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Deepak Chopra, MD
"EFT offers great healing benefits."
EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques®) Where emotional relief brings physical health
Self help method often works where nothing else will No Drugs Involved ~ High Success Rate
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EFT for panic attacks and claustrophobia -- quality approaches
Note: This article assumes you have a working knowledge of EFT. Newcomers can still learn from it but are advised to get our Free EFT Get Started Package or our Affordable DVDs for a more complete understanding. For more, read our EFT Info and Disclaimer Document.
Hi Everyone,
Aristides Molina - Dunas from Venezuela does a first class job of helping a claustrophobia client. Note how he tests the client for different aspects and uses visualization to mimic the actual claustrophobic circumstance.
Hugs, Gary
Fatima, 39 years old, came to my office a year ago to solve the panic attacks brought about by her problems with claustrophobia. It was a serious problem since she couldn't enter shopping malls, take the subway, or get on planes.
On her first visit, we did several rounds of tapping, trying to focus on her fear of shopping centers, something that kept her from sharing time with her kids when they were in search of entertainment. Due to a lack of a specific event that would indicate the beginning of her claustrophobia, the EFT treatment was centered on the level of physical sensations produced by the mere idea of being inside a shopping center. An obvious aspect causing discomfort was the crowd of people. After that first session, Fatima was able to go into shopping malls and share time with her kids.
On her second office visit, 9 months later, Fatima paid me an emergency visit. It was a Thursday and she had to leave the following Saturday for Portugal. An eight-hour trip on a plane was looming over her like a menace. Normally, she would take sedatives, but she wanted to try traveling fully conscious, as any normal person would do. She had previously undergone treatment with psychologists and they had given her medication for her panic attacks without any improvement.
At first, I told her we could try going to the subway to see how she reacted, but she totally refused.
We had an interesting session of EFT, where we worked with visualization, simulating the steps that included boarding the plane, the takeoff, and the actual trip. During the various stages of the visualization, different physical sensations and emotions popped up that were reduced to a zero with EFT. After an hour, we had mentally covered the whole trip. Then, since we couldn't board a real plane while in my office, I suggested we try our luck at the subway after I finished my day's work. She immediately accepted, just as firmly as she had refused to go at the beginning of her visit.
I went with Fatima to the Altamira subway station in Caracas. She looked pretty determined so, as a test, I tried creating some discomfort by pointing out the trip we were going to make. I used phrases like:
"You must realize that we are going to use the escalator and, when we do, going down is inevitable. How do you feel about that?"
"We are going to go 30 meters underground. How do you feel about that?"
"The air is different down there. How does that make you feel?"
She consistently answered that she was fine.
Therefore, we entered the subway and stood on the platform. When the train arrived, Fatima started feeling panicky so we immediately did EFT using the phrase "this emotion". I noticed that the feeling was so real and obvious that there was no need to spend time looking for words, but just do tapping to restore her energy balance.
The train left without us, but Fatima was feeling fine and was the first to board the next train. We traveled several stations in one direction, got off and returned in the opposite direction without any incident.
Trip to Portugal: Recently, Fatima told me about her trip to Portugal. She did it without taking any medication. She was able to eat during the flight, something she had never done before. In the 4 instances she had felt some discomfort, she immediately did some EFT.
EFT also helped her a lot in Portugal, since she had to go through many mountain tunnels. She told me that EFT was the tool that helped her deal with the phobia produced by those enclosed spaces.
Evidently, Fatima's phobia case has many aspects that have been eliminated to a large degree, but not totally. Nevertheless, there has been a notable improvement and it has had a radical impact on her quality of life. As you can see, it is vital that we teach our clients the Basic Method as an integral part in an EFT treatment.
Aristides Molina - Dunas
Caracas, Venezuela
Translated from the original Spanish by Gladys Munoz, a member of the EFT Insights Spanish Edition translation team.
