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Articles & Ideas

General

Useful thoughts on integrating EFT within the military

Important Note: This article was written prior to 2010 and is now outdated. Please use my newest advancement, Optimal EFT. It is more efficient, more powerful and clearly explained in my free e-book, The Unseen Therapist™.  Best wishes, Gary

Note: This article assumes you have a working knowledge of EFT. Newcomers can still learn from it but are advised to peruse our Free Gold Standard (Official) EFT Tutorial™ for a more complete understanding.

Hi Everyone,

Kiya Immergluck shares her thoughts about the "macho" environment within the military and the built-in resistance to getting EFT integrated therein. She says, "Despite efforts to reduce the stigma of getting treatment, officials say they fear that generals and other senior leaders remain unwilling to go for help, much less talk about it, partly because they fear it will hurt their chances for promotion. Since there is still a stigma in the broader American culture against psychiatric help, it is especially problematic in the "macho" atmosphere of the Armed Forces."

Hugs, Gary


By Dr. Kiya Immergluck

Many soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan avoid seeking psychiatric counseling to deal with wartime trauma because there is a "culture of silence" on the subject of mental health problems and treatment in the military. Very little is discussed about the fact that thousands of troops are  returning home with anxiety, depression and other emotional problems. 

In a recent article from the Associated Press, it was mentioned that as many as one-fifth of the more than 1.7 million who have served in the wars are estimated to have symptoms of emotional problems associated with combat.  In a sign of how tough it may be to change attitudes, studies have shown that roughly half of those who need help are not seeking it. 

Despite efforts to reduce the stigma of getting treatment, officials say they fear that generals and other senior leaders remain unwilling to go for help, much less talk about it, partly because they fear it will hurt their chances for promotion. Since there is still a stigma in the broader American culture against psychiatric help, it is especially problematic in the "macho" atmosphere of the Armed Forces.

One possible solution is to promote the use of alternative healing modalities such as EFT. EFT is not yet well-known enough to be generally accepted as a form of treatment, but it certainly lacks the stigma of a "psychiatric" label.  If and when EFT can be promoted as a simple, "self-help" tool that reduces stress and effectively eases symptoms of PTSD, soldiers might be willing to give it a try. 

Officials across the service branches have taken steps over the last year to make getting help easier and more discreet, such as embedding mental health teams into units. They see signs that stigma has been slowly easing, but it is feared that it may take generations before acceptance of psychiatric care is reached in the military.  I believe that it won't take any time at all (once EFT is introduced and accepted in all of American society) for soldiers to accept and benefit from such a simple technique. 

My hope is that EFT could be taught to soldiers as part of their basic training.  I can imagine military personnel realizing that it is easy, effective and inexpensive to teach soldiers how to stay calm during the most grueling of circumstances in a war zone.  With no special equipment or facilitators, a soldier could learn EFT and simply tap for himself on his own acupressure points anytime he feels stressed out.  I believe that EFT Training BEFORE soldiers are deployed could eventually eliminate, or greatly reduce the incidents of PTSD after the soldiers return.  Best of all, if the military comes to accept that EFT is simply a form of self-administered stress relief, it could potentially permeate the armed forces as a totally acceptable technique with absolutely NO STIGMA attached!

Dr. Kiya L. Immergluck, LCPC

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