Miranda: Repressed memory of childhood sexual abuse

By Gary Craig

Miranda, age 51, attended a 3 day EFT seminar in February of 1996. In recent years, she had harbored a haunting feeling of being sexually abused around age 5 but had no specific recollection of any such event. She was made aware of this possibility through a spiritual adviser but her only evidence was this feeling (which was a clear drag on her self esteem) and the fact that her father told her she had a distinct personality change around age 5. She agreed to work with me on stage in front of 20 seminar participants.

Tears came even before we started as she immediately announced she was afraid to find out what had happened. She had a clear expectation of success (and thus a valid fear of finding out) because she had witnessed a 90% success ratio for the previous 2.5 days for everything from pain to phobias to traumatic memories to sinus problems. This expectation of success stands in contrast to most conventional therapy where it is usually expected to take weeks or months to see even the first signs of progress. This expectation on Miranda's part is a testimonial to the power of these procedures.

I applied EFT to Miranda's initial fear and it subsided in moments. She then verified that she was ready to go ahead with the repressed memory and I proceeded to address her "block to recalling the memory." Eventually, she recalled the incident but along the way she went through a series of separate "uneasy feelings" which she was unable to identify with labels such as grief, fear, disgust, etc. These were just intense feelings about the issue and that's all the identification she could give them. However, it was clear that each of these feelings was a separate aspect of the whole problem because each came with its own distinct combination of tears, body trembling and stiffening of the arms. I used EFT for each of these feelings (there were 5 or 6 altogether) and each of them subsided in short order. To my knowledge, no individual algorithm exists for repressed memories or unidentified feelings and that is one reason why the all-purpose EFT algorithm proved so helpful.

After about 20 minutes of applying EFT to this multi-faceted problem, she recalled the incident in detail. The abuser was her uncle. She recalled the penetration without emotional charge and even remembered his specific words, namely, "This is how uncles love their nieces." She was emotionally free of the issue. No charge whatsoever. We even joked about it along with the audience.

In the 15 months since this session occurred, Miranda has successfully used EFT for other issues (such as headaches). However, she has had no need to use it for this incident because it no longer occupies any mental space. She feels free of it and described our session as providing a "clearing of the issue." Except for my recent follow-up phone call and the discussion of her EFT seminar experience with friends, the issue no longer comes up. It is gone as a piece of emotional baggage and she "doesn't think about it anymore." When discussing it with me recently, she retained only a normal, mild degree of disappointment about her uncle's behavior.

Hugs, Gary