Using EFT to negotiate with multiple personalities

By Annie O'Grady, EFT-ADV

A nurse in her thirties attending one of my EFT groups relieved her lower spinal pain for which she'd been having ongoing chiropractic treatment.  Encouraged by this, she later began several 90-minute EFT sessions with me every two weeks.

She was also being treated regularly by a psychologist for Dissociative Identity Disorder (which used to be called Multiple Personality Disorder).  She had developed a set of alter personalities following childhood incest abuse that went on from babyhood until age fourteen. 

She was now managing her life and her responsible job in a state of extreme tension and fatigue while living alone ('my relationships never work out'), and she wanted help with anger outbursts at work.  Carol (not her name - and she has given me permission to share this) hoped that as we built rapport, her alter personalities would allow me to help reduce their pain. 

In our third session, this began to happen.  We had initially begun using EFT to calm Carol's anxieties, treat an adult sexual trauma and a troubling incident with her dog, and dissolve a belief that 'something will always go wrong'.  We also tapped away 'a really loud inner voice that drives me crazy', without probing if this was an alter.

Carol later reported that she was calmer at work and much less angry.  She said, 'I'm also less confused, which means that now I've got more time on my hands, because I don't need to correct things.  And one huge difference is my diary.  My handwriting's now neat, not messy!'  She said tentatively, 'There's a happiness coming.  That is fantastic for me!'

As a complementary therapist and teacher specializing in both past lifetime resolution and breathwork for more than twenty years, I'm comfortable empathizing with clients' visionary realities and utilizing these for healing.  This includes dealing directly with individual aspects of personality. 

In this case, I expected that at least some, if not all of Carol's alter aspects would be trapped in the past, so protective of her in the childhood scenario that they had not adjusted to safety in the present.  This proved true.  She did not know how many alters had developed, but guessed at eight. 

She had buried the bulk of abuse memories, which began being spontaneously triggered in 1992.  During our third session, Carol suddenly felt 'a real calm around a still hard core' (of pain).  She said, 'There's some agitation, a sense of "I've been found out, and that might get me into trouble."  There's a waiting, to see what will happen.  Not sure if it's safe.'  She heard in her mind the words, 'Could we really be going to get some help at last?'

Two sessions later, Carol began by telling me of her troubles with nightly teeth grinding which she had done for years.  Although she wears a mouth guard at night, the pressures are still uncomfortable.  She had once cracked a front tooth in sleep, now has a silicone filling to protect that tooth from further grinding.  

The mouth grinding, she said, was done by one of her alters, 'Rhonda', whose function was 'to prepare the body for danger'.  Carol added that another alter, 'NoName', had the job of 'keeping all the yuk stuff' (the abuse memories).  I asked Carol to ask Rhonda if she would like to feel more comfortable.  Carol closed her eyes and mentally communicated with Rhonda, who 'said' yes.  So I invited Rhonda to tap along with Carol and me as we dealt with:  Even though I need to grind my teeth at night…

After one round of EFT her level of intensity went from 10-plus to 9 on a scale of 0 to 10.  Carol reported that her jaw felt looser.  She said now that the jaw clenching was a response to 'fear of what's about to come'.  We worked with this fear, and with 'the perpetrator in my jaw', and reached a level of intensity of zero out of 10.

Next to come up was Rhonda's guilt, for damaging Carol's mouth.  We (three) tapped the guilt from 10 plus to zero out of 10.  I included in the free wording a reference to Rhonda's job being finished now, because she had done such a good job.  I knew that getting rid of alters was not the aim, as present understanding is to integrate them.  So this healing, we felt, would necessitate assigning Rhonda a new job.

I suggested that instead of grinding the teeth in order to alert Carol to impending danger, if Rhonda perceived any danger, would she like perhaps to ring a bell, which would be a lot more fun?  Rhonda responded enthusiastically.  Carol reported that Rhonda was immediately trying out the bell.  They negotiated that Rhonda would practise with the bell only for the next hour, and from then on would ring it only if it was needed.  

Carol was feeling calmer.  I asked if Rhonda would like to find NoName and tell her that she, Rhonda, was feeling happier.  Carol said, 'Rhonda has to look for her among the black tunnels.  Oh, she's found her and told her.'  I then asked if NoName would like to feel happier.  NoName said yes, and also agreed to try tapping along with us.  Carol said, 'She has a heavy heart, we'd better start with that.'  A physical pain in the heart also surfaced while we did nine rounds of EFT from a 10 plus to a zero out of 10:  Even though my heart is heavy, and I have a heart pain…

NoName then volunteered that her name was actually Jessica, and she now felt more comfortable.  I asked Jessica if she would like to feel even more comfortable.  The response was, 'If it's this easy, yes.'  I said, 'What would make you feel more comfortable?'  She said, 'I would like to let go of the knowledge of all this yuk stuff.'  I explained that although the knowledge would probably always be there, what she could let go of was the pain of having the knowledge.  She agreed.  This took seven rounds of tapping by the 'three' of us, to zero:  Even though I have the pain of all this knowledge…

With the release of pain, we then verbally terminated Jessica's old job as Keeper of the Old Memories.  Carol said that she really needed help with her memory in the present, so we awarded the willing Jessica the new job as Helper with the New Memories.  Rhonda chimed in with, 'We've all got new jobs!  Great!'  

Next, another alter surfaced, called 'The Grumpy Old One'.  Grumpy was grumpy about Carol's loss of precious childhood joys and freedom.  We tapped this from a level of intensity of 10 plus to zero out of 10, changing the wording to:  Even though I was robbed of precious childhood joys, I deeply and profoundly accept, love and forgive myself.

As Grumpy was not grumpy any more, Carol gave her the job of helping her to feel happy in the present.  Carol reported that in her inner vision, the three parts were now happy, grinning, and 'all outside the black tunnels'.  Her jaw was more relaxed, but after testing we collapsed a tension residue of 4 out of 10.  I checked for any sadness at letting go of old familiar feelings, she found none.  But she did have a new urgent problem, which we tapped to zero:  Even though I don't yet know how to safely be in my new state, because I've never experienced being this happy before.

At the end of this session Carol and I spent some minutes sharing our wonder at what EFT can do.  I just hoped she would not be kept awake that night by a bell ringing!  (Later - she wasn't.  And she said, 'The grinding is definitely reduced but needs more work.')

I checked with Carol that what we'd been doing was compatible with the psychologist's work.  She said, 'His aim is to integrate them, but they won't, because it hurts.  So any pain we can let go of is a good thing.'  In our last session, a new alter 'appeared' with a helpful suggestion. 

This work with the alters had in a sense been taking the edge off the issue.  Soon we were able to start using the movie technique on some specific abuse events that she then recalled.  Our next challenge will be her sleepwalking, which recently got her into an embarrassing situation of setting off her apartment building's burglar alarm.  Apart from my own immense gratitude for EFT, the technique's myriad successes make it an exciting new frontier in consciousness research for all of us.

Annie