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Applying EFT in Clinical
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EFT in Clinical
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Claude Improves His Fishing With EFT
By EFT
Master, Patricia Carrington
Gary Craig's
Introduction:
To
some, this will be a trip into the ether. To others, it will
provide evidence, and a possible EFT link, to the far reaching
effects of our inner attitudes on our outer
circumstances.
Almost everyone
recognizes that we radiate our inner thoughts through such things
as our posture, gestures, voice intonations and choice of words.
People pick up on this, of course, and tend to respond to us in a
manner commensurate with what we are "putting out." Thus if we
are internally angry, people will tend to be angry back. If we
are internally peaceful, people will tend to give us peaceful
feedback.
Nothing new
here.
But
what about the effects of our internal state on the "non-people"
elements of our outer world? Do our internal thoughts affect
those as well? There have been many scientific experiments
proving the effects of our intention on both living and inanimate
objects. It is for real. Dr. William Tiller gave us a
fascinating trip into this world as part of his presentation on
our Steps Toward Becoming The Ultimate Therapist
videos.
Along these
lines Dr. Patricia Carrington provides us with the story of
"Claude" whose ability to catch fish rose dramatically after
using EFT to improve his inner states of confidence,
embarrassment and jealousy.
We
can dismiss this account, of course, as being too
"woo-woo"...OR...we can use it as evidence of exciting potentials
within us. Which you choose, of course, depends on your inner
thoughts (smile).
__________________________________________
Speaking of using
EFT “for everything” (Gary Craig’s oft-repeated
advice), I would like to report an
unusual effect of this technique which was reported to me by
Hank Krol, a counselor at Stairways Behavioral Health, an
outpatient mental health clinic in Erie, Pennsylvania which deals
with severely disturbed patients.
Hank has
developed a most interesting method of dealing with major
depression using EFT. It involves breaking up the (much too)
general category of “Depression” into 15 component
depressive symptoms, having the patient check those which apply
to him or her, and then applying EFT to each one in turn, usually
over a number of sessions. I have written up this method for
therapists and others interested in the treatment of depression
in my current EFT News & Innovations Newsletter, but I will
report here a rather puzzling effect of EFT
experienced by one of the depressed patients whom Hank Krol has
been treating.
“Claude” (not
his real name) sought help at the clinic following a prolonged
hospitalization for major depression. When commencing to treat
him, Hank followed Gary’s recommendation to demonstrate the
efficacy of EFT right at the start when attempting to win
newcomers over to the technique. He began by using EFT with
Claude on relatively minor issues completely unrelated to his
depression.
The first
application was for a shoulder and lower back pain for which the
tapping brought immediate relief. Claude’s pain (on a 0-10
scale) came down from an initial “7 or 8” to a
“1” by the end of the session, and Claude conceded
that EFT was effective.
When he
returned for the next therapy session a week later he had used
EFT several times in the interim and this way he had managed to
keep his shoulder and neck pain minimal. He then asked Hank,
quite out of the blue, if he thought EFT would “help me
with my fishing”.
Claude is
semi-retired and one of his favorite pastimes is going down to
the local creek where a number of experienced fishermen assemble
daily. His girlfriend introduced him to fishing following his
discharge from the hospital and he took to it right away. Being
somewhat of a perfectionist, he bought all the right equipment
(the very best) and carefully observed the other fishermen,
making sure to use exactly the same bait that they did, to fish
in the same area, and so forth. While on the one hand he looked
forward to his new hobby, it had so far been extremely
frustrating for him.
There were
usually at least ten other fisherman lined up on the bank and,
according to Claude, almost all of them would manage to catch
large numbers of BIG Steelhead Trout (Erie is the top city in the
world for this variety of fish) each time they fished. By
contrast, although the creek is known for its exceptional trout,
Claude would consistently leave at the end of the day with only a
couple of “small fish”, if any, in his
pail.
This was
particularly frustrating because to his knowledge he was doing
nothing differently from the other fishermen, but rather
following their procedures “to the letter”. He
recalls that he fished with minimal luck on at least 15 to 20
different occasions and did not experience a single successful
day during that time.
Claude was
persistent however and he kept on fishing. In fact, he was
wearing his fishing boots at this session and preparing to return
to the creek right after his appointment.
Hank
responded to Claude’s question about using EFT for fishing,
by saying, “Let’s try it.” It is
important to note, however, that Hank did not have Claude address
his fishing problem as “the problem”— that is,
he did not suggest that he tap on, “Even though I’m a
failure at fishing…” or similar statement. Instead
he questioned him about his EMOTIONAL REACTIONS to the failure
and asked Claude to tap only on his feelings.
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