It is very easy to learn, but one of the problems for people who have learnt EFT from a book, or a training, is that when they want to use EFT by themselves for a difficult situations they:

• don’t know where to start.
• don’t know how to break the situation down into tappable issues.
• can’t keep track of progress.

So they do nothing or make a half hearted attempt and give up.

This simple, step by step process is designed to help newcomers to EFT (and old hands) by giving them:

• a place to start.
• a way of breaking a problem situation down into tappable pieces.
• a way of keeping track of progress and knowing what to focus on next.

How To Break Down A Problem

Any difficult situation in the present can be divided into three parts:

1. The Situation: This is what is going on: The argument, the loss of the job, the illness and all the other difficult situations that people find themselves in.

2. The Others: Unless you live alone on a desert island most difficult situations involve other people who have a part in what is going on for you.

3. Your Self: Last but not least, you and all your feelings, reactions, behaviours, ideas, beliefs, previous experience and all the rest of you are present in this situation.

Each of these parts of the problem can be unpacked and worked on using this very simple process.

Try this

Before we go any further:

1. Pick a modest problem – tune into it for a few moments.
2. Now complete the sentence “It is … ” (where “it” is the problem).
3. Something will come to mind, write it down.
4. Now complete the sentence “It is … ” again.
5. Something else will come to mind, write that down as well.
6. Continue until no more “It is …” statements come to mind.
7. Now you have a list of tappable issues.
8. Give each one a “distress score” from 0 .. 10

Now you know where to start with the tapping.

You can use this kind of process to unpack the three parts to the problem.

It is …

Completing “it is …” sentences will uncover:

• the description of the situation (the argument, the letter, the phone call)
• the emotional charge of the event itself.
• any judgements about the situation (it’s not fair, it shouldn’t have happened to me etc)

Once you have listed the statements and scored them from 0 to 10 you can use them for simple EFT setup statements and reminder phrases.

Even though it is …, I accept myself and how I feel

“Even though it is not fair, I accept myself and how I feel.”

You don’t need to think up any extra clever wording what you have written down is perfect.

They are …

Completing this sentence will unpack all the things the other person or people did that contributed to this situation and your reactions to that including:

• judgements about the other people involved
• blames
• hurts
• resentments
• what they are doing

Once you have listed and scored all these phrases they can be used to create simple tapping statements like this:

Even though they are …, I accept myself and how I feel.

“Even though they are unreasonable, I accept myself and how I feel.”

Note: You can change “They are …” to “He is …” or “She is …” if that fits better.

I am …

Completing I am … statements will uncover all the stuff that is going on in you and for you as a result of having this experience.

• feelings
• beliefs
• reactions to the situation

Once listed and scored, these statements can be tapped on using setup phrases like

Even though I am …, I accept myself and how I feel.

“Even though I am disgusted, I accept myself and how I feel.”

In each of these cases all you need to do is complete the sentences, score the results and put the sentences into a setup statement and reminder phrase then get tapping

How this process might work

Let’s imagine that someone crunches into your car leaving a big scrape on the bodywork.

If you complete the sentence “It is … “ you might come up with something like this (probably in much more colourful language)

• It is outrageous (10 / 10)
• It is criminal (9/10)
• It is devastating (7/10)
• It’s just my luck (4/10)
• It’s not fair (10/10)

Completing “They are …” might lead to:

• They did that deliberately (6/10)
• They must be stupid (10/10)
• They should be punished (8/10)
• What were they thinking of (not quite the “They are …” format but it’s still about “them”) (6/10)

Completing the “I am …” statements might lead to:

• I am shocked (8/10)
• I am devastated (10/10)
• I am upset (7/10)
• I am furious (12/10!)
• What am I going to do? (8/10)

Now you have some tappable issues to work with

Notice that at the end of all this tapping about the car, it will still have a scrape in it. This won’t cure that particular problem but it will put you in a calmer more resourceful state of mind to do what needs to be done.

The next step

There are two reasons for doing all this tapping

1. To neutralise all the negative emotional charge around the situation so that you can at last feel calm about it and be in a better state about the situation.
2. To put you in a more resourceful state so that you can take whatever action you need to take in this situation rather than just suffer knee-jerk reactions to it. However you feel about the problem there are probably things you need to do about it.

The next step is simply to ask yourself these questions:

• “What is my next step?”
• “What do I need to do now?”

How to decide what to tap on first

There are three ways of deciding what to tap on first. You may find one instantly appealing or you may need to experiment to find the one that works best for you.

1. Unpack the whole thing then tap: Complete all the sentence stubs for each part from the first “It is …” to the last “I am …”. Then decide which one to tap on first and work your way through the list.
2. Clear one section at a time: Work your way through each section, starting with I am … tapping out each charged statement, then move on to the next section.
3. Find the worst item first and start there: Work your way through the parts completing the sentence stubs until you land on the one that has a big charge for you, clear that one and then continue.

Summary Of The Process

1. Get a piece of paper (or download the  It is ... Tapping Worksheet  for this process)
2. Briefly describe in writing the situation giving it an overall score
3. Start with “It is …” – Make a list of sentences that start with this until you have run out of reactions.
4. Give each “It is …” statement a 0-10 score
5. Write a list of sentences that start “They are … “ – continue until you have run out of statements
6. Give each “They are …” statement a 0-10 score
7. Write a list of sentences that start “I am …” – continue until you have run out of statements
8. Give each “I am …” statement a 0-10 score
9. Find the most intense statement and start tapping using the statement as part of the setup statement
1. Even though it is …, etc
2. Even though they are … etc
3. Even though I am … etc
10. Work your way through the lists neutralising the charge on each statement.
11. From time to time check how you are feeling about the situations.
12. When the emotional charges have been settled ask yourself the question “What am I going to do next?”

That’s all there is to it. No deep insight about the situation required, just working with what is present in experience can give you relief.

Important: This process is designed for every day challenges not major catastrophes or traumas. If the situation you are facing is very intense or difficult then get appropriate professional help to sort it out.

As you can see the offer doesn’t last long so don’t miss out on saving some money.

	Getting Out Of Your Own Way Purchase Getting Out Of Your Own Way or any other title with 30% off with coupon code FEBRUARYCART305GBP. Lulu incurs the cost of this discount, so it does not impact the Author’s proceeds of the book.

It is a realistic and straightforward guide to Masha’s approach to working with people with addictions, self-harm and eating disorders. It would be an excellent guide for an EFT Practitioner getting involved in this kind of work or an experienced worker in this field who wants to add EFT to their toolbox.

There are no quick fixes or miracle cures presented in this book, it describes how to fit EFT principles into a larger framework of therapeutic tasks that are part of working with what is usually a complex, multi-layered problem.

In the book you will learn about the overall approach to working with client with these types of issues and specific EFT approaches for working with:

• cravings
• physical pain
• difficult emotions
• traumas
• triggering and high risk situations
• life patterns and limiting beliefs
• internal conflict

This book is based on Masha’s extensive experience in this area including work in a women’s prison. I’ve known Masha for more than six years and I highly recommend her integrity, compassion and professionalism .

You can order a copy of this book here for £2.50 for the ebook version and £4.50 for an A5 printed booklet.

Don’t Miss Early Bird Discount

Is this you?

• Do you have a lot of stress and anxiety in your life?
• Are you controlled by your emotions?
• Do you have knee jerk reactions to particular people or situations?
• Do you dwell on old incidents and feel bad about them?
• Are you afraid of particular situations or people?

How do you handle these problems at the moment?

• Do you ignore them and hope they will go away?
• Perhaps you just grit your teeth and push on regardless
• Maybe you distract yourself with comfort eating, drinking, TV or in some other way.
• Do you avoid things you would like to do but are just too stressful.

How are these strategies working out for you?

What if there was a simple way to:

• Let go of stress and relax
• Learn to respond differently to those difficult people or situations
• Get your emotions under control so you can be the way you want to be
• Let go of painful memories or regrets so you can get on with life

There is a simple set of techniques you can learn to help you do all that and more. Emotional Freedom Techniques, or EFT, is a simple self-help method that can make a difference in all these areas of life.

The EFT Level 1+ Training on March 3rd & 4th in Newcastle upon Tyne is a thorough introduction to these skills and techniques, presented by Andy Hunt of Practical Wellbeing.

Most EFT Level 1 trainings are just one day. You can learn EFT in a day, but it can be difficult to take what you have learnt and apply it to daily life without practice.

This two day training is designed to go beyond just teaching the skills and gives you the chance to learn how to apply these techniques in daily life after the training is done. When you have completed this training you will be able to use EFT on your own for all sorts of situations with confidence.

There is lots of time to practice, ask questions and develop your skills.

What people are saying:

“This Level 1 training was an intensive and inspirational introduction to EFT. The course covered a lot of material but without any sense of pressure. It was full of useful and helpful information which was delivered by Andy in a professional, clear and easy to understand format.

I am now converted EFT really does work.

The manual was well structured and extremely useful. Andy was very open to questions and was a gifted, compassionate and competent trainer.

I thought the course was fantastic and I left it feeling inspired and motivated with a whole set of skills and tools to use in everyday life. Thank you very much.”
- Leigh Ord

“A very effective enjoyable 2 days. I have learnt many tools and techniques to create a more peaceful mind. I found the experience of the movie technique extremely effective in clearing negative memories. Looking forward to Level 2.”
- Debbie Dixon

Where, when and how much?

10am to 5pm on March 3rd & 4th, 2012 at St Oswald’s Hospice Teaching Centre, Gosforth, Newcastle upon Tyne.

The Early Bird fee will be £125 until February 25th, then the full fee of £145 will apply

Anyone with an existing AAMET EFT Level 1 certificate can attend this course as a refresher for just £30, if you have previously trained with Practical Wellbeing you can attend for just £20. (Contact me directly if that applies to you)

I’m embarrassed to admit I used to read those Lobsang T Rampa (the fake lama) books as well.

You can find out more about Bill O’Hanlon on his website http://www.billohanlon.com/

I’ve been experimenting with this tapping protocol for a little while and it seems to be very helpful for me, but I would like a few more people to try it out before I publish it on the site.

If you would like to help test this process out, contact me and I’ll send you the instructions for the tapping routine for you to try out and let me know the results (which I will keep confidential)

I promise I won’t be spamming you or trying to sell you something. If the protocol works it will be published free of charge on the website, you won’t need to buy anything (or listen to me trying to sell you something).

Thanks for your help.

Andy
andy@practicalwellbeing.co.uk

“Afterwards I do work to dismantle those unhelpful reactions in me (this is why ongoing self-development and clinical supervision is so important for therapists).”

However, I didn’t say what I do to work with those reactions, sometimes referred to as transference and counter-transference.

Before I start: a short note readers who are not therapists.

I wrote this article for therapists, if you are a lay person who wants to get the best out of this article, I need to explain what this is all about, especially if you are a client or thinking about becoming a client.

In spite of what you may think, or have been led to believe, therapists are human beings just like everybody else. Hopefully they have been well trained and have many therapeutic skills, which is why you might want to see one in the first place.

But like all humans they are a work in progress and need to monitor their work and nurture their development to do the best they can for their clients.

In this article I discuss three ways that I use to improve my clinical practice so I can do the best for my clients. Other therapists use other approaches.

Now, back to the article.

In my opinion there are three essential practices that help you keep your therapeutic relationships clear and helpful:

1. Eliminate Limiting Beliefs

Find and eliminate all the unhelpful ideas that may be floating in the back of your mind that will impact on your work with clients.

Here is a small selection of some of the ones I found (and resolved) over the years in my own professional development work.

• I don’t know what I am doing
• I have to get it right first time
• I am afraid of being overwhelmed by clients
• I am responsible for my client’s feelings

Beliefs like this are very dis-empowering and are well worth eliminating because they lie around like little land-mines waiting to be triggered.

Unfortunately rooting out these beliefs is easier said than done, because, if you could see them easily you would have taken care of them by now.

See How To Find Your Limiting Beliefs With Just One Word! for suggestions or check out Getting Out Of Your Own Way for a more thorough system of belief resolution.

2. Get Clinical Supervision

In my opinion this a must for anyone working as a therapist. It is very difficult for us to see what’s going on because we are in the thick of it.

Having an experienced therapist on the outside of the situation as a guide helps us to reflect on what is going on and to get new ideas for ways to go forward, as we continue to learn.

A clinical supervisor acts as a safety net for both clients and therapist alike.

3. Use Effective Self Supervision.

Between supervision sessions you are left to your own devices. One process that I find very helpful is 3 Perspective Tapping. It is a step by step approach to neutralising unhelpful patterns of reaction and interaction using imagination and tapping.

I originally developed this blend of NLP and EFT for use with clients to help them clean up their interactions with the “difficult” people in their lives, but it works really well to unpack and resolve difficulties in therapeutic relationships, especially those currents that are running just below the surface out of conscious awareness.

Using The 3 Perspectives Tapping Process

In this process you use your imagination to explore what is going on for you and the client (who isn’t present) by marking out three positions on the floor in the form of a triangle. Each position is about a couple of paces apart. I use two chairs facing each other and a third chair as a position for the observer.

To illustrate the process I’m going to “role-play on paper” a scenario with an imaginary client to illustrate how the process works in the therapeutic situation. I’m going to call this fictitious client Mike.

When I met Mike, my first impression was that he was quite fragile although in good health and about the same age as me.

I noticed during our first session together that I was being very careful and cautious when I was working with him, in a way that was quite different to my usual style.

After this session with Mike I decided to use the 3 Perspective Tapping process to work out what was going on between us and how I could change it.

I arranged my chairs in a triangle formation and sat in the “therapists chair” and looked at the “client’s chair”, imagining the client sitting there, being himself.

Using this procedure will typically provoke thoughts, feelings and reactions in me which I can work on using EFT.

In this case let’s say I had the thought “he is fragile and weak” mixed in with a little anger.

I tapped on those reactions using “Even though he is fragile and weak, I accept myself and how I feel” as the set-up statement. A couple of rounds of tapping using the reminder phrase “fragile and weak” removed the charge on that perception.

Note: This process requires that you are very aware of what is going on in your own reactions and responses and that you can accept and work with what you find. However since this is what you expect your clients to be doing it’s not unreasonable to expect it of yourself also.

Then I checked again by “looking” at “Mike” to see if there were any other reactions being triggered. There was no residual charge so I could move on.

Then I got up and sat down in the chair I use for the observer. From this dispassionate perspective I imagined myself and Mike sitting opposite one another and observed the quality of the relationship between them.

From this observer’s perspective I could see that I (as the therapist) was frightened of challenging him. I tapped out this reaction using “Even though he is frightened of challenging him, I accept him and how he feels” as the set up statement.

Notice that I tapped on behalf of that other me in the third person as if it was somebody else, as I would if I really was an independent observer looking on.

When the charge on that had dissolved I looked again how I and my client were interacting.

I noticed that they were walking on eggshells. Another round of tapping using “Even though they are walking on eggshells, I accept them both and how they feel” took care of that.

With those aspects cleared I moved from the observer’s position to the client’s chair, as I sat on it I imagined sitting down “into” my client’s experience. Imagining how this situation appeared to him from his own perspective.

The thought “I am incredibly weak” arose in my mind. So I tapped out this perception using the set-up phrase “Even though I am incredibly weak, I accept myself and how I feel”. When the charge on this statement was cleared. I, as the client, imagined looking over at myself as the therapist and noticing if there were any untoward reactions.

A thought arose that “He is judging me”. I tapped out this perception with a few rounds of EFT and checked again, this time there were no reactions.

I returned to the observer position to check how the relationship was. There were no apparent glitches so I moved back into myself as the therapist.

When I was back in my own seat “looking“ at the client I felt much more relaxed and open, the previous uncertainty and inhibition was gone.

When we met in person for the next session, I was much more direct and helpful and my client seemed much more robust than he had at the first.

Even though Mike is an imaginary character and this is an invented scenario, this account is typical of the kinds of thought processes that can be uncovered and resolved using EFT.

You could ask: Aren’t you making up all these reactions and perceptions?

All these interactions are going on in your head not the real world.

The answer is yes but it probably doesn’t matter for two reasons:

First, if you have any degree of empathy (and if you don’t what on earth are you doing being a therapist?) then you will have at least some reasonable understanding of other people’s experience to go on.

Second, your reactions in the session are going to be to your ideas and projections of what that client is like anyway.

Think of a difficult client for a moment.

Notice your reactions to them as you think about them. You probably get a similar reaction when you are with them in person.

The fact that you can get these reactions without being with them in person tells you that these reactions are due to your inner representations of this client as much as to the client in reality.

In this process you are changing your inner representations of the client so your reactions and behaviour will be different when you are with them in person.

You could ask: Isn’t this process going to take hours for each client?

No, because once you have addressed this particular kind of entanglement you will be much less snagged by it in the future, so that all your future encounters of this type will be smoother and easier.

Although it takes a little time to run this process, in the long run it will make you a better therapist.

If you don’t do it then you run the risk of being snagged and snagged again by the same kinds of triggers. How much trouble is that going to be.

I have used the 3 Perspectives Tapping process many times to untangle therapeutic relationships that seemed to be off balance in some way.

Each time I have learnt something about myself and the client and been able to respond in a better way. It’s been a valuable part of my work to become a more effective, less entangled therapist.

At the time I was a student in Nottingham University. It was a Saturday afternoon and I was walking up the street towards the Victoria Shopping Centre.

It was busy, hundreds of people walking along, I could see the faces streaming from the entrance of the shopping centre: young, old, couples, families, groups of people and solo shoppers moving along in a river of humanity.

It suddenly dawned on me that behind each and every face was their whole life, just as whole and complex as mine.

They all had childhoods, good and bad experiences, successes, failures, hopes and fears, circles of family, friends and acquaintances.

They weren’t just bit players in my life, they had complete lives of their own.

This was a revelation to me, each new face concealed a universe as big as the one hidden behind my face, and there were so many of them.

This recollection occurred to me as I was teaching the Compassionate Self Acceptance workshop at ChangeCamp+Plus.

I use the model of compassion described by Kristin Neff in her book Self-Compassion which identifies three elements of compassion.

• Mindfulness
• Kindness
• Common Humanity

I was trying to explain common humanity, the notion that whatever our personal difficulties, these kinds of experiences will have been felt by countless other people.

If you get it, it leads to a broadening of your perspectives. I was having trouble coming up with a concrete example, then I remembered my experience in that Nottingham street 35 years before, which helped me explain this aspect of the process.

So I offer you this as a little experiment in expanding your perceptions of the world.

1. When you find yourself in the company of one or two strangers, perhaps in a doctor’s waiting room, sitting on a bus, in a shop or meeting. Look at each face and consider the idea that behind each face is a whole life as big as yours.

You probably don’t know what has gone on for that person in the past, its minute details you will never know,  we will only ever fully inhabit our own lives. So refrain from guessing and just acknowledge that there is another personal universe in the room, similar to your personal universe but with its own unique character.

2. In a situation with a lot of people: on a busy street, at a concert or sports event, look around and acknowledge that behind each and every one of those faces there is a whole life.

Image courtesy of Unlikely Ghost

“There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so”
- Hamlet, W. Shakespeare

Recently I took part in a conversation on a LinkedIn forum for EFT Practitioners. The thread discussion was started by the question -” I am just curious, what everyone does for themselves to protect their energy or clear themselves before and after a session?”.

There were lots of different answers to this question. All sorts of suggestions were put forward involving “energy protection”, herbal remedies, cleansing rituals, invocations and “divine” protections of one sort or another.

I was intrigued by the question because, although I use EFT, I don’t think of client sessions in terms of good or bad energy.

In my opinion the idea that clients have positive or negative energy that you have to protect yourself from has a lot of drawbacks.

From the original question and some of the answers, I think you can distill out the following underlying presuppositions for this way of thinking:

• There is negative and positive energy.
• Therapists work with these energies that the client brings.
• Negative energy is bad (for them and for you).
• Positive energy is good (for them and for you).
• Clients can leak negative energy which gets on to you and must be protected against.

From some of the answers you might think that the client was slopping negative energy around like poison from a bucket, which is what the therapists need to be protected from.

Let’s imagine that you are a client of a therapist who is operating from this point of view.

After a few minutes of working with this therapist you begin to get the sense that you are making them uneasy in some way. It’s as if they act like you are contaminated with something that they really don’t want to have anything to do with.

This could all be going on at an unconscious level for both of you. You might just have the feeling that there is something wrong without knowing why.

How would that make you feel?

If it was me, I would start to worry that there was something else that was wrong with me. Since people often come to therapy because they think there is something intrinsically wrong with them, having that confirmed at an (un)conscious level is probably not going to be very helpful to the progress of the therapy.

It gets worse.

Many clients often work hard to protect their therapists from their “bad” stuff. So as a client I might have to start monitoring what I was sharing so as not to alarm or upset the therapist.

From this therapist’s point of view they might feel they need protection from this client, or their negative energy is going to go all over them and be harmful to them.

Now you have two people in a mutually defensive posture that they may not even be aware of.

Does this sound like a recipe for success?

What’s an alternative?

This is my working hypothesis about therapy:

The client has experiences, feelings, thoughts and behaviours that are unhelpful to him or her. They are not “negative” or “positive” in any metaphysical sense, just unhelpful to them and those around them.

This constellation of experience, feelings, behaviours and thoughts belongs to them. They are unique to that individual. While their effects can be felt by those around them, that constellation belongs to the client.

Likewise, as a therapist I have experiences, thoughts, ideas, feelings, behaviours that belong to me.

In an ideal world I can be present to the client with all their stuff, however difficult it may be.

In an ideal world I’m not afraid of anything that they bring and I recognise that it is all theirs.

“I realise there’s something I do before I start a session. I let myself know that I am enough. Not perfect. Perfect wouldn’t be enough. But that I am human, and that is enough. There is nothing that this man can say or do or feel that I can’t feel in myself. I can be with him. I am enough”
- Carl Rogers

It’s not an ideal world.

In the real world, parts of their stuff may trigger parts of my stuff.

However, I recognise that my reaction to their stuff belongs to me not them. Afterwards I do work to dismantle those unhelpful reactions in me (this is why ongoing self-development and clinical supervision is so important for therapists).

From my client’s point of view I hope they sense:

1. That I accept them and their distress fully. I may not like it, but I’m not afraid of it or them.
2. That they can go wherever they need to go to get the results they want. They don’t have to look after me because I am not scared of what they bring. (This is not to dismiss realistic precautions for you and your clients physical safety – some clients can do scary, dangerous things)

From this perspective I don’t feel under threat and I don’t have to be scared of my clients inner world.

So is your client poisoning you? No I don’t think so.

This month’s EFT Café will be about the Stepping Stones process, a six step procedure that takes you from a current problem to a future outcome using EFT and NLP techniques.

It can be used with small, medium and large problems to give a route out of the problem and into a more useful outcome.

This process will be a useful addition to your tapping repetoire if:

• You don’t know where to start when working with problems.
• You know how to soften a problem but are not sure where to go next
• You want a reliable step by step problem solving protocol to follow.

The stepping stone process is based on an NLP based strategy I developed back in 2007 called Stress Relief In Six Paragraphs. Adding EFT to this process allows us to clear out the emotional charge from the problem and reduce the blocks to achieving the desired outcome.

The Stepping Stones process is designed to put the problem firmly in the past and clear the way to achieving the desired outcome.

This EFT Café will be suitable for anyone with some experience of EFT who wants to use EFT for coaching others or self-coaching. If you are a Level 2 Practitioner of EFT then the EFT Cafe qualifies as 2 hours of CPD.

Tea or coffee (you choose) will be provided.

This EFT Café will be on Wednesday February 8th from 7-9pm at St Oswald’s Hospice, Gosforth Newcastle upon Tyne. It costs just £10