Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) also known as tapping, is a clinically proven form of “emotional acupuncture without needles”. Used by therapists, psychologists and millions worldwide to ease emotional distress and clear negative emotions, beliefs, and memories, it’s setting a new tone for how we manage stress in the modern world.
EFT works by tapping a series of acupressure points on the face and upper body with two fingers whilst voicing the issue. This helps to “short-circuit” the fight or flight (stress) response and re-wire our brain to think more clearly about the problem. It moves our nervous system into the restoration and repair stage so we can heal from the high levels of stress hormones we’ve been living with.
Sounds crazy, but science has proven it works! Tapping has been researched in more than 10 countries, by more than 60 investigators, with results being published in over 100 papers. Health organisations are now acknowledging the benefits and the profound results achieved.
The mind body connection is now largely accepted and acknowledged even by traditional doctors; that emotional disharmony is a key cause of physical symptoms and disease.
Not only does EFT work on our emotional health it can also help with our physical health and pain. By tackling the emotional element to the pain, the emotions around living with the pain or memories attached to the event around the start of the pain EFT can help alleviate pain from the physical body.
The techniques Julianne uses with EFT are vast and for young children they are fun and creative, we can use colours and shapes instead of using words to connect to the emotions. They don’t always need to be focused on specific events as they are already tuned into the emotions.
For adolescents who are known to not want to talk or open up, who are resistant to engage in therapy EFT can be a simple way for them to address their difficulties with little talking, techniques can be used where they can visualise the events and just share thoughts and feelings rather than details. This is a powerful way to allow them to gently find the courage to open up. I’ve seen the most resistant and deviant young people making rapid changes with some gentle tapping.
Julianne can also offer coaching or mentoring pre therapy, We are often in a contemplative stage before we make changes. We are aware we need to make changes or something in our lives isn't working but we are unsure what to do or to think about how the changes may look like.She can offer opportunity to talk through the difficulties and offer a space to think about the stages you may need to go through to be ready for change.
This can be helpful when there is a big change needed, we can look at other strategies and intervention that may offer a more gradual approach. This is helpful for teenagers who want to just speak to someone and not see it as therapy. Julianne has a huge tool kit of strategies that can be drawn upon to help this process.