What is EFT Tapping and Thought Field Therapy?
Drawing on thousands of years of Chinese medicine, tapping can relieve stress and calm the nervous system to help you relax, focus, and make intentional decisions.
What are the Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) or Tapping?
EFT is an alternative treatment that combines acupressure and modern psychology. It involves gently tapping acupressure points, mainly around the head and face, while focusing on intense emotions or beliefs and has been proven effective in alleviating depression and anxiety symptoms.
How does tapping work?
EFT uses gentle acupressure or light tapping to stimulate nine meridian points to restore balance to the nervous system. Based on ancient Chinese medicine, these meridian points are specific points along the body’s energy pathways that balance the energy flow in the body. Blocked energy or imbalances can lead to sickness, disease, or psychological issues.
Tapping helps access and unblock your body’s energy flow and sends signals to the brain to release neurochemicals that help you relax and focus, reducing the stress or negative emotion you are focused on and restoring balance.
How do I do it?
Tapping has proven highly effective for resolving anxiety, emotional imbalance, and setting intentions. EFT tapping is performed by lightly tapping nine key points around the body while reciting an anchor phrase that addresses your problem, how you feel about it, and accepting yourself despite the situation.
A typical anchor phrase is: “Even though I have this [insert issue, fear, or problem here], I deeply and completely accept myself.”
Thought Field Therapy
What is Thought Field Therapy (TFT)?
Thought Field Therapy (TFT) is similar to EFT in that both techniques involve tapping on specific meridian points while focusing your attention on a specific issue or emotion. They typically share the same tapping points and share the same therapeutic goals. While EFT is a simplified, more universal approach to managing traumatic memories and negative emotional triggers, TFT offers a more customized, specific approach. Some of the ways Thought Field Therapy differs in some key ways:
TFT doesn't use a repeated anchor phrase. TFT focuses on a unique set of tapping patterns for each problem category.
TFT focuses on a unique set of tapping patterns for each problem category
TFT is growing and developing as new tapping sequences are identified.
TFT doesn't require saying the problem out loud. You only have to think about the problem and how it makes you feel to use TFT sequences effectively.
The Benefits of Tapping
Tapping is a simple and useful tool that, when done correctly, is a fast and effective way to regulate your emotional response. Some of the benefits of tapping include:
Increased health and wellness
Instant Results
Quick and easy to do anywhere
Allows you to self-regulate your feelings
Can reduce anxiety and depression
Can help reduce insomnia and intrusive thoughts
Tapping is Scientifically Validated
Tapping has been used to effectively treat veterans with PTSD for years. Studies have shown that participants significantly reduced their stress within a single month of EFT coaching. More than 50% of the study participants have been effectively healed from PTSD and no longer fit the criteria for diagnosis.
In 2016 a study compared EFT tapping to standard care for anxiety and found a significant decrease in reported anxiety in participants receiving EFT over those receiving standard care.
Scientific communities worldwide continue to study the effectiveness of EFT tapping and compare it to other therapeutic techniques.
How are you feeling?
Take one (or both) of our assessments for a quick mental health check in. We'll follow up with tips and next steps depending on your answers.
Depression Assessment
Depression is more than being sad or blue. It can affect you in ways that limit your potential and cause physical, emotional, and mental suffering.
Answer the following questions to check in on your mental state.
Anxiety Assessment
Answer the following questions to help identify when you need to take action.
