Why EFT rather than the talking therapies?

I am both a psychotherapist and an EFT practitioner, so I guess I have a perspective from both viewpoints. The more I learn of different therapeutic approaches, the more I am convinced that in all healing or therapy, whether done through counselling, psychotherapy, EFT, CBT, NLP, various energy therapies, body therapies, the effective ingredients are probably very similar. However, different approaches/rituals suit certain people better than others.

Some of my clients prefer talking therapy and we will work exclusively this way. Some do really well with EFT, EMDR and other re-processing techniques - for a proportion of them this does mean rapid changes, but for others the commitment and perseverance over time is still essential.

I think EFT's reputation of being a "quick-fix" isn't accurate - even though the so-called one-minute wonders do happen, more often change requires work. Yes of course there is a potential for individuals to avoid dealing with difficult issues - which is also possible with clients undergoing psychotherapy and counselling over a period of some years, too.

What I value EFT for is that it is often makes it possible to somewhat relieve the fear of facing the major challenging issues, so that the client is actually prepared to take that big step. Frequently, it helps uncover the issues the client has been ignoring/not noticing. As one of my students noted, with incredulity - "I've been in therapy for 20 years, but feel that I have found out more about myself in the last 15 minutes".

I do not find the counselling/psychotherapy and EFT mutually exclusive or in any competition with each other - on the contrary, they compliment each other extremely well. I guess that forums such as these are frequented by people who are interested in self-help and self-development, and the fact that EFT is quite easy to apply to yourself without an input from a therapist, could account for the popularity of the topic. I probably started quite a few threads myself!

I am biased of course, as I teach EFT as well as use it in my clinical practice - but I can't quite think of anything else I've ever been able to share with some really vulnerable, deprived, traumatised people, that could make such a huge difference in relieving SOME of their unbearable pain in quite a surprisingly short period of time.

I am thinking in particular about some of the prisoners I worked with - many almost literally "off their heads" with drugs, trauma, people who lost everything, including their children, sometimes their limbs, etc - people who could not engage in group therapy or in counselling simply because their concentration span was minimal and they were barely coherent - even in that state, they could tap, and I could see their faces lighten within minutes, their muscles relaxing; some girls who cut themselves every day started tapping instead - OK, we didn't do any long-term profound work on their major issues (it wasn't really part of my job as I was managing the drug rehabilitation programme at the time which was based on fairly basic CBT and psychoeducation, so I had very little time to spend with the prisoners one-to-one) - but the impact on their wellbeing and recovery was significant, and many said something on the lines of "This is the first time I feel I can help myself".

So I guess it is the accessibility and the "democratic" nature of EFT that appeals to me most. (And I am doing yet another postgrad. diploma in yet another psychotherapy, and will be combining my new learning with EFT and all my other therapies).

Masha

Hello David

Good question! This isn't a specialist forum for counselling / psychotherapy... there is one (google The Empty Chair) but it's very quiet. This makes me wonder why we counsellors and psychotherapists aren't communicating more online. Is it because these online discussions don't feel quite safe enough? I mean, in the sense that anybody can view them.

Occasionally I feel I would like to discuss some recurring issues online, but also aware that clients, potential clients or peers might read and judge. I do use my real name on here: if I didn't I might discuss things more freely, but I felt that I didn't want to use an alias when joining. Hmmm.

Regarding EFT, I've never seen it done, but have read about it many times on HP and so much so that I am considering training in this, and I'm interested to learn that you and Masha both combine it in your practice.

I think you raise a really interesting question and I hope others will have views to add.

Hi Masha,
thank you for your long and detailed reply.

What I'm taking from it is that its useful to have the EFT knowledge and ability, because that attracts - and is really useful for - some clients. If the client requires more, then we do have the other skills as well, and having built up the relationship with the client they are more likely to want to continue with me on their issues. It's kind of the same thing that I currently do with those who present for NLP.

In you experience, is what I'm saying reasonable?
====================
Hi Bay,
I looked at Empty Chair, and, yes, it's slow! It may pick up as more counsellors are dragged online, kicking and screaming, as the EAPs insist on using online methods to distribute and collect their paperwork.

Incidentally, if you think EC is slow, don't even look at Psychminded (one or two posts a year) or Counselling Forumup (three or four).

The problem is that if you keep the forum out of the public gaze, no-one gets to hear about it because the search engines are also denied access. What we need is a private part of, say, this forum that we can discuss private matters on.

Anyone listening?

Another option is to register under a different username for the risky stuff. I don't know if that's against HP regulation, though. I tend to just say it how I see it, although I think that has contributed greatly to me losing some company work in the past. I wouldn't take it on now, so it doesn't bother me too much, but, yes, it needs to be borne in mind.

The problem is that if you keep the forum out of the public gaze, no-one gets to hear about it because the search engines are also denied access. What we need is a private part of, say, this forum that we can discuss private matters on.

Anyone listening?

Another option is to register under a different username for the risky stuff. I don't know if that's against HP regulation, though.

Just to address these two issues, so please forgive the snipping 😉

Your suggestion for a private discussion area has been brought to the attention of the other members of the moderating team for discussion and possible referral to Admin for implementation.

Unfortunately, however, duplicate accounts are not permitted by the forum rules and guidelines, so the answer on re-registering with a different username has to be a 'No'. Sorry!

Holistic
On behalf of the Moderating Team

Your suggestion for a private discussion area

My guess is that, on current showing elsewhere, it will be a lot of work for you with really, not much benefit for us.

But, I could be wrong!

re-registering with a different username has to be a 'No'. Sorry!

Well, none of us would dream of breaking the rules, I'm sure :eek::rolleyes:

Thanks, Laura

Hello David and everyone,
I am a psychological counselor no longer in active talk-therapy practice (I do keep my US-based license active). I have found that using the so-called power therapies (NLP, Ericksonian hypnotherapy, energy psychology, energy healing and consciousness-based techniques) using a brief therapy or coaching model is generally producing much deeper results in a much shorter period of time with the garden-variety outpatient client.
The idea that briefer therapies are somehow more shallow and only symptom-based is not true at all. It's just that the facilitation process is different.

I do acknowledge that a percentage of the population need a long-standing therapeutic relationship, but in truth, the lion's share of talk therapy is just as episodic as brief interventions. The question to me then becomes this: how successful were those episodes of talk-therapy counseling in helping create desired changes in comparison with briefer methods?

What we don't want to risk is a view that holds talk therapy above these other methods because it is more intimate and transferance takes place. This only means that the therapeutic relationship is less likely to resolve quickly, which is not necessarily a good measure of therapeutic outcome.

I LOVED doing talk therapy, but when I took a hard look at outcomes (at least as far as I could determine) power therapy outcomes were at least as successful and much, much shorter!

Blessings,

Alfred

Hi folks - David and Masha, Hi

Just my 2p

David, EFT *is* a talking therapy from where I sit. There is, of course, a great deal of talking involved, skill in finding the core issues and facilitating removal of them.

For the qualified psychotherapists: obviously, an EFT practitioner wouldn't be qualified to deal with serious mental illness, but a skilled practitioner is certainly skilled enough to speed the process of working through various things with clients.

Because it's such an effective therapy, we do come across people who wonder how come they feel so different so quickly - known as the Apex Problem - but the fact is that service veterans with awful PTSD, who have tried everything else are having great results with EFT. Having had problems with drinking, drugs (both prescribed and non-prescribed), violence, relationships, flash backs, etc they are coming out of sessions having experienced EFT working for themselves and with tools to deal with each one of their terrible experiences. EFT is changing lives for the better. Permanently.

Obviously, I'm a qualified EFT practitioner. A third of my degree was focused on psychology, but equally obviously I'm not a psychologist. However, with these great results I'm often *amazed* that more psychologists don't use it. For me it's a no brainer that anything that reduces people's suffering so quickly is a very valuable tool

Hi Masha,
thank you for your long and detailed reply.

What I'm taking from it is that its useful to have the EFT knowledge and ability, because that attracts - and is really useful for - some clients. If the client requires more, then we do have the other skills as well, and having built up the relationship with the client they are more likely to want to continue with me on their issues. It's kind of the same thing that I currently do with those who present for NLP.

In you experience, is what I'm saying reasonable?
====================

That does indeed sound reasonable, David! It reminds me of what my EFT teacher Gwyneth Moss says - "EFT is a tool, and a tool needs a toolbox". I see our other skills - therapy/counselling skills, knowledge of mental health and other specialist areas, human qualities of empathy, intuition etc - as the toolbox.

On the other hand, I also agree with coerdelion - EFT is indeed a talking therapy in its own right. Of all other therapies that I am trained in it most resembles EMDR (in which there tends to be less talking than in EFT) - both are desensitisation and re-processing aproaches, but EMDR practitioners have set up on a seriously professional basis (no-one is allowed to train in it unless they are already a registered health/mental health professional) with plenty of research backing it up - whilst EFT has been mostly a grassroot and amateur development. I love and value both of these therapies, but for ease of application as a self-help method to teach to clients EFT wins (EMDR also has a long list of contraindications so is suitable for fewer clients).

I will still do pure talk therapy if that's what client prefers, but in my experience if they talk and tap as well, things tend to speed up!

Masha

but EMDR practitioners have set up on a seriously professional basis (no-one is allowed to train in it unless they are already a registered health/mental health professional) with plenty of research backing it up - whilst EFT has been mostly a grassroot and amateur development.

Well, it may not be much talked about now, but EMDR was also an "amateur development", also in the best sense of the phrase, as it derived from Shapiro's serendipitous reading in Kriya Yoga. Castaneda (genuine or not) also outlines something very very similar in effect in the Don Juan books. I use some EMDR on myself too, but usually just by extending that bit within EFT rather than indulging in an entire session.

My own greatest success with EFT was in working with a Reiki student and friend (don't tell the BACP!) who phoned me in a dreadful state: she had just decided to chuck in her PhD after several years of battling both her department and her own intrinsic personality weirdnesses (like all of us). I talked her through the EFT process over a rather long phone call, and over the next few weeks I think it was the mainstay that kept her PhD on track and her PhD supervisor unstrangled. My understanding is that she could have been in danger of getting EFT RSI from the amount she did.

So there is an occasion when therapy would have been inappropriate, but EFT quite literally saved the day for her, and she has gone on to do sterling work within the field of cancer research.

using a brief therapy or coaching model is generally producing much deeper results in a much shorter period of time ......

I LOVED doing talk therapy, but when I took a hard look at outcomes (at least as far as I could determine) power therapy outcomes were at least as successful and much, much shorter!

I'd love to get into this, but perhaps on another thread.........

My own greatest success with EFT was in working with a Reiki student and friend (don't tell the BACP!) who phoned me in a dreadful state: she had just decided to chuck in her PhD after several years of battling both her department and her own intrinsic personality weirdnesses (like all of us). I talked her through the EFT process over a rather long phone call, and over the next few weeks I think it was the mainstay that kept her PhD on track and her PhD supervisor unstrangled. My understanding is that she could have been in danger of getting EFT RSI from the amount she did.

So there is an occasion when therapy would have been inappropriate, but EFT quite literally saved the day for her, and she has gone on to do sterling work within the field of cancer research.

I love doing EFT over the phone, it works really well and sometimes even faster than face-to-face (there is something about the lack of visual distractions that seems to give a more intense focus to phone therapy) and, apart from the obvious bonus of being able to work with clients in Russia, Norway, Malta and various other parts of the world, the best thing about it is that I can do it in my pyjamas 😉

Masha

the best thing about it is that I can do it in my pyjamas 😉

Masha

I remember the pajamas bit from a previous post of yours! Funny what sticks in one's mind... :hidesbehindsofa:

Interesting discussion!

I am always amazed at how effective EFT is - I am not a councellor or psycologist but have life experience. If I may mention a family member has been in therapy for many years and she finds going over old ground singularly unhelpful as it rekindles all the anxieties that these memories entail. It takes her a day or two to put them behind her again. On the occasions I have used EFT on her the relief has been almost immediate and she now taps on herself to a degree - she asks for my help with EFT in a crisis! So my impression is that talking therapies may not always be that helpful, but it obviously depends on the individual.

I've noticed that many more threads on here are started about EFT than about counselling or psychotherapy. Why is that?

.... and this turned into another EFT thread too!

David I wondered again reading through the thread what your question was: was it about the comparative value of the two therapies, or was it about the kinds of topics people choose to write about on a forum?

I think when I read your original post, the second of these questions struck me very powerfully and I think maybe I'll niggle away at this question now.... Are we counsellors/psychotherapists a bit closed off to open debate about our own therapy matters?

David I wondered again reading through the thread what your question was:

I suppose I was seeking to draw people's attention to the fact that you can't talk about stuff without actually talking about it.

I thought - and this has been reinforced by the answers I've received - that clients present for EFT amongst other therapies because they perceive that they can sort out their issues without having to do the messy talking/emoting about them first.

I now believe that although this may be an attractive prospect to a shameful client, it is not the case, and a value of EFT I had not considered is of getting reluctant clients who desperately need therapy in through the door and into a relationship with a therapist who can work with them in whatever way necessary.

I think when I read your original post, the second of these questions struck me very powerfully and I think maybe I'll niggle away at this question now.... Are we counsellors/psychotherapists a bit closed off to open debate about our own therapy matters?

That is, I think, a different question to the one I was asking. Perhaps a new thread is called for!

Hi David, hi everyone

The thing about EFT is that with a competant practitioner, one can actually do the releasing without the talking - there are several tools in the EFT kitbag to facilitate this. The most useful is probably the movie technique and I've had some success with this with clients reluctant to go into their specific events. Of course, once the release is complete they *can* talk about it, but the emotional charge is gone, so they don't need to. I do tend to check the release is complete by asking them to narrate the incident, however.

As to the relative merits, I really don't think this is an either/or thing but rather all forms of therapy having their place. I mean that, for example, some clients like to take a long approach - they've had their stuff for a long time and want to approach it over several years. Others just want it over and done with ... and others want something in the middle.

Horses for courses, perhaps ...