WAILING ON WALL STREET

by Deborah Mitnick

Hello, EFT.

Since September 11, I've provided Critical Incident Stress Debriefing (CISD) services twice for groups at the Pentagon as well as for other businesses and firms in Virginia and Washington, DC. I've also been on-site for four days at one financial company on Wall Street, just blocks from Ground Zero. In a couple of days, I'm returning to New York to work with more groups in the downtown area.

I have visited Ground Zero, as close as I was allowed to get...and I was shocked at how much worse it is in person than what I saw on television. I think what shocks me most is how it smells there. To me, it is the smell of decay, the smell of death.

The rubble is bigger in person. The broken windows are more broken in person. The rescue workers look more dwarfed by the rubble in person. The still-smoking site is even more dramatic in person. The police officers cry real tears when I go up to them and put my hand on their shoulders.

I cried harder in person when I saw all of this. And then I tapped to help myself.

I looked up at the tall buildings on Wall Street and I tried to imagine what it must have felt like and sounded like as the World Trade Centers came down. And I felt scared for my own safety. And then I tapped to help myself.

When I was taking the elevator up to a high floor so I could work with this financial company on Wall Street, I felt scared. And I tapped to help myself.

When I looked out of the very high-up windows with these folks, I was scared and shaken. When I heard their stories of how they watched the second plane come by those windows, and when they told me that they actually looked into the faces of the people in that plane, just seconds before that awful crash, I was scared with them. But I was grieving even more. And I mentally tapped to help myself while I listened to these horror stories.

I am well trained and EFT-savvy, so I knew how to take care of myself.

But these folks at this company didn't have any of my skills. So I knew I would have to teach them.

Several crisis management companies have hired me to do provide CISD's after major traumas. According to my contracts with them, all CISD meetings must be conducted using the protocol that I was initially taught. That means that I would not be allowed to use EFT during formal CISD sessions. (In my opinion, those sessions would have gone much faster if I had the option of introducing EFT at that point, but I needed to respect my contract.)

I worked at this company on Wall Street for four days. I ran many formal CISD groups and heard much wailing and sobbing and grieving. I did my best in these groups to provide them with education and comfort so they'd know that their reactions were most likely normal reactions to totally abnormal events.

However, I had a lot of time for individual sessions and I taught a lot of EFT then. I had the honor of working with lots of crying, wailing, terrified people. And EFT helped them all.

I want to tell you about one such session now. (All identifying information has been changed.)

"Frank," age 37, was the most enraged person I have seen since I worked many years ago in an Emergency Room with psychiatric patients. In fact, I became concerned for my own personal safety and I asked Frank if he had a weapon with him. He didn't, but he did have a very impressive history of violence that we talked about for over an hour. We also talked about his fury and rage that he directed to all levels of Government.

His office had been in the World Trade Center for over 10 years until he took the job in this other company on Wall Street. He knew about 200 of the people who died in the World Trade Center.

Frank was shaking and sweating. His voice trembled. He told me he hadn't slept since September 11. His concentration suffered. He had black out spells. He suffers from severe hypertension and takes his own blood pressure every day. His pressure was "sky high," he told me.

After the incident on September 11, he raced down the steps of this very tall office building (where I was talking with him) and "…ran all the way to New Jersey where I sat in a field for two days, away from all tall buildings."

He couldn't get the odor of the burning towers out of his clothes, so he burned and destroyed those clothes.

I had let him "talk" for over an hour and his rage was still at the highest possible intensity level. It would not have been appropriate to introduce EFT until this point because of some cultural differences we had and because of his "belief system" about counseling.

But I was biding my time and knew I would have a chance to use EFT with him.

With just minutes to go in the session, he finally evidenced more openness when he said, "I can easily tell you how I feel and I don't feel judged by you." At this point, I knew EFT would be appropriate to use now.

I asked him, "What is the most obvious and prominent physical symptom that you have right now that represents this rage?"

He said, in a voice vibrant with rage and intensity, "Look at my fingers! Feel my fingers! My hands are ice cold and my fingers are shriveled like raisins! My fingers are numb. I can't feel them any more."

His intensity on this symptom was a six on the 10-point scale.

We tapped for "Even though I have these numb and cold and enraged fingertips, I want to deeply and completely accept myself."

We ran through the shortcut version. I also offered reversal affirmations on the meridians under the nose and on the chin point for self-esteem and for deservedness. What we said here was, "Even if I think I can never get over these cold and numb fingers of anger…." And "Even if I think I don't deserve to get over these cold and numb fingers of anger…"

In addition, I introduced him to three spots that have been identified to me as "anger" spots: top of the head, under the breast (liver point), and the side of the index finger. Here we tapped for "These cold and numb emotions."

Alternating with the "challenge" as I've stated it above, I used the other side of the body to tap for his "choice" of how he wanted to be. He wanted to be warm again.

The way I use "Choices" is slightly different from Pat Carrington's method, as I understand it. I always have the client tap on one side for the challenge and then immediately alternate to the identical spot on the other side for the choice. This helps the unconscious "remember" that there is choice every time there is challenge.

So, with Frank, we tapped the right eyebrow for "numb and cold fingers" and then the left eyebrow for "being open to choosing warming thoughts." And then we tapped the right, and then left side of the eye points with the same phrasing. And we continued through all of the points in this manner.

Well, it was just two rounds that we tapped this way. And then Frank looked at me and smiled. And then he looked in amazement at his fingers. He said, "Feel my fingers! They are warm! [They were warmer than my fingers.] Look at my fingers! They are smooth! They don't look like raisins any more! How did you do that? I don't believe the change! But most important, I don't feel rage any more. Yes, I'm very sad about the horrors, but feeling that degree of rage can't be good for me. I can tell that my blood pressure is lower already. And my fingers are warm and smooth. Clearly the anger has drained from my body. How can that be? But it is. I am so grateful to you. No one has ever helped me so fast with any problem."

He shook my hand with his warm fingers (and in the process of doing that, he warmed my own fingers as well as my heart) and he went home for the night.

The next day, he returned to my office to tell me, "I am no longer angry. The tension has left my body. It doesn't help me to watch TV now. I cannot change what happened. I can now talk about the Government, but without being personally angry. To be personally angry hurts my body and my emotions. I will be more helpful to others now that I can think clearly and now that my blood pressure is lower."

He asked for the tapping points and wrote them down.

Then Frank smiled at me and thanked me again.

When he left my office, I closed the door so I could be alone for a minute. And I sat there pondering, once again, the efficiency of this tapping process. It took no more than five minutes. His rage was gone. He had a fabulous cognitive shift that allows him to "hold" the events of September 11 in a fashion that will not hurt him personally any more. His blood pressure is lower. He is no longer wailing.

And all he had to do was tap!

Deborah Mitnick, LCSW-C