This text is part of the special book Plaisirs
Born 30 years ago, this method of stress reduction has the great merit of being within everyone’s reach.
“Introduction to tapping », announced the program of activities. It was a few weeks ago, at Spa Eastman in the Eastern Townships. Listening only to her curiosity and putting her skepticism on hold, your devoted one attended the conference given by Martine Gariépy, practitioner certified by the EFT International association.
Offered for about a decade, “intermittently, depending on the availability of practitioners”, they explain to me at the spa, the Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) are nothing new. “These stress reduction techniques by releasing emotions date back to the 1990s, notes Mme Gariepy. It was an American psychologist who developed the protocols for use. »
Disappointed by traditional psychology, this American, Gary Craig, was inspired by the work of a compatriot, Dr.r Roger Callahan, for developing EFT. “By studying the energy meridians, Dr Callahan discovers by chance that the stimulation of some of their points has effects on emotions! » point out Agnès Bévierre and Jean-Michel Gurret in their book Serenity at your fingertips (First Editions, 2020).
One could thus describe EFT as being a kind of psychological acupuncture. “His theory states that our discomfort in life comes from an imbalance in the flow of energy through our body, and proposes to restore harmony through the meridians of Chinese acupuncture, whose ‘EFT is an emotional version,’ writes Sophie Merle in EFT Energy Psychology (Editions Medici, 2008).
For Martine Gariépy, the method releases this energy and eliminates blockages by giving the nervous system the signal to calm down. But so much Mme Gariépy that the authors quoted above insist that EFT should never be considered as a substitute for medical or psychological treatment.
How does EFT work? By tapping specific points on the face, upper body and hands, while focusing on an equally specific event that upset us, and the negative emotion that resulted.
The range of issues that tapping can treat would be endless, whether it’s a phobia, physical pain, a traumatic memory, or an addiction you want to get rid of. “Gary Craig demonstrated the effectiveness of his method with Vietnam veterans who suffered from symptoms of post-traumatic stress,” says Ms.me Gariepy. She herself, a former Cirque du Soleil tax expert, says she solved a problem of financial insecurity thanks to EFT.
A wellness tool
A sequence of EFT is performed in less than a minute. “We must first identify a specific event and the corresponding emotion and say them out loud, in words that make us vibrate”, explains the practitioner. An example of wording? “Even though event X made me feel emotion Y in my heart (or my solar plexus), I totally and deeply accept myself. It sounds like a magic formula! “Yes, and it works! »
Sophie Merle maintains that this sentence puts an end to “the inner struggle for a moment, the time to carry out a liberating round of tappingwithout interference from the subconscious.
Before beginning the tapping, the level of suffering felt is first rated on a scale of 0 to 10. Then, the phrase is repeated three times, while tapping quickly on the side of one hand, then again, once and in an abbreviated way (this fear, this anguish, this anger, in short, the problem in question), by tapping each of the eight points of the sequence. Once the round is over, the degree of suffering felt is again assessed in order to take note of the progress made. Or not.
At the end of the round, sometimes we start laughing or crying, and sometimes we haven’t made any progress. “In this case, it is often because the formula lacked precision, and this is the number one error, says Mme Gariepy. You can’t say, “Even though I’m stressed…”, because a host of things — bills piling up, a colleague you don’t get along with, planning a vacation — can stress you out! It is then necessary to start again by reformulating the whole in a more pointed way. In fact, we start again as long as we haven’t “treated” all the facets of the problem we are trying to solve, each of them representing a blockage to be dissolved.
If your devoted skeptic was not confused this time, the fact remains that serious studies report the benefits and that nothing is lost by trying EFT!
This special content was produced by the Special Publications team of the To have to, relating to marketing. The drafting of To have to did not take part.