Category Archives: Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT)
Research into the benefits of EFT
I was pleased to see this article by Dr Mercola on the research and benefits of Emotional Freedom Technique.
I’m looking forward to seeing new clients in 2012 and introducing EFT to people who would like to try something that is so effective for a wide range of issues.
New Research is Shining a Light on the Benefits of EFT
I have been a fan of energy psychology for many years, having witnessed its effectiveness in my medical practice and in my own personal life. However, studies have been few and far between as science has been trying to “catch up” with clinical experience.
All of that is changing now.
The Emotional Freedom Technique, or EFT, is the psychological acupressure technique I most highly recommend to manage stress and optimize your emotional health. Several studies have recently been published that show just how safe and effective EFT really is. For example, the following three studies show remarkable progress in a very short amount of time for people with a history of trauma:
- A 2009 study of 16 institutionalized adolescent boys with histories of physical or psychological abuse showed substantially decreased intensity of traumatic memories after just ONE session of EFT.
- An EFT study involving 30 moderately to severely depressed college students was conducted. The depressed students were given four 90-minute EFT sessions. Students who received EFT showed significantly less depression than the control group when evaluated three weeks later.
- A study of 100 veterans with severe PTSD (Iraq Vets Stress Project) showed an astounding reduction of symptoms after just six one-hour EFT sessions. After completing six sessions, 90 percent of the veterans had such a reduction in symptoms that they no longer met the clinical criteria for PTSD. Sixty percent no longer met PTSD criteria after only three EFT sessions. At the three-month follow-up, the gains remained stable, suggesting lasting and potentially permanent resolution of the problem.
[The Iraq Stress Project is still recruiting veteran volunteers. If you are a veteran and interested in participating, you can get more information here.]
Compare these EFT studies to the studies about antidepressant drugs, and you will see the stark contrast!
If you think EFT could benefit you please get in contact to give it a go.
Stacey
The use of Emotional Freedom Technique for Recovery
This week I had the opportunity to introduce EFT to a group of service users at Park House residential treatment centre in Birmingham with great feedback. I was able to quickly help with the thoughts and emotions they were dealing with there and then including Cravings, Frustration, Stress and Agitation.
Here’s more about how it can be used and be especially beneficial for people in recovery.
Various complementary therapies and talk therapies have been used historically within drug treatment. Some work on a physical level to help people feel more relaxed and to aid the detoxification process. Others work at an emotional/psychological level. Emotional Freedom Technique does both.
EFT is an Energy Psychology which combines a talk therapy with tapping on meridian points on the body similar to the points used in acupuncture.
The tapping begins to move energy around the body. When this shifts it helps to free and clear any blockages and therefore the issues.
EFT also works on a psychological level as it is combined with a talk therapy with the use of affirmations and statements helping to tune into specific issues.
I used to use auricular acupuncture which I always felt worked well to get people in a relaxed state and feedback was always positive about better sleep, less anxiety, reduced cravings etc.
After I became a trainer I missed my one to one work and looking back on it felt that more could be done to address the emotions that were leading to drug use. By fluke I discovered Emotional Freedom Technique which helped me personally immensely with a phobia I had.
I soon got myself on the courses to become a practitioner and due to my experience in the substance use field realised how beneficial it could be. I have now been using EFT for two and a half years both on others and on myself. That is one of the other beauties of it. As well as getting to the root of issues with a Practitioner it can be used as a coping strategy day to day whenever negative emotions including Anxiety, Fear, Stress and Sadness arise and more importantly to alleviate cravings.
I set up EFT for Recovery as a Community Interest Company in order to give more people the opportunity to experience and learn the technique and whilst it’s great for everyone I knew that it could be valuable for people with goals around their own recovery.
You can see more info on EFT for Recovery on my website here. It can have really amazing results.
Stacey
Inspire Health & Mind April Update
Hi everyone,
Here’s a little update on what we’ve been up to.
Jeanette has been busy with various meetings and service user groups as well as studying hard for her Open University exams in May.
I’ve been working closely with T2A which is a project for young people (18-25) making the transition from Youth Offending Teams to adult Probation. They provide support around education, employment, housing, health, activities and other ongoing inteventions. I have been seeing young people for one to one sessions to help them around their general well being and/or drug & alcohol use. As well as giving them an opportunity to talk about their issues they have been able to benefit from EFT. Initially it is a strange concept for them but they soon understand when they feel more relaxed and are amazed with how it can reduce the intensity of their feelings to a point where they can think much more clearly about things that have been affecting them. It’s helped them for issues such as cravings for cigarettes, Alcohol and Cannabis as well as their feelings around family relationships and their future aspirations. We’re lucky to have been asked to continue this work for the forseeable future and help support more people at a difficult stage in their lives.
Today I went to Kajan‘s with T2A staff for a feedback session on the health programme some of the young people have been attending over the last couple of weeks. This included a two hour drugs awareness workshop from us and other activities and information sessions on sexual health etc.
Kajans is a social enterprise working in the community to engage young people. There was a performance of ”The Long Weekend’ which deals with hard hitting issues and the acting skills of the young performers were inspiring. We also had a tour of the building which is a renovated Victorian building in Aston. They have a Dance Studio, Kitchens for Cookery, plenty of space for larger events, training and much more.
We have a few other things in the pipeline too delivering Drug Training for staff working with young people with behavioural difficulties as well introducing EFT for Recovery into an Alcohol service and a Residential rehab.
Information on the ‘Supporting People Affected By Substance Misuse Course’ we’ll be running in conjuction with Training for People for ten days beween June and November can be found here and you can contact us for more information. We’re hoping to get a nice mix of staff from different agencies to make it an enjoyable and useful experience.
Wishing you all a sunny and happy Easter break.
Stacey
stacey@inspirehealthandmind.co.uk
www.inspirehealthandmind.co.uk
Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) for Recovery
Since setting up Inspire Health and Mind in 2009 particularly last year we spent a lot of time working on our marketing materials especially with regards to the awareness work with young people in schools and training staff in the community. My plan for this year was to expand the EFT side of the work I do and as well as EFT for all, EFT for Recovery. I decided that the best way would be to set up EFT for Recovery as part of Inspire Health and Mind but as a Community Interest Company (CIC). I figured this may mean I could reach and therefore help more people in the community.
The CIC status came through last week which I was chuffed about and now it’s about getting the message out there. I’m lucky to have really great contacts locally due to my previous DAAT role as well as nationally thanks to lovely Twitter. It’s great now I can really get the ball rolling. I had/have a fear that people would feel I was bandwagon jumping on the Recovery agenda. Speaking to someone yesterday (who knows who he is) I felt much better about this. I know I’m doing this for all the right reasons. Those that volunteer for me and the service users I have had the pleasure of supporting and working with also know what I’m all about. My background shows my passion for helping people to recover from dependency and challenging the attached stigma. EFT helps people more holistically in that it can help with all aspects of someone’s life that needs improving. I think I’m trying to justify myself too much here. There are plenty of EFT Practitioners out there but not so many who are as willing to work with a client group perceived to be more challenging, maybe even less worthy. In fact I found one EFT forum with someone who said that working with ‘addicts’ would be ‘professional suicide’! Errrrr what?? I shan’t start a rant but I’m sure you can guess what I think of that.
Masha Bennett is well worth checking out in the professional sense as she is an international trainer who has done some great work with EFT for addictions, recovery and with women in custody. She enhances the credibility of EFT as a technique as she is also a well respected psychotherapist and an NLP Master.
Here‘s a good Wired In article to have a read of which shows her in action.
You can see my own post about why I chose EFT as a technique to learn here.
Why try EFT to support Recovery?
- Deals with a lot of issues that can be experienced by someone with a previous or current dependency and common emotions such as; Anxiety, Guilt, Fear, Sadness, Grief as well as helping to quickly alleviate cravings and withdrawal symptoms.
- Encourages positive and forward thinking, great for motivation, goal setting and removing the barriers and limiting beliefs which hold people back.
- It works a lot quicker than other forms of talk therapies and complementary therapies.
- EFT can be used as a self help tool, which can be empowering and allow the person to be back in control, something that those learning to lead healthier, happier lifestyles will find useful.
So we’re on the lookout for:
- People with current or past dependency on Drugs including Alcohol who want to try something new and fun
- People affected by the drug or alcohol use of a loved one
- Service user groups both in the community and attached to treatment agencies
- Drug & Alcohol treatment agencies looking for something new to offer to support positive outcomes
If you are any of the above then do get in touch and see the info flyer here.
Stace x
Twitter: @InspireHandM
Facebook: www.facebook.com/inspirehealthandmind
Why Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT)?
Some of you may know that as well as my Drug & Alcohol Training I’m also an Advanced EFT Practitioner.
Here’s a bit more about it and my reasons for doing it.
EFT was developed from a similar technique called Thought Field Therapy. It is an Energy Psychology and put simply is a combination of tapping on points of the body. Sounds a bit strange? Well yes, initally I did too when I first experienced it over two years ago now.
Never being one much for ‘out there’ fairy land ideas I hadn’t even heard of EFT so I has no preconcieved ideas. Whilst at a friend’s random tarot evening (another thing I am still unsure about) the bearded older man who had read our cards was just about to leave and was giving out his business cards. I saw on it that he helped with phobias amonst other things. The question I asked next would prove to be an important one.
‘What do you do for phobias?’. (Not realising what I was letting myself in for!)
Now, if you thought I was strange before then you definitely will now.
‘Eggs’, I told him.
Now I think people use the term phobia quite lightly sometimes. My phobia was a true phobia. Even someone talking about eggs would make me heave or even sick. I couldn’t even say the words ‘boiled egg’ or ‘fried egg’ without a physical reaction.
He took my hand with no explanation and started tapping it. I remember in my head immediately thinking…
‘I bloody hope there’s no eggs in the fridge!’
He tapped on my head and on my face and asked me to repeat sentences and after a couple 0f minutes asked how I felt. I realised that I had relaxed. Well, to cut a long story short, within five miuntes I was actually holding a dreaded egg in my hand. (There had been eggs in that bloody fridge). I can’t repeat the words I used to indicate my amazement that it had worked but needless to say I was freaked out. Before that experience there was no way I could even begin to even think that I would hold an egg EVER!
I’m not saying my phobia was completely cured in that short time but massive progress had been made. EFT can in a lot of cases work much more quickly than other therapies and techniques. I decided whilst lying in bed that night that I wanted to be able to do that for other people and found out more about EFT and its uses. Weirdly the next day I had a Facebook request from and old school friend who turned out to own a Coaching business with her partner and they offered EFT Training. The rest, as they say, is history. As part of my training I was able to continue to delve into my phobia as well as all sorts of other issues. Due to my background in substance use I knew that it would work for that too hence I have now set up EFT for Recovery as part of Inspire Health and Mind.
Stace x
National Drugs Conference Ireland (NDCI) – Scott Kellogg Workshop
Wednesday 3rd November
Scott Kellogg Transformational Chairwork
Dr. Scott Kellogg is a clinical psychologist and psychotherapist from New York. This introduction doesn’t quite do him justice though, you can see more about him here. This workshop introduced Transformational Chairwork as a technique for working around addictions and loss with clients (or ‘patients’ as he prefers). It can be used in different ways. Scott’s website explains the ways much better than I can: -
The empty chair can be used in order for the client to communicate with a person they may need a dialogue with. It can also be used to communicate with different ‘parts’ of the client. For example it gives them an opportunity to recognise their different identities such as user, non user, mother/father, partner etc. Work around identity can be useful for the client to think about the following:-
Who are you now? Who will you be in the future? Who do you want to be in the future?
A question I thought was great to ask was..
‘If your drug was a person what would they be like?’
In a recent EFT session with a young woman around cravings for Heroin, I asked her to imagine Heroin as a person in the room and to say what she thought of them, of course it proved very emotive and telling. (Incidentally she went on after the session to abstain for her longest time yet!).
I'm the one with the spooky orb at the back hiding!
The workshop was particularly interesting for me as an EFT Practitioner as that too recognises self identity and parts work as important when alleviating emotional intensity of an issue and helping people to move forward postively. A lot of my learning from this workshop made me think about how I can incorprate it in my work and integrate it with EFT. Working with self identity will also be beneficial in terms of the UK’s new ‘Recovery’ agenda.
Scott also presented the next day at the conference about Gradualism which I found really interesting and in line with my thinking around the whole harm recuction/recovery/abstinence debate. You can read about that here.
You can see more about Scott’s work on his website.
http://transformationalchairwork.com/
Stacey
Inspire at the Mind, Body, Spirit Festival Easter Weekend 2010
Some of you will know that in October I joined forces with my ex work colleague and friend Lynette to set up a business called Inspire. We have combined our skills and experiences and are offering Drug Awareness and Training, Complementary Therapies and Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT). We spent the months up to the New Year getting all of our marketing materials sorted and since then we have been steadily growing. This Easter weekend we exhibited for the first time at the White Light Mind, Body & Spirit Festival in Solihull.
Me and Lynette on our very first exhibition stand!
We had to get there quite early for a Saturday. I enjoyed the quietness of the roads until I hit Blossomfield Road and the new speed cameras! The event was at a really good venue called Cranmore Park in Shirley, Solihull. I met Lynette there and Lindsey also came along to help us. Lindsey Cheers of Couture Designs fame designed all of our marketing materials as well as our website (with techy support and advice from Dave CompMagic). If you ever need anything designing, or need a new website then contact them, they are both brilliant!
It took a while for us to get the stand looking right. Think there must be a joke in there somewhere. How many blondes does it take to set up an exhibiton stand? Apparently three. Anyway, this was the finished product.
As this was a Mind Body Spirit Event there were a variety of different exhibitors. Our friends Jason and Louise from Discover Serenity were there as were Jo and Rob from Meta Medicine who trained Lynette and I as EFT Practitioners. There were also stands offering psychic readings, incense, crystals, Buddhas for sale, massage demos, energy healing demos and lots of other weird and wonderful things. Part of me is still a cynic about some things but I was determined to keep an open mind. If something works and helps someone then it’s all cool to me. I did end up going to one of the talks but I have to confess it was all a bit lala land for me and I came out before the demonstration started. I’m sure she was a really lovely lady and is helping a lot of people but it was a bit too far out for me.
We have been lucky enough to have had a lot of support from our friends and family and I was chuffed that a lot of people came to see me. On Saturday my Mom came along with my Nan, Auntie Linda and my little cousin Becky. Between them they bought two head massagers, crystals and my Nan had a food sensitivity test. Even my Dad came in the morning to have a browse around and he bought an amethyst. My brother Rick and his girlfriend came with some of her family too. I think he especially liked the camp looking psychic, haha. My mother in law Pam and her cousin Wendy came and they went to a few talks, one about past life regression!
Me and my Mom on the stand
On Sunday, day two it was somewhat quieter but the interest was consistent. We met so many lovely people. Lynette is a healer and she often gets this funny thing out and dangles it (she’ll love this 
) and until yesterday I had never really asked what it was all about. Turns out it was a crystal dowser. You can ask it questions (as long as it’s a yes or no anwser) and it gives you the answer. Initially I thought it was a load of rubbish but she demonstrated it to me and I was a bit freaked out by the results! Hence I went over to the nice man who sold them and got one for myself. Here it is.
JB came to see us and bought me a sandwich for my lunch. He isn’t the most open minded so I think he was both amused and bemused by a lot of the other stands but it was nice that he came to show his support (and the ham and brie sandwich was nice too). Surprise of the day was my mate Nid randomly turning up to see what it was all about. He left with a dowser himself (after he was also surprised by how it seemed to just work!) and necklaces for his Mom and girlfriend.
It was so interesting to speak to all the different types of people there. I’d expected it to be full of older females but there was a mixture of ages and also a lot more men than I thought there would be. One I met was a pagan druid. Interesting conversation!
Overall we had a great weekend, although we were tired and hungry by the end of it all. A lot of people will have our details now and time will tell if the event was all worth it. I think it will have been.
Remember you can see all about what we are doing on our Inspire website, follow us on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook too!
Peace, love, empathy
Stace x
Hot Cross Buns
I just made Hot Cross Buns.
I used James Martin’s recipe out of the Easter Good Food Magazine which I subscribe to.
I have always loved cooking but have only recently been able to bake as I had a really bad egg phobia. Luckily with EFT I have overcome it so now I have lots more cooking potential.
Yum!
Happy sunny Sunday everyone.
Peace, love, empathy,
Stace x
