full-blown emergency response. Caution when you see a snake or a spider is adaptive. It may be dangerous and able to cause you harm. But to experience a pounding heart, headache, nausea, vomiting, sweat, tears or any of a long list of other symptoms of excessive fear is not only useless, it makes you less effective in the situation. The phobic response, the level of fear that exceeds normal caution, contributes nothing to your safety.

When you neutralize a phobic response by rebalancing the meridian energies while the fear has been activated, normal caution and concern is not affected. People are often amazed at how quickly a lifelong phobia vanishes. But the process doesn't make them stupid. They don't suddenly jump off tall buildings or kiss grizzly bears. Paradoxically, people who have eliminated a phobia using energy techniques tend to have less fear in the situation about which they were originally phobic than other people. Almost everyone, for example, has some fear response to heights. Ask 100 people to look down from the top of a tall building, though they are in total safety, and many of them will feel at least a bit queasy, a physiological component of the fear response. By contrast, those who have completely eliminated a height phobia using the tapping sequence don't even feel queasy. The wiring has been changed. They are left only with a healthy caution.

Applying the Basic Recipe to a Phobia. It is usually quite simple to establish the Setup Affirmation and Reminder Phrase for a phobia. For instance: "Even though I have this fear of heights . . ." (Setup Affirmation) and "Fear of heights" (Reminder Phrase). It doesn't matter how intense the phobia is or how long you have had it. This surprises many people because they tend to think that longstanding, intense phobias are "deeply ingrained" and must take months or years to eliminate. Not so with an energy approach. While some phobias do take longer to resolve than others, this is not because of their intensity or longevity. Rather, it is because of their complexity. The fear of heights may be a simple conditioned response: situations that involve height trigger panic based on a single incident, perhaps forgotten long ago. Or it may be more complex, tying into numerous past episodes: a memory of having once fallen from a tree, an image of having seen someone fall from a high place, and having had a panic attack while on a ski left. Each is an aspect of the phobia, and these aspects often need to be treated one at a time to completely dissolve the phobia.

For many phobias, it is only necessary to address the most obvious aspect, which is to bring to mind the object of the fear. Just a few brief trips through the Basic Recipe will usually take care of them. But if you are not finding relief after several rounds, focus on an early memory that brings up the fear. Apply the Basic Recipe to it. If another aspect emerges—suppose the memory is of a friend who died when a balcony collapsed and you are overcome with feelings of grief—treat those feelings. Work with each aspect of this memory. Remember, your subconscious mind knows what you are processing, and it will present the elements that require attention. Once you have neutralized this memory, see if another comes to mind, and treat it. Of course, when you begin, you do not know how many aspects the problem has. The practical guideline is that you can assume that all the relevant aspects of the issue have been neutralized when you have no more emotional intensity about the original fear-producing thought.

Psychological reversals are less common in phobias than they are in some other conditions, such as addictions, where they are almost always at play. But if your progress in working with a fear or phobia becomes blocked, ask yourself what would happen if you no longer had this fear. On being asked this question, a woman whose fear of flying was not responding to the tapping blurted out, with some embarrassment, "Then I would have to go on those dreadful business trips with my husband." Another woman, whose fear traced to a childhood incident when a man she trusted played a cruel practical joke on her, realized that if she got over her phobia, she might have to forgive him. The subconscious mind works in devious ways. Stay alert for inner bargains you may have struck that keep your fear or phobia engaged for invalid reasons. If you suspect one, formulate a Setup Affirmation that addresses it (e.g., "Even though I have this resentment of Joe that I would rather hold onto than be rid of my phobia, I deeply love and accept myself"). State the affirmation three times while rubbing sore spots on your chest or tapping the karate chop points. Then return to the Tapping Sequence.

Once the Phobia is Eliminated, Is the Result Permanent? Strange though it may seem, in our experiences and those of many other practitioners, once a phobia has been completely eliminated in the office, the gains usually translate beyond the office, and they usually hold. A fundamental energetic and neurological shift has occurred in relationship to the triggering situation, and it does not matter if you are simply thinking about the situation or actually in it. However, if the problem does return, unless an entirely new experience has re-traumatized the person, it is almost always because aspects that weren’t fully addressed in the treatment are becoming involved. Remember the treatment where the spider’s movements had not been part of the initial treatment and had to be addressed in a subsequent round before an actual spider could be viewed with no fear. Stay alert. As you identify additional aspects of the problem, use the Basic Recipe with each of them.

Multiple Phobias. Sometimes a person suffers with several phobias. The guideline is to treat them one at a time. For example, if the presenting problem is a spider phobia but in the course of treating it, a fear of elevators is mentioned, attempt to totally clear the spider phobia before you address the claustrophobia. In addition, some phobias, called "complex phobias," are actually several phobias wrapped into one. The fear of flying can be like that. It might involve 1) claustrophobia, 2) the fear of falling, 3) the fear of dying, 4) the fear of turbulence, 5) the fear of taking off, 6) the fear of landing, 7) and the fear of being shut in with people. If you are working with a complex phobia, treat each component you are able to identify as if it were a separate problem. This may require a number of rounds, but persistent use of the Basic Recipe can permanently neutralize even a complex phobia in a relatively short period of time.

Traumatic Memories and Other Difficult Life-Shaping Events

Traumatic memories can originate from any shock a person may have encountered, such as an injury, accident, disaster, betrayal, loss, physical assault, emotional abuse, war, rape, hijacking, or other victimization. Such memories generate a wide variety of emotional reactions when people recall them. Some of these reactions can be very intense and interfere with people’s functioning. They may get headaches or stomach aches. Their hearts may pound. They may find themselves sweating, crying, or shaking. They may experience sexual dysfunction, nightmares, grief, anger, depression, or any number of other emotional or physical problems. And even if the memories don’t frequently intrude into consciousness, they may be doing damage behind the scenes, keeping the person inhibited or defended or causing self-doubt, suspiciousness, anxiety, or nightmares.

Energy psychology, as you have seen, approaches traumatic memories by focusing on the disruption in the body’s energy system that the memory causes. Unlike many other therapies, the emphasis is not on analyzing the memory and its meaning. Rather, you work with the acupoints or other energy centers to stop the energy disruption. The person still has access to the memory, of course, but its emotional charge will have been neutralized. It will no longer create personal mayhem when it comes into awareness and it will no longer be wreaking psychological havoc behind the scenes.

Some people wonder if treatments that neutralize the effects of a personal trauma with almost surgical precision rob the person of the insight and self-knowledge that can be achieved by exploring the problem in depth. Can you even "get to the bottom" of a psychological issue without examining it in detail? In our experience, removing the energy disturbance caused by the memory does more than simply eliminate the emotional response. People’s attitudes about the memory change almost instantly. They talk about it differently. Their language shifts from words of fear to those of understanding. Their demeanor and posture suggest a more composed relationship to the experience. This actually all makes sense. What has changed is that they can now think and talk about the memory without the interference of an overwhelming emotional response. So rather than to have circumvented self-examination, they now have more access to their rational facilities to put even the most horrible incident into a realistic and adaptive perspective. And they’ve learned something important about the neurology of trauma as well.

A Childhood Rape That Leads to Subsequent Sexual Difficulties. Sandy and her partner came to one of our colleagues² for pre-marriage counseling. Among the issues they were concerned about was their sexual relationship. Although she had been married before, Sandy found herself reacting with uncontrollable negative feelings when her fiancé initiated sexual play. He was willing to be patient, kind, and understanding, and he seemed genuinely interested that sex be a shared experience. While she freely acknowledged that she had no problems with his attitude, she still would usually became upset and turned off by his overtures. They asked for help with this problem, and a private session with Sandy was arranged.

When she came in, the therapist gently asked, "Is there something in your earlier years that you could  talk about?" She immediately burst into tears. Red blotches appeared on her skin, and her words were punctuated with heavy sobbing and gasping as she began to relate her story: "When I was seven years old, we lived in [a small rural town]. One day my stepfather took me for a walk down a country road. It was in the summer. We hiked up the side of a hill. Then we stopped. Then he took off all my clothes. Then he took off all his clothes."

At this point she was scarcely able to breathe. The therapist stopped her and said that it was not necessary to go any further. He had her rate her distress about the memory, which obviously was a 10. He then led her through the Tapping Sequence, at first without even doing the Setup. Her intensity dropped from 10 to 6. At this point, a Setup Affirmation that began "Even though I still have some of this . . ." was used, followed by another round of tapping. This time the intensity fell to 2. Then another Setup Affirmation, beginning with, "Even if I never get completely over this…," and a last round of tapping.

By this time, Sandy was breathing quietly. Her skin was free of blotches, her eyes were clear, and she was looking at her hands, lying folded in her lap. The therapist said, "Sandy, as you sit there now, think back to that hot summer day when your stepfather took you for that walk down that country road. Think about how you hiked up the side of that hill until you stopped. Think about how he took off all your clothes. Think of how he took off all his clothes. Now, what do you get?"

She sat there without moving for maybe five seconds, then looked up calmly and said, without undue emotion, "Well, I still hate him." The therapist, after agreeing that hating him might be a reasonable response and possibly a useful one to keep, then asked, "But what about the distress you were feeling?"

Again she paused before answering. This time she laughed as she said, "I don't know. I just can't get there. Well, that was 20 years ago. I was just a little girl. I couldn't protect myself then the way I can now. What's the point in getting upset about something like that . . . I never let that man touch me again, and my kids have never been allowed to be near him. I don't know, it just doesn't seem to bother me like it did."

Her negative feelings in response to her partner’s sexual advances did not return. On a two year follow-up, she reported that the problem was "good and gone," and her partner, now her husband, confirmed that there was no sign of the former difficulties. Notice, also, that by the end of the session she was speaking of the trauma almost casually, and she was placing it into a self-affirming framework: "Well, that was 20 years ago. I was just a little girl. I couldn't protect myself then the way I can now." Such shifts in relationship to a traumatic memory that has been emotionally cleared using an energy intervention are typical.

Peeling Away the Layers of Sexual Abuse. The above case is presented because it is so straightforward that it is easy to follow what occurred. One traumatic incident. One aspect. Instant results. The path is not always so direct. A young woman told her therapist³ that she had worked through her childhood sexual abuse history in therapy, but she still felt that fears and other emotions got in the way of her intimate relationships. Diane said she "keeps people at bay" and "loses her center" when she gets involved, and she explained that this was why her relationships have always "backfired."

The therapist did not automatically accept her assurance that she had "worked through her childhood sexual abuse" in her previous therapy. Energy therapists quickly learn that when a client who has been in conventional treatment makes a statement like that, it doesn’t necessarily mean the emotions have been resolved. The issue may still cause an energy disturbance which triggers a dysfunctional emotional response. It is not that they are lying. "Working through it" often means they have talked about it repeatedly in therapeutic sessions to gain insight and understanding and to hopefully feel better about it. They may have learned to cope with or repress the emotional response, or how to change the subject when the topic comes up. But ask them a pointed question that gets to the heart of the matter and you will often get cringing, tears, physical upsets and other symptoms of a still unresolved issue. Taking a clue from Diane’s continuing difficulty with intimacy, the therapist made a first guess that her sexual abuse issues were still unresolved.

She asked Diane how she felt talking about her relationships, and Diane described a physical reaction. "My stomach feels gurgly and gassy. It’s holding onto something, not letting go. Something is not being processed the way it should be." The therapist soon had her tapping, using a Setup Affirmation that began, "Although there's something I can't digest and process . . ." Diane’s stomach calmed with the tapping, and the therapist next asked, "If your digestive system could say what it is that it can't digest and process, what would that be?" The answer Diane offered was, "Too much excitement. I just can't process it. I get overwhelmed." Diane then tapped on "Although I get overwhelmed . . ." This led to an insight. "Yes, part of me hates that feeling . . . but another part of me craves it. It's like teen energy. I love the excitement."

The therapist asked her to tune into what it is like to have these two opposing parts, asking if it set her up for tension or anxiety. Diane responded that she wanted to learn to contain it all, to enjoy the excitement without being over-stimulated. She next tapped for "Although I tend to get over-stimulated . . ." This was followed by Diane getting images of herself as a child. She became aware that as a child, if she felt good about anything, she couldn't contain it. She had to "go out and burn it off." This had been true in adulthood too. Feeling good made her "want to go out and party."

The therapist asked her to again close her eyes, think about feeling good, and notice her response. Did it give her a calm feeling? Did it give her anxiety? It was as if a light went on in Diane’s head. She realized that this was the core of her inability to have successful relationships—whenever she would get close to someone and begin to enjoy the pleasure, the anxiety would be so strong that she would then sabotage the relationship.

So Diane tapped for "Although feeling good makes me anxious..." Tears welled up. She realized that, as a child, at times "the sexual abuse felt good but it was bad." She was still carrying that strong inner message that it wasn't okay to feel good. She tapped for "Although I learned that feeling good was bad . . ." and "Although my child believed that feeling good was bad, I deeply & completely love and accept my child and I know she was a good girl and it wasn't her fault." This was all very moving, the first time she had truly felt compassion for how confused that part of her had been. She next tapped on "releasing this belief that feeling good is bad."

The 90-minute session did not end there. Diane next tapped on the pain of how there was no one to tell (about the abuse) and no one to help her. She also worked with her grief for all she had lost by not being able to bond in relationship with others during adulthood. Then, at a certain point, she got in touch with some very positive childhood memories. She remembered that she excelled at a certain sport and she felt great about her body when she was really in the flow, "feeling good and calm at the same time." Finally, the therapist showed her how to "rub in the positive," using the chest sore spots to "rub in" the feeling of being fully alive and not over-stimulated. Just "calm and in the flow."

At their next meeting, Diane reported, "Connections with people feel different. I feel an easiness being with people. I just feel closer. It's like the anxiety all went away. There's a part of me that feels really peaceful now. And I've been really energetic!"

While it is beyond our scope here to suggest that you overcome a history of sexual abuse without outside help, this case is instructive in several ways. For one thing, it illustrates how guilt is often a component of unresolved abuse. People tend to focus on their fear and anger, but Diane’s dilemma that "feeling good is bad" is not uncommon. Sexual abuse involves our pleasure zones. In some cases, it felt good as well as horrible or confusing. This is not a popular notion. There is even a social pressure on people who were abused to focus on their fear and anger rather than guilt. Fear and anger can be directed outwardly, toward the abuser. Guilt is an "inside job." It requires taking personal responsibility for an ongoing problem. People often resist working on their own guilt. Those who were abused, however, sometimes need to develop internal permission to recognize that feelings of guilt are involved if they are to fully resolve the ongoing emotional problems caused by the abuse.

Applying the Basic Recipe to a Difficult Memory. Additional principles illustrated by Diane’s case include:

1. How many aspects may be involved in a complex issue such as relationship difficulties,
    

2. How resolving one aspect points to the next one if you simply notice your internal responses,
    

3. How current issues often lead you to earlier memories, and
    

4. How rapidly each aspect may be resolved by using the Basic Recipe. Again, each round requires only about a minute.

Diane’s case notwithstanding, many traumatic memories can be resolved without treating any aspects beyond the one main memory. A few trips through the Basic Recipe and the energy disturbance and subsequent emotion no longer occur. The memory will lose its emotional charge, and in most cases this is a permanent change.

Other traumatic memories, however, have several aspects. They require more time because you need to identify the aspects and then work with each one. But even if extra rounds of the Basic Recipe are needed, the time required to defuse a traumatic memory can still be very short, perhaps 20 to 30 minutes instead of 5 or 6. What is needed, however, is a way of identifying the relevant aspects of the memory.

The most useful attitude to hold is to stay in touch with the fact that the client’s subconscious mind knows the healing intention of the therapy and in most cases will bring up what is needed. The therapist’s job is simply to remain alert. There is also a technique that can further assist in identifying the relevant aspects of a memory or a problem. If the client makes a mental movie of the memory or the situation of concern, the relevant issues become more clear.

A traumatic memory is actually already like a short movie that runs in the theater of the mind. There is a beginning. There are main characters and events. And there is an end. Usually such "movies" play in a flash and end in a familiar unwanted emotion. Because the movie plays so fast, we are often unaware that it may have different aspects which each contribute to the negative emotion. The emotional reaction seems to come from the movie as a whole.

By running the movie in slow motion, however, the different aspects can be located and then addressed. The movie is played in slow motion and examined scene by scene. If you are concerned that it might be traumatic to re-imagine the movie, there is an in-between step. Begin with the "tearless trauma technique," introduced in the Basic Basics module, where the person does not go into the memory but imagines how much distress would be felt if the memory were brought to mind. Then the Basic Recipe is applied to remove some of the charge from the memory until the person can psychologically enter the scene without intense discomfort.

Then, have the client play the memory as a movie, narrating it out loud and in detail. This automatically slows the movie because words are much slower than thoughts. As the scene is described in detail, each aspect usually makes itself known. Stop as soon as the client feels any emotional intensity (remember, this approach is designed to be adapted in ways that minimize pain) and perform the Basic Recipe on that part of the movie as though it were a separate traumatic memory. Actually, it is a separate traumatic memory. It just got lost within the larger movie. Continue through the movie, stopping at each aspect. Bring each to zero, until the client can tell the whole story with no negative emotional impact at all.

While most traumatic memories have only one aspect, some have two or three. Having more than three is relatively rare. But whatever the number, be persistent. If the client has several traumatic memories, use the same strategy you would use for several fears or phobias: treat them one at a time. Take the most intense memory first and bring it to zero before going on to the next one. Then the next, until each has been neutralized. In the process, many people begin to feel a freedom that may border on euphoria. It is a tremendous relief to unload useless baggage. Some people, such as war veterans or victims of ritual abuse, may have hundreds of traumatic memories. If you are working with someone who has had multiple traumas or who has severe PTSD, the same principles hold, but the complexity of maintaining the therapeutic relationship increases many times. Unless you have special training and experience in working with these populations, you should seriously consider making a referral. Clinical experience shows, however, that even people who have suffered severe emotional damage through a series of early traumas can be helped by energy interventions. If the container of the therapeutic relationship can be maintained, after emotionally neutralizing a number of the early traumatic memories, a "generalization effect" eventually comes into play. It seems that after having completely cleared between five and twenty traumatic memories, a point is reached where there is little emotional intensity about the remaining ones.

Anxiety

A Toddler’s Temper Tantrums. Fortunately, anxiety disorders respond particularly well to energy interventions. You do not need to identify the target of the anxiety, which is a good thing since anxiety is often free-floating and doesn’t have an identifiable target, or more commonly, it is a moving target, readily jumping from one perceived threat to another. The following scenario, while not about anxiety per se, illustrates how the methods can be effective even when you don’t exactly know the source of the problem.

A three-year-old boy, Evan, had uncontrollable temper tantrums whenever he could not have his way. Evan’s parents were both busy physicians, and he was often cared for by other people. Gina and her husband, a couple who frequently had this job, brought Evan as they visited a friend with the intention that they all take a walk in the woods. Evan was very shy when they arrived at the friend’s home, turning away from her greeting, but he opened up as they walked along the trail, and he was in great spirits by the end of the hike. They all then sat alongside a creek near the friend’s home, tossing rocks into the water.

When it was time to go, Evan didn’t want to leave and he went into a violent temper tantrum. Gina carried him up the hill as he screamed and sobbed, struggling in her arms. She put him in his car seat and left the door open. He continued screaming as the adults moved away from the car to talk.

The friend, Blair, asked what they usually do when he gets like this. "We can't do anything," Gina said. "He just has to have his way. If I talk to him it gets worse and we end up fighting, so I have to leave him alone." She went on to explain that Evan was seeing a psychotherapist and a speech therapist. Blair asked what the professionals suggest be done during this kind of episode. "Nothing. They just let him cry himself out."

Blair,⁴ while not a professional therapist, had some training in EFT. She asked Gina’s permission to "try something," and Gina had no objection. She walked over to the still screaming child and said, "It's okay. I know it's hard for you right now." She reached down, took his little hand, and started tapping on his karate chop point as she said, "Even though you're really upset right now, we all love you." She tapped around his eyes. "Even though you're really upset right now, you're okay just the way you are." She tapped on his face, then his chest, and the crying stopped. He began smiling, and wiped his tears away. She finished the round, tapping the back of his hand, held it for a moment, then let go. Evan sat quietly. Gina was dumbstruck. "What did you do? He can't listen to anything when he gets like that, and touching him makes him really mad! What did you do?"

The moral of this story is that the Basic Recipe works whether or not you believe it will and whether or not you understand the cause of the feelings. The tapping interrupted the energy disturbance. When the energy was no longer disturbed, the angry feelings ceased. Because Evan was already in the midst of the emotion, no Reminder Phrase was necessary.

Treating Disabling Anxiety. Rikki, a 25-year-old woman with a five-year history of agoraphobia and severe panic symptoms, was referred for psychotherapy⁵ by her homeopath, who had been attempting to treat the anxiety with homeopathic remedies. Rikki refused to see a psychiatrist because she was unwilling to consider taking traditional anti-anxiety medications. Despite having a 22-month-old daughter, she had rarely left her house in the 15 months prior to entering therapy. She was overwhelmed with disabling anxiety and fears of just about everything. She had not driven a car or left her block in all that time. She had food and other supplies delivered.

Given these circumstances, the therapist made home visits and supplemented them with phone sessions. After Rikki learned the tapping procedure, the phone became a viable alternative, where the therapist could coach her in applying the method as new situations emerged. Rikki's anxiety about "unsafety in the world" was triggered and fueled by a multitude of negative thoughts and belief systems that all started with "What if . . .?" followed by a "Then . . ." statement that included a worst case scenario. For example, "What if I start to drive to my grandmother's house and then I get stuck in traffic at the corner of Main Street and Elm, and I have to go to the bathroom, and I get nervous, and I'm stuck there and then I can't get back home again." Rikki was conscious and aware that her thoughts fueled her panic, but she had not previously looked at them one by one.

The therapy began by tracking Rikki’s thoughts and her complex system of negative beliefs. With each discovery of a new "nagging" thought, the Basic Recipe was used to eradicate it. While she responded well, she would also frequently mention another fear, that simply acknowledging her worries would escalate her anxiety. At these times, the therapist would have her stop and tap on, "Even though continuing makes me feel a little nervous . . ." Then she could continue. Rikki began to feel empowered by the process of uncovering her negative thought patterns and having a way to disengage them.

After the initial session, Rikki was able to walk out of her house without feeling anxious. After the second session, she drove the three blocks into town, took her daughter to the library, and began daily short excursions. Her life was beginning to normalize. Even after she uncovered a core issue and the anxiety returned, she continued to go out.

The core issue had to do with an LSD trip she had when she was 16 years old. She had been traumatized by the "stuckness" of not being able to stop the hallucinations and distortions she experienced for 12 interminable hours. She described her shame and guilt about having taken the drug, as well as the traumatization. The work on this incident required two sessions. The Basic Recipe was first used on her shame and guilt. Then on the fact that she was allowing herself the memories and verbalizing them, since she believed that talking or reliving the emotional experience would trigger an acid flashback. Next was the feeling that it was unsafe to do this work and the fear that she would uncover something that would propel her into even greater pain. She and her therapist became partners in the process of uncovering every resistant or terrifying block to actually doing energy work on relieving the trauma of the acid trip itself, and then on her complex system of negative beliefs. It was a profound experience for this young woman to free herself of her agoraphobia and panic attacks by making peace with her "nagging anxiety thoughts and all those what-ifs."

Applying the Basic Recipe to Anxiety. Again, the point here is not to encourage you to treat serious psychiatric conditions if your professional training does not qualify you to do so. Rather, by understanding how a severe case of anxiety was successfully treated by applying the Basic Recipe, you will be more able to help the clients that make up your practice at least with the normal anxieties of everyday life.

And most people face anxiety-provoking circumstances every day. Turn on the news. Think on your worries about your children, your health, your retirement. It is not necessary that we enumerate; you know it all too well. But it is also not necessary, or useful, to dwell on what can go wrong. Hanging out in anxiety and pessimism does not keep bad things from happening or make you any more effective if they do. Keeping the anxiety switch from getting locked in the "on" position is an important skill in these troubling times. In fact, activating optimism, rather than causing people to become "off guard" and vulnerable to more bad things, has the effect of making them more resilient and effective in managing life’s challenges, as is being demonstrated by the "positive psychology"⁶ trend within the mental health field. Energy methods can help turn off the anxiety "switch" when it gets stuck and transform negative, pessimistic thinking, as you will see in the "Focusing on Potentials" Tutorial, toward an outlook that highlights and promotes realistic possibilities.

Notice that with Rikki, a traumatic memory was one of the core aspects of her anxiety, but equally harmful were her intruding "what-if" thoughts and negative beliefs. Remember how even as the energy methods were working, fears would emerge about the process itself. She worried that "Simply acknowledging my worries will escalate my anxiety" or "Just thinking about my LSD experience will cause a flashback." As these negative thoughts would intrude, circling back on the treatment itself, the therapist would patiently have them become the focus of the Basic Recipe. As you focus on a client’s anxiety, the aspects most likely to emerge are memories from the past that contributed to current feelings of anxiety and negative thoughts that feed them. Both will be responsive to the Basic Recipe.

Depression

An estimated forty million people in the U.S are clinically depressed, and the numbers are increasing. Depression can cause persistent sadness and lethargy, a sense of personal worthlessness, negative thoughts and perceptions, a loss of interest in normal activities, changes in diet and sleep, and frequent thoughts of death. Although medication successfully treats the symptoms of depression in millions of people, the precise causes and mechanisms of the disorder remain elusive. Patients often must go through a period of trial-and-error before the best drug regimen is identified, and even then the medication may not be as effective as hoped for, and it will often cause unwanted side effects. 

What is well understood is that if you are depressed, your brain operates differently than it does when you are not depressed. Restoring proper brain function is the goal of all treatments for depression—whether directly, as with medication—or indirectly, as in the development of more life-affirming behaviors, attitudes, and habits of thought. By focusing on the energy disturbances that are involved in the components of depression, which then impact neurochemistry, energy psychology can sometimes restore normal functioning quite readily.

If people who are going through a hard period become depressed, it is neither surprising or a sign of a mental disorder. Periods of depression serve a function. Sometimes called "reactive depression," these episodes force them to slow down, turn inward, and adjust to a loss or difficult circumstance. It is a healthy response that can leave them stronger and more resilient. Or it can become self-perpetuating, trapping them in a cycle of negative-thinking and self-doubt. When this occurs, the Basic Recipe can be applied to the recent experiences that initiated the depression ("Even though I miss Bill terribly . . .") as well as to various other aspects of the depression, such as negative thought patterns ("Even though I keep dwelling on the missed opportunities . . .") or unresolved early experiences ("Even though this reminds me of how devastated I felt when I was eleven and Grandma died. . .").

A Woman Treats Herself for Longstanding Depression. Maggie was 58 and all her life she had suffered with a "low grade" depression which, she said, would never go away. "It has always been there in the background and at times it was very intense." She had tried every healing modality she could find, short of medication, from primal therapy to acupuncture to nutritional counseling. None had helped sufficiently. She did report some benefit from having given up alcohol, coffee, and tobacco, but she still hurt inside most of the time. Though she was strongly resistant to taking psychiatric medication, she was considering it when she discovered EFT. Within two days of learning and applying the method based on a home study course that teaches the principles and techniques presented here, she reported that she "had healed stage fright, and I started in on all my sad and angry feelings." Within a month, she was no longer feeling depressed. Her friends began to comment on the changes they saw in her. She then focused attention on her "denied creativity," and the poetry she at one time enjoyed writing began "flowing again." She commented that her new "healthy attitude" had started to seem so normal that she would "tend to forget how bad things used to be. That's real progress!"

Major Depression. Not all depression is a reaction to life events or negative thinking. Some people’s neurochemistry predisposes them to be depressed. This kind of depression tends to run in families and often has a genetic basis. The gene that influences whether you are more or less vulnerable to becoming depressed after a traumatic event, for instance, has been identified.⁷ In addition to genetics, early experiences, extending all the way back to conditions in the mother’s body during pregnancy, can also predispose a person to depression.

The more that the basis of the depression is in the genes or in early experiences, the more difficult it usually is to treat, regardless of the clinical approach. Most therapists, including energy-oriented practitioners, supplement psychotherapy with psychiatric medication in the treatment of long-standing major depression.⁸ Psychologist Patricia Carrington explains that, otherwise, it can become "a test of endurance" when, time and time again, the therapist may have helped the client become symptom-free by the end of a session, but by the next appointment the gains seem to have collapsed and been "swept away."

Carrington illustrates this by relating her work with Maria, a woman who was highly intelligent and strongly motivated to overcome her feelings of irrational helplessness and threat. However, they discovered early on in the treatment that although Maria would often make excellent progress using the Basic Recipe, even dealing with core issues that were central to her life, the therapy was still unable to "stem the tide" of the depression. The despair and fear were just too much for her, and they were undermining her progress. Bringing medication into the treatment made it possible to systematically work with Maria’s irrational thoughts and sense of helplessness without the results being dashed by the next wave of depression. The medication was introduced with the aim of phasing it out as soon as she would build up her inner strength. Combining Prozac with a tapping approach led to "transformational work," in which Maria "has been able to explore the deepest issues, some of them so early in origin as to be wordless, and to one by one resolve them. And, with the support to our work that she has obtained from the medication — which didn't in itself solve her problems but did enable her to work on them diligently in therapy — she has rebuilt a ‘self,’ has restructured her relationships to people and the world . . . . She has once again voluntarily taken herself off of all medication and is doing remarkably well in an exciting new phase of her treatment."

Clinical research supports this strategy. For patients with chronic depression, a combination of medication and psychotherapy seems to prove more helpful than either treatment alone, both in terms of reducing the symptoms⁹ and in improving overall functioning.¹⁰ Carrington concludes: Without the help of the drug we couldn't have done it, and similarly, if she had had the drug alone without the therapy . . . at best the drug would have held her in a holding pattern."

Applying the Basic Recipe to Depression. The conventional psychotherapy that has been used most successfully in the treatment of depression is Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT). CBT teaches people to interrupt maladaptive thought patterns, such as ruminating on everything that might go wrong or seeing the glass only as half empty or blaming themselves for things over which they have no control. This approach has much in common with energy psychology, where you have learned to think of such thought patterns as "aspects’ of the problem. But energy psychology adds a means for directly shifting the energy disruptions that are involved with such maladaptive thoughts and attitudes, often deactivating them with surprising speed and precision. The successful treatment of depression also often includes a number of commonsense lifestyle modifications that can be supported with use of the Basic Recipe, such as increasing rest, decreasing stress, moderate exercise, and developing a better interpersonal support system.

A powerful combination of energy interventions with Cognitive Behavior Therapy has been developed by Hank Krol,¹¹ a psychotherapist in Pennsylvania. He gives his clients standardized checklists for assessing depression.¹² They rate themselves on a scale of 1 to 4 for each of 19 symptoms, according to the frequency the symptom is experienced. Among the symptoms of depression that are rated include:

• feeling guilty
   
• irritable mood
   
• less interest or pleasure in usual activities
   
• withdraw from or avoid people
   
• find it harder than usual to do things

Another checklist helps his patients identify the negative beliefs that accompany their depression, such as

• "I’m no good."
   
• "I will always fail."
   
• "Things will never get better."
   
• "No one can help me."

Identifying these specifics separates the person’s depression into its cognitive, affective, and behavioral aspects. Each can then be targeted with energy interventions such as the Basic Recipe. Krol will generally select only one aspect for a single session, two at the most. He will verify that it is important to the patient that distress around this particular issue be reduced. If so, he will (unless the person happens to be directly experiencing the issue at the moment) ask the person to recall a recent situation where the symptom was experienced at a high intensity. The patient applies the Basic Recipe, reducing as much as possible the rating on this aspect of the depression during the session. Homework is also assigned to continue the process between meetings.

In the next session, which is usually not until two weeks due to financial constraints at the clinic where Krol practices, another memory involving the same symptom or negative thought is identified, rated, and treated if necessary. The patient keeps a focus on this same aspect of the depression until it has been brought down to a 0 or near 0 or a different aspect requires attention before it can be reduced further. Once it has been cleared, another aspect is selected and worked with until it has been neutralized. Krol has found this approach to be quite effective with many of his patients, but doing the suggested treatments between sessions seems important to its success.

In brief, different types of depression need to be approached differently. Sometimes a depression simply disappears with a few minutes of tapping. This can be very dramatic, but it is not usually the case, particularly with a serious depression. More often, the depression appears to be caused by numerous unresolved emotional issues such as guilt, shame, fear, grief, or anger. This type usually requires skilled application of a counselor who is able to locate and relieve the core emotional issues. Even more challenging are longstanding depressions where there is reason to suspect a strong biological component. Here, even the best psychotherapy sometimes needs to be supplemented by medication.

Again, for major or ongoing depression, do not apply an energy approach unless you are professionally qualified to work with this population. In applying the Basic Recipe to the more usual mood swings all people must negotiate, the feature to adapt from Krol’s approach is to be  specific. If stating the generic problem such as "Even though I have this depression . . ." does not lead to distinct and lasting improvement within a few rounds of the Basic Recipe, separate the depressed mood into aspects such as negative thoughts, earlier times the person felt depressed or engaged in negative thinking, other instances where he or she tended to withdraw, et cetera, and treat them one by one. As the core aspects of this depression lose their grip, not only will the depression tend to lift, the person will be building a resilience against falling into future depression.

Habits and Addictions

The human penchant to become addicted to gambling, alcohol, drugs, sex, work, computers, TV, or over-eating is rooted in the healthy capacity to benefit from the efficiency of habit. We are creatures of habit for good reason. Habits are efficient. They don’t require problem-solving or conscious attention. They are stored strategies for moving through the situations you frequently encounter. You may sit behind the wheel of your car and, before you realize it, you have started the ignition, checked for oncoming traffic, and backed out of the driveway without a whit of effort. Do a moderate exercise routine that is good for your body every day at the gym at 3 p.m. for a week, and you will find yourself being drawn to the gym as 3 p.m. approaches. This is considered a "positive addiction." Positive addictions help us organize our lives more constructively without having to reinvent effective new routines every day. Without naming or even being aware of them, most people develop positive habits and positive addictions in their work style as well as their use of free time.

How do "bad" habits arise? The formula for a harmful addiction is to combine

• this capacity to develop habitual, automated strategies with
   

• the discomfort of anxiety or a sense of emptiness, and add in
   

• substances or activities that relieve the anxiety or emptiness by causing endorphins (pleasure chemicals) to flow in a
   

• schedule of diminishing returns (they hook you with strong pleasure and relief at first but require increasing repetition of the habit for dwindling enjoyment while physically punishing you for withdrawing).

Often such habits are compulsive, performed without a sense of choice, sometimes against one’s will. And they may be part of the person’s self-concept or a cultural imperative. If the Marlboro Man is a teenager’s image of masculinity, or if all his friends smoke, quitting will be harder than if he is hanging out with the varsity basketball team.

Can the Basic Recipe, simply applied to a deeply ingrained pattern such as "this gambling habit," overcome the addiction? No harm trying, but usually not. When energy interventions are systematically applied to the different aspects of a self-destructive habit, however, they can loosen its grip and frequently free the person completely from the addiction. If you can effectively address the anxiety or emptiness that the substance or activity is quelling, you begin to declaw the addiction. If you can separate the addiction from the person’s self-concept, the addiction becomes less tenacious. If you can minimize the suffering of physical withdrawal, you give the person a better chance of ending an addiction. If you help cultivate other sources of primal pleasure, you can steer the person toward viable alternatives. Energy interventions can address each part of the process. Again, working with serious addictions requires special training, but the instructions offered here can at least help you work with milder habits, and they demonstrate the underlying principles for approaching any addictive behavior.

Cravings.  For many addictions, cravings are where the addiction meets the addict. Sometimes, all that is necessary is to treat the craving. Cases have been reported where cravings for coffee, soft drinks, or chocolate have been completely and permanently eliminated (and occasionally the substance actually becomes repulsive) after a single session using the tapping protocol. For instance, the Setup Affirmation "Even though I have this craving for chocolate, I deeply love and accept myself" would be followed by tapping on the Reminder Phrase "my craving for chocolate." You can initially measure the distress around the issue by having the client say, for instance, "I’m quitting chocolate" and then giving the 1 to 10 rating on the discomfort or anxiety this causes. Continue subsequent rounds until the rating is down to 0. While it is relatively rare for this procedure to permanently cure the addiction, it is a marvelous tool for overcoming immediate "in the moment" cravings so that a more comprehensive approach is able to gain ground. The "one day at a time" attitude toward addictions advanced by Alcoholics Anonymous and other addiction treatment groups underlies a truth about working with any addiction, and the Basic Recipe is an effective tool to have in your back pocket 24/7.

Losing 25 Pounds. Carol Look is a psychotherapist who has been particularly successful in helping people overcome addictions such as smoking and overeating.¹³ She describes a woman who was referred for weight loss by the physician who was treating her for back pain, caused by severe sciatica, and knee pain following knee replacement surgery a year earlier. When Ann first called, she reported feeling scared. While she was embarrassed about being overweight and knew her excess weight was exacerbating her physical pains and undermining her overall health, she hadn’t felt ready to tackle this issue. In the first session, Ann identified three emotional reasons for her overeating: 1) to soothe a sense of emptiness she could trace to her upbringing with a cold mother and absent father, 2) to comfort her when the physical pain was overbearing, and 3) to fill a void from feeling starved of emotional and physical affection from her husband. Over a four month period, Carol helped her address each of these areas, and Ann lost 25 pounds quite easily and effortlessly.

Unlike dieting, Ann reported that she was thrilled because she didn’t feel deprived by the changes in her eating habits. She was still able to eat her favorite foods, but she had a new awareness about what her body needs. She no longer had to "eat to fill the [emotional] starvation" she had always felt. Ann described how food was no longer central in her life. "I eat moderately and am more conscious of when I’m full and what I need . . . I enjoy not cramming food down my throat anymore."

Addressing and neutralizing the underlying emotional states that drove Ann to binge and overeat in the first place were central to her treatment. Each of the three emotional reasons Ann identified for her overeating was addressed in depth. Her mother, for instance, continued to be an active player in Ann’s emotional turmoil. Ann had been overweight most of her life, and she described how she sometimes used food to "stick it to" her mother. By eating when she was irritated with her mother, she could show that she was "in charge." She understood that this was totally self-defeating, but she found herself unable to stop using food in this way when she was feeling angry or resentful. In her words, "I eat to squash the turmoil." In their adult relationship, Ann felt as if her mother was the child. She never felt heard or understood. In one confrontation, her mother told her she didn’t think Ann was likable. Meanwhile, Ann was still as hungry for her mother’s love and acceptance as she was as a girl. As a result, she was chronically angry at her mother, and their ongoing relationship difficulties were intertwined with Ann’s overeating. Here are some of the Setup Affirmations used in Ann’s treatment to address her relationship with her mother:

• "Even though my mother doesn’t even like me, I completely like and accept myself."
   

• "Even though my mother doesn’t think I’m good enough, I choose to believe I’m lovable and good enough."
   

• "Even though I use food to comfort my loneliness, I deeply and completely accept myself."
   

• "Even though my mother has never understood me, I accept her for who she is."
   

• "Even though my mother is too selfish to hear me, I accept my own feelings anyway."

Other sequences focused on her physical pain and her relationship with her husband. In each, the core issue and its aspects were reduced to 0. Sample Setup Affirmations around the physical pain included, "Even though I feel enraged by my pain, I deeply and completely accept myself," and "Even though my pain reminds me of my mother, and I feel resentful, I deeply and completely accept myself, including the pain." Affirmations that addressed her marriage included "Even though I’m not appreciated for what I do, I love and appreciate myself anyway," "Even though I feel angry when he doesn’t listen to me, I choose to listen to myself," and "Even though I feel rejected and it feels painful, I deeply and completely accept myself."

Along with having lost the weight, by the end of the four months of treatment, Ann reported that she wasn’t triggered anymore by her mother or her husband, and she felt much more at peace with her childhood and its emotional deprivations. While recognizing that neither her mother nor her husband had changed in any way during the four months, she felt confident that she could identify and process all of her feelings in relationship to both of them. She harbored no desire to abuse food as a way to stuff her feelings or avoid the realities of these relationships. In the late afternoons, when Ann used to binge on cookies and sweets, she was now taking the time to be by herself, read, think about her feelings, and tap.

Applying the Basic Recipe to Habits and Addictions. The emotional baggage carried with any addiction or difficult habit can be systematically addressed, as you saw with Ann. Early in the treatment, Dr. Look asks her clients to identify the downside of overcoming their addictions. The answers often point to psychological reversals and other emotional aspects of the pattern. For instance, a "downside" Ann identified in relationship to stopping her afternoon food binges was that she would feel dissatisfied and angry all the time and wouldn’t know what to do with those feelings. She also said she feared that she would have to come to terms with all the turmoil in her life, and she acknowledged that the extra weight was being used as protection against years of emotional pain and feelings of rejection and abandonment.

Along with healing the emotional components that underlie an addiction, energy interventions can provide a way of dealing with cravings as they occur in the moment. In working with smokers, Look will ask her clients to take out a cigarette, smell it, and rate their current desire, craving, or urge on the 1 to 10 scale. Then the Basic Recipe is used to reduce the craving as it exists right then in the office: "Even though I have this craving to smoke now . . ." She will then ask her clients to identify three or four of times of the day they most like to smoke and will apply the Basic Recipe to bring down each of them. If smoking with their morning coffee is one of their favorite times, Look would have them imagine having their morning coffee and giving a rating to how much then want a cigarette. Then the Basic Recipe is applied to each of these situations where the trigger for the addiction is strong, using a Setup such as "Even though I want to smoke when I drink my morning coffee . . . " or "Even though I have this urge to smoke after dinner . . ."

Once bringing down these urges, Look reverses the situation. Clients are asked to imagine themselves unable to smoke while having that morning coffee, and they rate the level of anxiety or upset they feel. This can then be treated using the Basic Recipe, but it is a time to stay particularly alert for additional emotions that keep an addiction in place. Once these aspects of the addiction can be identified, they can be treated one by one. Among the feelings that often come up when people think of quitting their addiction are 1) fear or anxiety, 2) emptiness or boredom, 3) sadness about giving up the substance or activity, which then triggers other grief, and 4) the loss of secondary gains—such as in an addiction to work, the accomplishments gained by keeping the addiction—or with smoking, the islands of relaxation or a defiant sense of power over one’s spouse.

A final consideration in stopping a physical addiction is withdrawal. Every smoker or coffee drinker who has ever tried to stop knows that the symptoms of physical withdrawal alone can keep them hooked. Sometimes it is necessary simply to tough it out. With some addictions, such as to drugs like heroin, medical intervention may be required. But with most withdrawl symptoms, energy interventions can again help. Techniques such as the Daily Energy Routine are very useful for keeping the body’s overall energy system in the best balance possible, but the Basic Recipe can also be applied to specific physical symptoms of withdrawal, as discussed in the following section.

Physical Ailments

Most physical ailments have an emotional component. Even if an illness was not caused by emotions, people cannot help but become emotionally involved with any sickness that overtakes them. The Basic Recipe can address this emotional dimension of physical illness, and more often than might be expected, it can be a force in helping to overcome the physical problem as well. Studies show that the majority of visits to a doctor’s office are for complaints with no apparent organic cause,¹⁴ so this may not be so surprising after all. While sound judgment and caution are certainly called for—seek good professional health care when you need it—the tools you have been learning can help create an internal emotional atmosphere that is conducive to healing.

Reports found on the www.emofree.com site suggest that basic tapping methods have resulted in improvement in all of the following, among many other physical conditions: headaches, back pain, stiff neck and shoulders, joint pains, cancer, chronic fatigue syndrome, lupus, ulcerative colitis, psoriasis, asthma, allergies, itching eyes, body sores, rashes, insomnia, constipation, irritable bowel syndrome, eyesight, muscle tightness, bee stings, urination problems, morning sickness, PMS, sexual dysfunctions, sweating, poor coordination, carpal tunnel syndrome, arthritis, numbness in the fingers, stomachaches, toothaches, trembling, and multiple sclerosis. This is not to suggest that the Basic Recipe replaces medical care, but it is interesting that an approach designed to address emotional problems is so frequently reported as helping with physical problems as well.

Four Cases. A therapist¹⁵ who was having the back of her house re-built, noticed that one of the construction workers had a strange skin condition on his arms. She asked him about it and he said, "Oh, that's my psoriasis. Had it for years." He turned his arms around to show her that from his wrists to his shoulders, his skin was a bubbling ocean of peeling skin with sore red tissue and fluid beneath it. She replied, "Ooo, that must be painful? How did you get it?" "Well I don't know," he replied, "I guess it started about three years ago, when my girlfriend told me she was pregnant." The therapist asked if he might like to try a new treatment she knew. He was dubious. His doctor had told him "there was nothing to be done." The therapist replied, "Ah, yes, what he meant was, there's nothing to be done with pills, ointments, and injections. Your mind created this and so only your mind can take it away again." He nodded and she showed him just a barebones procedure, suggesting that three times each day he do three rounds of tapping to the statement, "I want to get over my psoriasis." Within two weeks, his skin had healed on both arms, down to a small patch the size of a coin on his elbows. He has since used the approach to overcome lower back pain that had troubled him for years.

A woman who had suffered from carpal tunnel syndrome for about eight years received some training in EFT. After having had extensive chiropractic and physical therapy treatment, she thought she was as healed as she was going to be without surgery. Even though she felt better in general, the chronic pain still wore her down occasionally. After being introduced to EFT and being guided through a tapping sequence for about 10 minutes, she had absolutely no pain! She reports, "I couldn’t believe it! I kept mentally searching throughout my body for the pain. It just wasn’t there! I had actually taken a few minutes to tap on the corner of my eye, my hand, and other simple, easy-to-reach places on my body and had shed this pain with which I thought I was destined to live!" Next she applied it to grief that had burdened her for many years. Within minutes, she recounts, "I felt the weight lift from me. I have been able to remember my sister fondly and nostalgically, but with no pain of grief, ever since!"¹⁶

A man¹⁷ who had recently been introduced to EFT applied it with his wife for her severe lactose intolerance (an inability to digest a type of sugar that is found only in milk and milk products), with which she had suffered for more than a decade. Even small amounts of lactose would cause her pain, gas, diarrhea, and embarrassment. Hypnosis had not helped, and there is no established treatment except to avoid milk products. Here is the husband’s report: "We decided to give EFT a try. I told her to buy some ice cream (she hasn't had any in years because of what it does to her). We chose Friday morning (Christmas Eve) for the tapping so that if it didn't work, she would be close to the toilet for three days. We dished the ice cream, and I had her look at the bowl of ‘Chocolate Truffle.’ She rated her anxiety about eating it at an eight. We tapped until that was zero. Then we picked up other aspects (fear, silliness, etc) for another five minutes. Once it seemed as though we had covered everything, she enjoyed that bowl of ice cream and braced herself for the worst. The first hour passed. Wow. No problem. Then half the day passed. Double wow! Still no problem. In the afternoon, she went out and ran some errands. That night for dinner, she had ranch dressing and ice cream for dessert. Still no problem. Now it has been four full days and she's had cream of broccoli soup, more ice cream, milk chocolate, and more. Shirley and I didn't expect to have any results with EFT, based on what we've been told about the condition. As we understand it, a person only has "so many" enzymes in their lifetime, and once you use them up, that's it. Your body can't produce any more. Based on this belief, I knew EFT probably wouldn't work, but it only takes a few minutes, so why not try it? Those of us without this problem take these things for granted, but my wife has been set free. I hope this inspires someone else to become free of unnecessary pain, discomfort, and embarrassment.

A woman trained in EFT¹⁸ was at an elegant dinner party when one of the guests began to go into anaphylactic shock. Anaphylactic shock is a rapid and severe allergic reaction to a substance (most often a vaccine or penicillin, shellfish, or insect venom as with a bee sting) to which the person has been sensitized by previous exposure. It can be fatal if emergency treatment, including the administration of epinephrine injections, is not given immediately. Apparently, this man was severely allergic to shellfish and he was unknowingly eating crab stuffed ravioli. As his face and throat began to swell, the host jumped up to call 911. The woman immediately took the man into another room and began to treat him with EFT. Before her eyes, the swelling in his face and neck began to go down and in just a few minutes he had returned to normal. He rejoined the dinner party and the 911 call was cancelled as all of his symptoms completely vanished. All of this occurred within 10 minutes.

Getting to Emotional Causes. In each of these cases, little attention was given the emotional causes of the physical condition, yet a simple tapping routine was sufficient. In other cases, emotional aspects are central in the treatment. Gary Craig was presenting at a conference when a participant asked if she could have a private session to help with her nearly constant pain from fibromyalgia. Janet had been already tapping sporadically for three or four weeks prior to the conference. At best, she would get temporary relief for an hour or two. But then the pains would come back. Craig decided to focus on the emotional causes of Janet’s condition. He asked her to pick out an intense emotional issue from her past. She chose one that was so intense that she rarely discussed it with anyone. She quickly rated it at a 10 and had strong bodily sensations at the mere thought of it.

To apply the tapping with minimal emotional pain, Craig had her make a mental movie of the event and narrate it. Because the suggestion that she verbalize the event caused Janet to go into an emotional reaction, they did a few rounds of the Basic Recipe even before she began the narration. These preliminary rounds began, "Even though I'm anxious about telling this story . . ." Eventually Janet was ready to narrate the story as though it were a movie. As she did, Craig had her stop whenever she came to any part of it that increased her emotional intensity. They stopped several times and tapped on the various issues that came up. They actually went through the story two or three times, and each time they found different aspects of the problem that required individual attention. It took between 30 and 40 minutes, including restful conversation in between the rounds of tapping, before Janet was able to tell the story with relative calm. Even then there were a few areas where a bit of emotional reaction would come up, but because Craig had another appointment, they did not have time to cover the aspects involved with those parts of the story. However, all the aspects were down to near zero.

While they didn’t focus again on her fibromyalgia symptoms, Janet seemed much lighter by the end of the session and she left knowing substantial emotional headway had been made. A couple of weeks later, Craig received the following note from Janet: "The EFT is working just great for me. It is night 13 of falling asleep without the pain of the Invisible Chronic Illness [fibromyalgia] and this is a phenomenal record for me. Since 1991, the onset of this illness, I have not had two pain free nights in a row . . ." On a follow-up phone call, Craig learned that Janet was continuing to use EFT with underlying emotional issues and she was essentially pain free all day and all night. Occasionally she would wake up in the morning with a little stiffness, but she just "taps it away." She reported some pain when she had a massage because it involved pushing on her body. Under normal circumstances, however, she said, "I forgot what pain is about."

Applying the Basic Recipe to Physical Problems. In medicine, a basic guideline is to apply the least invasive treatment that might remedy an illness before moving to more invasive measures. The Basic Recipe is about as non-invasive as an intervention can be. It is easy to apply. It is self-administered. It takes very little time. It is relatively gentle. It is not habit-forming. Hundreds of written reports exist of it being effective with longstanding physical conditions where other treatments were not. The relief from symptoms is often immediate. And if it does not work, all other options are still available.

So as a first intervention with physical conditions, there is good reason to use a method that simultaneously addresses the emotional basis of physical conditions and rebalances disturbances in the body’s energies. The Basic Recipe could be part of every healer’s toolkit. As Gary Craig is fond of saying, "Try it on everything." It won’t hurt. It may help. Three caveats:

1. For any serious medical condition or suspicious symptom, work in conjunction with a qualified health care professional.
    

2. Even if the physical symptoms clear completely, consult with the treating physician before the use of any medication is discontinued.
    

3. Be aware that pain is a signal from the body and if a pain that is subdued using the tapping routine keeps returning, be sure to understand the medical basis of that pain.

"Trying it on everything" may also lead to subtle improvements that help other treatments to be more effective. Bringing balance to the energies disturbed by a physical condition and addressing its underlying emotional causes can only be helpful. For help with immediate symptoms, apply the Basic Recipe ("Even though I have this headache . . .") whenever you want relief. You will get instant feedback on how effective it was.

For an illness, apply the Basic Recipe to every specific event that might be involved in the onset or emotional foundation of the illness. Ask "If there were an emotional contributor to this condition, what would it be?" If the person doesn’t know, ask for a guess, and treat whatever comes up. While working with the illness, additional memories or emotional involvements may occur to the person. Persistence pays when addressing serious or longstanding physical problems. Gary Craig often has his students go through the Basic Recipe ten times every day, spread throughout the day when addressing an illness. They can remember to do the procedure by tying it in with habitual activities, such as doing rounds when they wake up, when they go to bed, before each meal, and each time they go to the bathroom. While this is an uncharted area in terms of scientific investigation, there is enough totally-unexpected anecdotal evidence to warrant a bit of experimentation, particularly before introducing more invasive measures.

Notes for the "Focusing on Problems" Tutorial

¹ Because energy interventions can create neurological change, we do not want to close the door on this possibility, but we know of no instances at this point where chronic schizophrenia was permanently cured using energy interventions.

² Alan Batchelder was the therapist.

³ Betty Moore-Hafter was the therapist.

⁴ Blair Hornbuckle was the practitioner.

⁵ Stephani Fried was the therapist.

⁶ The positive effects of optimism on success, health, and happiness is a central principle within "Positive Psychology" (www.positivepsychology.org).

⁷ Avshalom Caspi, et al., "Influence of Life Stress on Depression: Moderation by a Polymorphism in the 5-HTT Gene," Science, 2003, 301( 5631), 386-9.

⁸ Again, we do not want to close the door (see footnote 1) on the possibility that energy interventions which create neurological change may one day be developed for overcoming longstanding endogenous depression, but we do not know of any practitioners who are reporting consistent positive results using only energy interventions with this condition.

⁹ M.B. Keller, et al., "A Comparison of Nefazodone, the Cognitive Behavioral-Analysis System of Psychotherapy, and Their Combination for the Treatment of Chronic Depression," New England Journal of Medicine, 2000, 342, 1462-1470.

¹⁰ R.M. Hirschfeld, et al., "Does Psychosocial Functioning Improve Independent of Depressive Symptoms? A Comparison of Nefazodone, Psychotherapy, and Their Combination. Biological Psychiatry. 2002, 51, 123-133.

¹¹ Reported in Patricia Carrington’s "Divide and Conquer with EFT:
A New Way of Handling Major Depression," EFT News & Innovations, March 2002,
www.eft-innovations.com.

¹² The inventories he uses can be found in Dennis Greenberger and Christine A. Pedasky’s Mind over Mood: Change How You Feel by Changing the Way You Think (New York: Guilford, 1995).

¹³ Visit www.carollook.com to learn about Dr. Look’s workbooks and training videos for working with these issues.

¹⁴ In a study of medical clinic patients, "only 16% of their complaints were explained by biophysical paradigm of disease," reported in Academic Medicine, 1991, 66(9), S4-S6, S4.

¹⁵ Silvia Hartmann-Kent was the therapist.

¹⁶ Mary Kuriger provided this report of her experience.

¹⁷ Larry Stewart was the practitioner.

¹⁸ Pamela Ney-Noyes was the practitioner.