How EFT works.

Traumatic experiences and memories register not only in our conscious and unconscious minds but also in our body’s cells, as “muscle memory” and as blockages in our body’s electromagnetic field, causing psychological, behavioural and even physical symptoms, such as those in the word cloud above.

When EFT releases the trauma that lives in our memories it also releases the trauma that lives in our cells and the body’s electromagnetic field.  We have all experienced events of great stress where our muscles have tightened involuntarily.  When such a stressful event is triggered again our muscles react exactly as they did the first time – the cells in the muscles “hold the memory” of the trauma and respond just as they did before.  Just as athletes rely on training their muscles to remember how to jump hurdles, or dancers train their muscles to effortlessly turn and glide without having to consciously think about it, so trauma can also train our muscles in ways that cause us pain.

In energy psychology, there is no distinction made between the body and the subconscious mind.  They cannot be separated.  The body is the subconscious mind.  When a painful memory is triggered by something in the present - something that reminds us in some way, usually unconsiously, of the past traumatic event - we immediately feel the same feelings and emotions we felt at the time and these are felt as physical sensations in the body:  anxiety in the stomach, anger in the chest, grief in the throat, etc.  We’re not actually responding to the thing in the present at all, but rather that thing that happened in the past that we’re re-experiencing, over and over again.  For someone who has experienced a lot of trauma in their lives, this can lead to them living in an almost permanent state of stress.  According to WebMD.com, “Seventy-five percent to 90% of all doctor's office visits are for stress-related ailments and complaints…And stress can play a part in problems such as headaches, high blood pressure, heart problems, diabetes, skin conditions, asthma, arthritis, depression, and anxiety”.  Stress is also a well-known major contributor to weight problems and eating disorders.

Although Energy Psychology is still relatively new, we have learnt that when a person experiences a trauma the actual distress is held, frozen, in our body’s cells and in our electromagnetic field.  Until we clear trauma from our electromagnetic field we will be at the mercy of the distress that is lodged there and is triggered along with cell memory.  With EFT we first eliminate the trauma associated with the memory, from your cells and from your electromagnetic field.  When the blockages in your system are cleared there is an accompanying cognitive shift, similar to a psychotherapy or counselling session.  This is why EFT is so effective for emotional and psychological distress.

After working with EFT we still retain the memory visually and consciously, but it no longer holds the emotional pain, nor does it control our body’s muscle response because EFT has un-coupled the memory from our physical and energetic systems. This leaves us free to remember events and people that were previously pain-filled, without experiencing the pain physically or emotionally.

Counselling and psychotherapy can help us to get a conceptual handle on traumatic events and provide us with tools to link our thoughts and our emotions so that we can gradually learn ways of thinking that are healthier and more life affirming.

What counselling can’t do is to clear cell memory and electromagnetic blockages in our energy field.  EFT can do this AND it offers similar cognitive shifts.  While EFT is not the same as psychotherapy or counselling, it complements and enhances these very well, and often achieves similar or better healing.  However it is my observation that good EFT, like good psychological therapy, is hugely beneficial and enhances one’s life.