What is EFT?

The EFT stands for Emotional Freedom Techniques that were developed not too long ago in 1995 by Gary Craig and Adrienne Fowlie and it was based on work of psychologist Dr. Roger Callahan.

As a psychologist, Dr. Callahan was working on case with young woman that was afraid of going into the water ether in pool or in the sea. She was going for therapy with him for about two years and no result. He tried few different approaches with hypnosis; however, the fear of water was still there.

Then he asked her in which part of the body she feels that tension or fear. She pointed to the stomach and described it as knot twisting feelings the moment she start to think of going near the pool of water or sea.

Dr. Callahan has studied body energy meridians, which is based on Eastern philosophy or beliefs that there are meridians that allow energy to flow throughout the body. These meridians are also referred to as channels, pathways and vessels. These pathways run up and down the body forming a continuous network that allows for the flow of energy throughout the head, trunk, limbs and internal organs. This energy is known as "prana" in Ayurvedic medicine and "Chi" in Asian medicine. This uninterrupted flow of energy keeps the body in balance and harmony allowing for the maintenance of sound health. It is believed that disruptions in the flow of Chi cause dis-ease.

Dr. Callahan knew that one of the points responsible for stomach is under eyes. Therefore, intuitively, he suggested to young lady to think about going into the water and tapped with one finger under her eye. The result was immediate just with tapping several times in that one spot.

The young woman has been cured of fear of going into water ether in pool or in the sea for good.

Dr. Callahan investigated the effects of body meridians deeper with his clients by tapping on different points and developed few techniques. That direction of using energy meridians of the body in his practice with clients was very successful, they were cured too fast and never returned. The results by it self made him to file for bankruptcy and change the way of his practice.

However, he continued his practice and teachings of his new techniques to other people, where Gary Craig and Adrienne Fowlie first gained their knowledge.

Gary Craig and Adrienne Fowlie have taken the concept of meridian based healing and simplified the techniques so it would be easy for anyone to learn how to use them to release stuck emotions that are preventing from experiencing happiness or satisfaction and move forward toward their goals in life.

My personal encounter and experience with EFT came through another hypnotherapist Patricia French Crilly, who is also professional nurse. The time I have spent studying EFT with her worth it 100%.

In that class, we had a group of six students and as you know every normal person usually have some kind of emotional problems or blockages that we could work on.

We had one young woman in our group who got a fear of going in to the tunnels. Only the thought of it was making her sick and from her own words she was avoiding driving through them. On occasions, when she was going on the bus through the tunnels, she simply closed her eyes. The evaluation of her intensity of that fear was of the scale. She was insisting on number thirteen. After Patricia used complete sequence of EFT on that young woman, and we all were repeating after her, the intensity dropped down to number four. Therefore, we did it one more time to clear it completely and it worked.

What is an emotional problem?

Gary Craig describes it in his Seminars such as when we getting in to some situations where we feel stuck, frustrated, hurt or angry, then that brings a short circuit, like a "zap" into our energy system. That "zap" creates blockages in our energy meridians and later manifests itself into physical problems in the body like headaches, stomach pain, arthritis and other symptoms. Some emotional aspects of blockages are inability to speak out what is on your mind, being very shy and fearful, and being afraid to follow your dreams toward success, looking for any excuses just to avoid this subject.

Through out our life experiences we were gaining emotions of different kinds and if we would say that each emotion is like a tree on the field of our mind, then by the time we growing into adults we got the forest of those trees. Each one of them is a different aspect of emotions and with EFT techniques you can work on one emotional tree or aspect by cutting it down and making the adjacent trees shorter.

There are 14 primary meridians in the body and 12 of those meridians are associated with major organs or organ systems. These meridians run in pairs systematically on opposite sides of the body and are named after the organ for which they are associated. The channels, which lie close to the surface of the skin, are all connected to each other deep within the body forming a continuous loop through which the Chi flows. Each meridian is classified as Yin or Yang and is determined to be one or the other according to which direction the energy flows on the surface of the body. Yin medians are paired with specific Yang meridians and each one has its own unique energy for its own specific purpose.

EFT is easy to learn and easy to do. It is simple enough to teach to a three-year-old and elegant enough to be incorporated into the practice of the most learned health-care practitioner.