1) Do you think EFT is mainly a distraction technique, so it doesn’t really deal with the root cause of problems?

Try distraction under any other name. It doesn’t work for changing someone’s response the next time. EFT is not about distraction.
Root cause is not a very precise term, but yes EFT is not a masking technique. They respond differently the next time.

2)Would you suggest it only works on certain people, who are willing to accept it?

No. Scepticism is a good starting point. Acceptance of a technique is not necessary for it to work.

People often think you have to believe in something for it to work. Not true. Placebo’s work even when people don’t believe in them.

Remember you have a paradox here. People will tell you they don’t believe in something, yet they are doing it, swallowing it, trying it, etc etc. What do they “really” believe?

3) Should it always be used in conjunction with counselling? Would you ever recommend an EFT only course of action?

No, and heck yes.

Go to emofree.com and download the basic recipe. Follow the instructions to the letter, and in an hour you should have been able to tap on a dozen things and you can decide for yourself if it is for you. At worst you’ve wasted an hour. If you prefer to have a person teach you then it might cost you some money for that. Demand provable results in the first session, and methods you can walk away and do for yourself.

I think you wanted to ask me questions to get the critical viewpoint. I don’t think you’ve got that from me with these questions.

The worst criticism one can have of EFT is that it is a waste of time, waste of money, load of psychobabble, or just plain silly. Otherwise it is pretty innocuous.

My fundamental issue with EFT is there is too little effort to bridge the divide between users and researchers. EFT theories get more esoteric and the claims more incredible, but the support in the literature lags way behind.

When something claims a 80+% cure rate it can’t be that hard to prove, can it? Well, it seems it is.

Thanks Martin

There is a question mark in the title of this series. It is there deliberately.

Lots of things have had a history of success and are now bunkum.

Gary Craig has taken EFT into some strange areas with some wild claims. I don’t think this is necessary, or useful.

I do have a lot of trouble with the EFT video on Gary Craig’s site. There’s a lot of hype and some claims about findings using Live Blood Cell Analysis that I’m not altogether convinced about (these are discussed on my own blog). However, there’s a lot of hype on many therapies. It doesn’t mean they’re devoid of substance so much as The American Way of putting an idea forward is generally to follow the same marketing approach established by the traveling medicine shows. A pity as it makes it hard to distinguish between the profound and the absurd.

Good to find another therapist in the blogosphere. Welcome!

My spam filter blocked your comments because they had outgoing links in them. Both comments are useful.

Yes I checked out Wikipedia before publishing this article. The research you quote from there is brilliantly thought out and executed. I pondered about writing leaving it out or adding a Part 3, because it was already very long for readers.

The study says EFT’s effectiveness “derives from components shared with more traditional therapies already established as effective treatments for specific phobia.” I think that downplays the differences of EFT. EFT does a reconditioning in a much neater way than standard therapies. Exposure therapy just plain sucks for the recipient, in comparison to EFT where you just feel silly for a while.

A lot more needs to be done in this field.