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Deepak Chopra, MD
"EFT offers great healing benefits."
Emotional Freedom Techniques® Where emotional relief brings physical health
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Delayed reaction to EFT--back pain & rape trauma
Hi Everyone,
This is about delayed reaction--a phenomenon that happens often enough with EFT to merit our attention.
I have two examples to give you on this subject and the first is a personal experience by Jeff Cramer. Jeff wrote me a note regarding the complete cessation (after a delayed reaction to EFT) of his 3 year bout with persistent and chronic lower back pain. I then phoned him for details so that I could give you a more complete picture. Accordingly, you will find his original message below with my comments interspersed therein.
Hugs, Gary
JEFF: I had had lower back pain for 3 years. It was so painful that it would take me several minutes to "relax" in bed just to get my back flat enough to lay comfortably. I could not lay on my side because it twisted my back, although slightly, very painfully. I had been to Chiropractors with only temporary success. I was told by one doctor that it was probably stress related and that this type of lower back pain tends to be around money and security issues. All of which seemed pretty true at the time. After learning the EFT method I tried it out on my back, but noticed little success. I figured that it was too much pain for this type of technique.
GC COMMENT: Jeff's perception of "too much pain for this type of technique" is a common one. It is also wrong--at least in my experience. I have seen many intense emotional and physical ailments vanish in moments. On the other hand, I have also seen some milder issues take much longer. The criteria here is NOT how intense an issue is but rather how complicated (multiple aspects, underlying core issues, etc.) it is.
JEFF: Two days later I woke up and had not realized that I was not in pain anymore. It was as if my back had never hurt and I had forgotten the pain was ever there.
GC COMMENT: In our telephone conversation, Jeff related that he didn't notice the pain the FIRST morning (after EFT) either. He just didn't notice that he didn't notice. This is the delayed reaction we are illustrating here. There was apparently no result during the tapping session but, the next morning, there was complete relief for the first time in 3 years. As you will see below, the relief was long lasting.
JEFF: I kept an eye on it for several days, twisting, turning in bed, bending, doing anything I could think of to bring back the pain. It's been a year and a half and I am still without pain in my lower back."
Jeff Cramer
The second example involves a rape trauma.
I remember quite clearly a delayed reaction from "Margaret"--a lady I helped 4 years ago regarding her "rape trauma at gunpoint." She told me before we started that she had always refused to do any type of treatment for this issue because the mere thought of it was so intense. It haunted her and seemed to be ever-present. The only reason she was willing to try EFT was because of the relatively gentle nature of it.
Our session was not conducted under ideal circumstances as it was done mostly during the lunch and dinner breaks at one of my seminars. Nonetheless, we did many rounds of EFT for many, many aspects of this traumatic event. We spent about 45 minutes altogether and addressed every possible nuance of the event--e.g. the feel of the gun against her body, the look on his face, his voice, her pounding heart, the penetration, etc. During all of this, Margaret would report feeling "a little better" but continued to report high intensity. When we finally ran out of time she reported that she really didn't think much had been done. With that I apologized for any discomfort she may have felt and went about conducting the seminar.
Her report, however, didn't match my intuition. To me, despite her comments to the contrary, she had made an impressive, if not complete, recovery from this issue. Her posture, the way she talked, her calmness and that intuitive thermometer that I see in my mind's eye all pointed toward substantial relief. Nonetheless, the bottom line is how the client feels and so I had to put that front and center.
Out of curiosity, though, I called Margaret about two months later to see how things were with this issue. She said she had been "too busy to think about it" (interesting response regarding something that had persistently haunted her). She also said that SHE HAD GONE BACK TO THE SCENE OF THE RAPE AND HAD NO EMOTIONAL RESPONSE ABOUT IT. This would have been unthinkable before our EFT session. It would have been waaaaay too intense. Further, I had occasion to speak with her gentleman friend (lover) two years later and asked how Margaret was doing with the "rape trauma at gunpoint" issue. He said he didn't know because SHE DIDN'T BRING IT UP ANY MORE. It was, apparently, a non-issue.
Clearly something worthwhile happened for Margaret even though the improvement was not apparent (to her) during the EFT session. To my knowledge, there were no other healing techniques applied. She simply did EFT with me and then went about her business.
Hugs to all, Gary
Interesting comment from Crystal Hawk
Regarding delayed reaction for back pain when using energy techniques. We find the same phenomena when using Therapeutic Touch (TT). I always advise my clients receiving TT for back pain to give it about 3 days, but they usually report diminished or absence of pain after 1-2 days, and often over-night.
Also, regarding "too much pain for this type of technique", with reference to EFT. Yesterday I saw a young lady who has been in constant debilitating pain since early December when during an operation to remove her gall bladder the doctors physically moved her rib cage apart. Muscles and tendons are, of course, also involved. After two rounds of EFT she was completely without pain.
