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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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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
Fear of needles is cleared after addressing many aspects with EFT
Hi Everyone,
Some fears and phobias dissipate in moments with EFT. Others, as in this case by Nancy Southern, involve many aspects and require more skillful approaches.
Hugs, Gary
Dear Gary,
I was in the bank sharing with a friend about EFT and another woman came over as I was about to leave and asked to speak with me. She said she had overheard what I was saying and wondered if EFT might be helpful for her teenage daughter. The mother and daughter were planning a trip to Costa Rica this summer and the daughter had a fear of spiders that she thought could be a problem traveling in a tropical climate.
I agreed it would be worth a try even though the real test would come when they were on the trip. By teaching her EFT at least she would have a tool to call upon if the real situation presented itself.
Even before having a chance to work with her about the spider phobia, the mother called and said the daughter was very upset with the idea of the inoculations that they needed to get before the trip. Just imagining getting the shot would cause her noticeable distress. So the day before they were scheduled to go to the clinic I did a session with the daughter.
I asked her if there was a time before when she had a bad experience with getting a shot. She replied the only shot she ever had was at the dentist. I thought that could certainly be a reason, so asked her to rate it. Thinking about it now on a scale of 0 to 10, it was only about a 4. Yet when I asked about her fear of the inoculation, her intensity was between 9 and 10 out of 10.
We did a couple of rounds on the dental issue and got some decrease for that memory but no change for the anticipation of the shot the next day. I then decided to switch to the upcoming situation and used the Movie Technique since there was no other past event that she could remember. She opted to do it silently rather than describe it out loud.
She seemed able to visualize it vividly as I could see the reaction in her face as she began to go through each scene. As soon as I saw her face change, I would stop her and ask where she was in the movie and we would tap for that part of it. Once that was OK, I asked her to start watching the movie again and as soon as the intensity started to go up we would stop and tap for the next phase of it as she imagined it and so on.
The first part was the anticipation of going to the clinic, the next was sitting in the waiting room, then it was being called into the treatment room, then seeing the needle, and finally feeling the prick on her arm. Each phase had it’s own intensity level that varied from 6 to 10 out of 10 and each one we got down to 0 to 2 before moving on. After the “fear of the prick” scene, I had her start the movie over in her mind and go through it again very intently, trying to get herself to react by making the scenes as vivid as possible.
It took her quite a while and I was closely watching her face for any sign of anxiety or upset which did not happen. When she finally opened her eyes and I asked her how far she got, she very calmly said, “I got all the way through it including watching the nurse give me the shot and it was fine.”
A week later I saw the mother and when I asked how her daughter’s shot went, she smiled broadly and said very well. After it was over, the daughter said to her, “I can’t believe I made such a big deal out of it.” The following week I met with the daughter again for the spider phobia and asked her about the shot experience and she said, “It didn’t hurt at all. We did the ice thing and I held mom’s hand but I stayed calm the whole time. I had a short moment of feeling anxious on the way over there and I tapped a couple of times and was OK. In fact, afterward when mom’s arm was hurting and red, my arm was just fine.”
We then proceeded to work on the spider phobia. I won’t know how effective the effort will be until they return the end of August. Meanwhile, thanks so much for this amazing tool that is helping this young world traveler to neutralize her fears and be looking forward to her adventures in Costa Rica.
Sincerely,
Nancy Southern, MSW, EFT-ADV
