The Power of Tapping Part II
by Kathryn Tristan

    In last month’s issue of Java Journal, part I of this article described an alternative healing technique called “tapping” or Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT). A number of prominent therapists and philosophers/ teachers consider it to be revolutionary. In the procedure, a person uses two fingers to tap on specific points, called meridians, on his or her body to clear emotional blocks while simultaneously stating affirmations. EFT lacks critical supportive scientific evidence, but some people who’ve tried it describe their results as amazing.
    In this article, you’ll find out more about tapping, as well as what practitioners say concerning the importance of incorporating what’s called neurolinguistic programming (NLP) techniques. One of those practitioners is Tom Tessereau, executive director of the Healing Arts Center in St. Louis. Tessereau discussed the subject with me and led me through a session of tapping.
    “Meridians are extensions of the nervous system,” he said. “Tapping on specific points can help clear blocks that occur after negative experiences.” The accompanying affirmations a person states during the tapping infuses one’s feelings into the exercise. This important component attests to the power that language and intention exert on our nervous systems. This process can be likened to programming a computer. Information that is put in is what comes back, but that also means that if something has been programmed which isn’t working, by rewriting that program, one’s life can be improved.
    The basic recipe for tapping incorporates elements of NLP. The setup statement goes something like this: “Even though (briefly describe the problem, such as “I’m afraid of public speaking”), I deeply and completely love and accept myself.” The idea of “psychological reversal” is that while a person acknowledges the problem, he or she also gives the self permission to have it. The best worded phrases are those that are very specific to the condition. For example, saying “Even though I’m not feeling happy…” isn’t as effective as saying “Even though I’m sad about the breakup of my relationship…”
    Tessereau said that help from skilled tapping practitioners can increase its effectiveness. The kind of language you use not only for the setup statement, but during the tapping, is important. An experienced practitioner can help select ways to do this. “Although everyone can cook, not everyone can make a soufflé,” Tessereau said.
    “Reframing,” also an NLP practice, is one of its 14 so-called “sleight of mouth” patterns. The purpose of reframing is to loosen the grip of old, limiting beliefs. The founder of EFT, Gary Craig, said one of his clients believed she couldn’t make money until she lost weight. Craig asked her if she thought Oprah Winfrey, who also struggles with weight control, would believe that. This example helped the client “reframe” her issue.
    Science has not yet provided any unequivocal evidence that tapping works. Craig suggested that EFT studies have been unreliable and difficult to design because meridians are influenced by tapping anywhere in the body. Thus, identifying a specific meridian associated with a specific change has been a challenge. Opponents have labeled it as a pseudo-science, since it primarily relies on anecdotal evidence.
    “Sometimes all one has is anecdotal evidence,” Tessereau said in its defense. “What that provides is a suggestion that it could be true, if enough similar evidence arises.”
    For now, it seems fair to say that while EFT is unproven, the field of energy medicine is still beginning to unfold in the western hemisphere. New links between mental health and the energy of the body continue to emerge. Even Washington University, one of the top five medical schools in the country, has begun a dialogue with alternative medicine practitioners, and invited some supporters to make presentations to first-year medical students.
    “For my 20 minutes there, I suggested to the students that if they could teach me how to do neurosurgery in 20 minutes, I’d love to learn,” Tessereau said. “But all kidding aside, I worked with the students on a very specific issue: test anxiety. This is something we have worked on at the Healing Arts Center. We [also] teach massage therapy. Our students were getting okay grades, but I felt they could improve. So we began tapping while focusing on the problem of being anxious when taking tests. We were amazed to see how the test scores of our students began to soar.”
    In closing I’d like to describe my own tapping session. I went to the Healing Arts Center with a headache, the kind you get while trying to fit too many things into a vacation day. My setup statement related to having a headache because I tried to do too many things. I added that I loved and accepted myself anyway and repeated the statement in slightly different ways while going through the nine tapping points.
    Initially, my headache level was a five. After three consecutive cycles of tapping, I was down to a two and then a few moments later it just disappeared. Perhaps it was just in my head, but that’s exactly where the problem originated anyway! Obviously, this is not scientific evidence, but I would add my experience to the growing list of anecdotes.
    For more information on EFT, visit emofree.com.