EFT - FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
“If your body feels more relaxed while you’re thinking about a stressful thought, you don’t feel like you’re being hijacked by that emotion.” - Jessica Ortner
WHAT IS EMOTIONAL FREEDOM TECHNIQUE?
EFT is a simple healing technique that you can combine with other therapies or it can be used as a standalone technique used for the relief of pain or emotional distress. It involves the combination of tapping on specific points on the face and body, and speaking at the same time. Some people describe it as "acupuncture without the needles."
HOW DOES EFT WORK?
EFT focuses on the same meridian points used in acupuncture When carrying out EFT, we stimulate these points on the face and body by tapping on them, whilst making statements about the negative emotions we are trying to alleviate. Stimulating these points by tapping results in a calming effect on the amygdala (the stress centre of the brain) and the hippocampus (the brain’s memory centre), and it also reduces cortisol (the stress hormone).
When we combine the tapping actions with statements about the negative emotions that we want to work on, we are verbalising the distressing emotions at the same time as our brains are getting the calming signals. This combination can create new reactions to these emotions when we feel them again, thereby alleviating the distressing emotions.
Clinical trials have shown that EFT is able to rapidly reduce the emotional impact of memories and incidents that trigger emotional distress and has an immediate calming effect.
WHAT HAPPENS DURING A SESSION?
We will spend most of the session carrying out rounds of tapping. I will ask you questions about the distressing feelings you want to alleviate, but you do not have to go into too much detail. I may stop and check in with how you are feeling regarding the emotion you are tapping on, and I may frequently interrupt you during the sessions to get to the root emotion causing the issue. That is not because I am uninterested in your story, but to get the best possible outcome for the session, I need to focus on the emotions you are feeling, rather than the reasons behind them. I use varying techniques depending on how the session progresses and I will frequently ask you to rate the distressing emotion out of 10. All you need to do is copy me as I work through the tapping points, and repeat statements as we go round.
WHAT ARE MY QUALIFICATIONS?
I have a Level 1 and Level 2 qualification from the EFT and Mindfulness Centre, making me an Accredited EFT Practitioner. This means I can use my EFT skills with clients to help them with their specific needs.