How do you work with a traumatic incident that a client does not remember?

By Rosalind Bubb

I worked with a lady called Sophie who had chronic breathing problems. Before she began using EFT she was only getting about 30% of the normal amount of oxygen into her lungs, and had been in intensive care on a number of occasions. All of our EFT sessions have been conducted over the telephone, as she lives abroad.

When we began working together, I asked Sophie to draw up a Personal Peace list, of incidents from her past which still have an emotional charge to them when she thinks about them now. In our previous four telephone sessions we had dealt with lots of different memories of immense anger and rage towards her mother. Between sessions she had been tapping for improvements to physical symptoms in her lungs, and with her anger and rage at her mother. Her breathing had been improving over the month - she could now feel the air getting right down deep into her lungs when she breathed.

Sophie's siblings were very supportive of her journey to heal herself, and her sister had just recently told her that she remembered witnessing their brother Peter beating Sophie very badly when she had been a child and that Sophie had become hysterical. This incident wasn't on her Personal Peace list. Sophie had no memory of this at all and hadn't known it had happened until she had just been told about it. Her sister had refused to go into any of the details of the incident.

We decided to work on it. Before we began, I pre-framed it, and instructed her unconscious mind to continue to keep it hidden from her, if that is what it felt was best for her. It had been doing a very good job of keeping her safe up until now and there was obviously a good reason why she didn't remember it. She didn't need to remember it, to be able to tap on it.

I told her we could make it up and guess what might have happened, and release it just as effectively like that, but that we were not going to go into that now.

We began very gently. I didn't want to get into any specific details at all, in case we did suddenly bring up something very traumatic.

Even though this horrific event happened, and I don't remember anything about it at all, and that's a good thing, because it was terrible, and I don't need to remember this, and my mind is doing a wonderful job keeping me safe from this, I deeply and completely love and accept myself, and I am completely safe now.

Sophie pointed out that she loved her brother Peter, and that he had been very good to her, particularly since she had been ill, and she loved him dearly and had forgiven him completely for it. They were close, now. She knew he couldn't control his rage back then, anymore than she had been able to in the past. She didn't blame him at all for doing this and she wasn't angry with him.

We agreed that it was wonderful, that she had forgiven him, and that her body probably still had energy blocks in its system associated with this event, and that it would be great to release all of those now and to fully heal this incident.

We agreed that Peter probably felt a lot of remorse about the incident and that he would hate to feel that he might have contributed to her being ill.

Even though this incident was horrific, and it affected us all… and I love and forgive Peter, because I know he couldn't help himself, and I ask that this process allows him to begin to forgive himself too, because neither of us deserves to continue suffering over this.

Even though this horrific incident affected everybody who was involved, I love and forgive Peter, and I choose for love and forgiveness and peace to extend to everyone in my family who was affected by this.

These two set ups made her cry gently, which had never happened before - nothing we had done up until now had ever accessed this level of emotion. We double-tapped silently together (over the telephone, with me guiding her through the tapping points) until this wave of emotion had passed.

She said that although she had no memory of the event, a terrible sadness had come up, that this had happened, and that she felt like she was releasing it now.

Even though I have this terrible sadness, and I am so sorry that I had to experience this, and that it had such an impact on me and Peter and everyone involved… and I love and accept Peter, and I send love and forgiveness and healing and compassion, to that 10 year old girl, and to everyone affected by this incident.

This made her cry again, and we double-tapped silently until it had passed, and she said it felt very good to be extending the love and healing to everyone who was affected. She said she could feel a heaviness in the right hand side of her chest.

Even though I have this heaviness in the right hand side of my chest, and it's associated with this terrible incident, I love and forgive myself for anything I might inadvertently done to cause this, because I didn't mean this to happen, and I am completely safe now.

The heaviness disappeared. Bearing in mind that Sophie had no memory of this incident, I asked her to guess what number it would be, on a scale of 0 to 10, if she could know how intense this incident would be now. She said it would have been a 10 (or a 15!) but now it was a 7.

She wondered if she had done anything to cause it? She wished she could have just taken the dog for a walk, as he had asked, and then none of this would have happened. We re-framed this.

Even though I don't know what I did to cause this, and I wish I hadn't done it, and maybe there was nothing I could to do to avoid it.

Even though I can't turn back time, and Peter was just an upset waiting to happen, he was an explosion just waiting to be triggered, and it's not his fault, it's a result of all the things that had happened to him in his past, and he couldn't control his rage, and I don't blame him for that… and I love and forgive Peter.

Even though I was really unlucky, and I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, and I happened to trigger Peter's rage, and I didn't mean to do that, and he couldn't control it… and I am completely safe now.

She seemed very calm and undisturbed, and at a place of acceptance, so I asked her to shut her eyes and to imagine watching a silent movie of the event, way off in the distance, and she said she felt very peaceful about it, and it was now a 3 out of 10. This was the Movie Technique, but still keeping some distance from it, by making it silent, black and white, and far away from her. Notice that although Sophie still didn't have any memory of the actual incident, she didn't hesitate about imagining a movie of it.

Even though this horrific event happened, and I didn't mean it to happen, I choose to release it from my energy system now. I'm ok, I'm completely safe, it's in the past and it can't hurt me now. It's never going to happen again.

She re-ran the silent movie in her head, and it was a zero. I thought it was safe now to introduce some vivid details and to try to drive up any remaining emotion, so that we could release it, and I asked her to add colour and a sound track to the movie, and to imagine him shouting at her and her screaming, and her sister shouting to let her go.

Even though this happened, and it was awful, I'm ok now, it's in the past.

Even though this happened, and he was shouting at me and kicking me and punching me and pulling my hair, and I can see his face and hear the sound of this voice, I'm completely safe now. I can relax. It's never going to happen again.

She re-ran the movie in her mind, with the sound track. I asked her to exaggerate the sights and sounds and the colours and see if she could get any emotion up at all - she couldn't. She thought it was done, but I wanted to make sure that she knew - and that her body knew - that it was really ok to heal now.

Even though this happened, it's in the past, and I'm safe now, it's over, and I can relax. My lungs can relax, my body can relax, it's ok for me to breathe deeply once again.

Even though this event happened, it's never going to hurt me again. I choose to release it fully from my body, from my chest, from my lungs, from the lining of my lungs. I'm ok, I'm safe, I can relax, and I can breathe deeply. It's ok for me to breathe deeply. It's safe for me to breathe deeply. I deserve to breathe deeply. I'm allowed to breathe deeply.

Even though this happened, it's in the past, it's over, and I'm allowed to take my place on this earth once again, I can breathe on this earth once again, I'm allowed to take my place and live freely and healthily and breathe deeply on this earth once again.

She said that this all felt wonderful, she loved being able to say it, and she felt like something very powerful had happened. All the words had been spot on - how did I do that? I explained it had definitely been what Gary Craig calls "through me, not by me!"

We completed the session with her being delighted with the progress she was making. She was certain she will be totally well.