HOME
EFT ARTICLES
EFT VERSUS MTT?
AUTHOR LOGIN
AUTHOR SIGN-UP
SUBMIT ARTICLE INFO
SUBMIT ARTICLE
ABOUT US
NEWSLETTER SIGN-UP
LINK TO US



Kinesthetic Component & Trauma Resolution

Use creativity to overcome issues

By Rehana Webster

(Add or view comments at the bottom of the page.)

 

Background:

61 year old Nam vet.

30 years of flashbacks, nightmares, palpitations, anger, insomnia, repetitive thoughts

On several prescribed medications and sleeping pills

Joe (not his real name) was referred to me by an EFT workshop attendee with the hope that her father could be helped because for the past 30 years he had no help with his PTSD symptoms.

Joe had joined the army in New Zealand as a young man because the judge had given him an option of either jail or the army for a number of misdemeanors.  Joe volunteered a term of duty in Viet Nam over a 3 year period.  Many New Zealanders were very opposed to that war and even though the government of the day had supported the US in its war efforts, there was much opposition at the grass roots, much like in the later years in the US.

When Joe returned, the troops were herded in the back doors of the airports and sneaked out of public view.  Joe said that he had been spat on several times by people because he had volunteered to go to Nam.  When he spoke about his experiences, he was physically attacked several times so Joe just clamped up and kept all the experiences button up inside.  The several doctors and psychiatrists who treated him were only able to prescribe medications which have made no difference for him.

I explained how EFT worked and showed him the tapping points and got his permission to do the tapping for him while he reviewed events.  At first he said he just could not speak about a particular horrific event he had witnessed.  So I asked him to just go over it in his mind while I tapped and then to indicate with a nod when he was done.  We did this several times and each time when I asked him if he was ready to tell me the story he declined.

The whole idea about releasing trauma is to speak it out so that it is no longer just held in the body and running around in the head like a video with a life of its own.  I think it is very important to get the trauma out of the body where it is stored and wrecking havoc at the unconscious or conscious levels.

I asked Joe if he could see the event as a black and white movie in his mind, and he said that it was difficult and he couldn’t do it.  I asked him if he could imagine holding a remote in his hand and turning down the color in his mental picture.  This seemed to work a bit and he said the he felt a little bit distanced from the movie in his head.

This is when the kinesthetic component of trauma storage and interrupt comes in real handy for shifting the emotional responses.  I asked Joe to point where the picture was and no surprises, it was down to the right by his feet.

I asked him to pretend to pick it up and throw it way across the room to the opposite wall which was 20 feet away.  In fact I stuck a post it on the wall so he could use it as a target.  I encouraged him to use his arms as if he was really picking up something off the floor and fling his arms in an up and away motion.  We did this several times, chucking the picture off to the other side of the room.  Then I asked Joe to go over the event in his mind and tell me how it felt.  It was no surprise when he said that the picture was gone and he couldn’t really get it back.  I asked him to try again and it was the same response.  And of course, couldn’t feel the same feeling and started to quite naturally tell me in a calm voice about the event.  Yes, the even that was so horrible that 15 minutes he couldn’t share it with me and now he was talking quite matter of factly about it. 

The amazing thing is that he did it so naturally as if he could have always spoken about the event without getting hooked into the negative emotions.

I encourage people to act out the trauma by physically moving around while they are tapping to interrupt the storage pattern.  It works every time and is amazingly quick and effective.

After having worked on the first event, Joe knew that he could work through all the other events without fear of loosing it or having a major melt down.

What holds most people from working on their traumas is the fear of the pain they may re-experience.  Once they have experienced a trauma resolution in this way, there is no holding them back.

To summarize how we worked, I tapped on him continuously while he repeated the event inside his head.  He did not know the tapping technique but after the 2 hour session he knew where the tapping points were and could do the tapping himself.

I tap on all my new clients soon after the session begins and I’ve completed my data gathering about their issues.  I introduce it as a relaxation technique for them.  It gets them into a relaxed state so they can think about the traumatic event and not stress about trying to tap on the points at the same time as well.

When rapport has been established from the beginning of the session, the client feels they can trust me completely.  I establish rapport by using the NLP matching and pacing techniques from the time they walk through my door so rapport is well established at the unconscious level before we get into the trauma memories.


 

View All Articles by this Author

 

Author's Bio:

Rehana Webster, EFT and NLP Master.  Residing in Perth Australia and can be contacted for sessions, workshops and trainings.

 

2 Comments

 

simy
Posted April 08, 2010 12:18 PM

its sounds very professional your way of working ,id be interested to have a phone conversation with you .thanx simy

 

Rehana
Posted April 08, 2010 05:37 PM

Hi Simy,
Thanks for your feedback.
Please email me at connect@behaviourchanges.com and we can exchange contact details. I live in Perth, Australia and depending on where you are located, we can figure out a suitable time to make contact.
Look forward to hearing from you.

 

Leave a Comment

Name*:
Email*: (will not be published)
Comment*: (Please no HTML nor overt self-promotion in your comment.)
Math Required*: 2 + 5 = (proves that you are a human)

 

Disclaimer: All information on this website is for educational purposes only, and the content is not intended to suggest that it is a substitute for proper medical care or good common sense.

While EFT has produced remarkable clinical results, it must still be considered to be in the experimental stage and thus practitioners and the public must take complete responsibility for their use of it.

In addition, the articles on this site represent the views of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the founder of EFT, Gary Craig, nor the owner of this web site, Stefan Gonick.

Discover the 3 Keys to
Finding Lasting Love

EFT never ceases to amaze me! The process is gentle and often provides benefits where other methods fail.

— Dr. R. Vergini, MD

Your emotional health, your success in the world, and your level of joy can all be dramatically enhanced by shifting the energies that regulate them. That is the promise of the fascinating new field of Energy Psychology.

— David Feinstein, PhD

Resources

EFT Articles, Tapping Therapy Articles, MTT Articles, Energy Psychology Articles

This EFT article directory is brought to you by EFT-Alive.com.