EFT AS A TOOL TO RESOLVE ANXIETY: A CASE STUDY APPROACH

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International Journal of Psycho-Social Research (IJPSR), July, 2020, Vol. 9(1) Advanced Science Index: 1.3
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EFT AS A TOOL TO RESOLVE ANXIETY: A CASE STUDY APPROACH
Dr. Neerja Pandey1
ABSTRACT
Background: The present work examines the extent to which Emotional Freedom Tech-
nique (EFT) is effective as a tool in resolving anxiety. In recent years various mental health
professionals have been focusing on the use of alternative therapies like Thought Field Therapy
(TFT), Hypnotherapy, Past Life Regression Therapy, and Reiki but there is a paucity of empirical
research on the underlying factors for managing emotional challenges and turmoil.
Objective: One of the latest techniques, EFT, was established by Gary Craig. Case study method
was used for the present case of one individual who had a very high level of anxiety.
Measures: To measure the level of anxiety Subjective Units of Discomfort (SUD) scale, as an
introspective technique for experienced emotional and psychosomatic discomfort, was used as a
pre and post measure. Findings: Major findings were at two levels a) intensive effect of one
traumatic event on the adult life (in this case anger leading to performance anxiety and fear of
authority), and b) how EFT helps a person to understand and handle emotions in positive manner.
The implication of the study is that the person who practices EFT regularly would be in a better
position to understand and handle disturbing emotions. It is a cost effective, easy to learn, simple
to use tapping technique that can be used anywhere, anytime, and any number of times in a day. It
can be used for all emotions and body pains.
Keywords: EFT anxiety psychosomatic ailments tapping discomfort.
INTRODUCTION
Human beings have a powerful
mind that has an equally powerful habit of
thinking. Dealing with human-beings sig-
nals dealing with human mind. Dealing with
human mind entails dealing with thoughts.
And dealing with thoughts signifies deal-
ing with emotions. Emotions, in turn, colour
the way people perceive, understand, and
tackle the ups-and-downs of their life. The
negative, painful, toxic, unhealthy, and ha-
bitual patterns of thoughts (developed in
childhood and carried through into adult-
hood) create corresponding negative, pain-
ful, toxic, unhealthy, and habitual patterns
of emotions. If left undealt with and bottled
up inside, chances are that these emotions
will explode one fine day with drop of a
hat. So is the case with anxiety. Persistent
anxiety, especially during unusual and test-
ing times, creates complications in life.
There are various ways and methods to deal
with anxiety one of them being Emotional
Freedom Technique or EFT.
EMOTIONAL FREEDOM TECH-
NIQUE OR EFT
The inherent capacity of the body
to repair and remodel itself is used in EFT
that is a brief exposure therapy combining
cognitive and somatic elements and focuses
on resolving emotional trauma that might
underlie a presenting manifesting condition
(Church, 2010)1. It was developed by Gary
Craig, an Engineering graduate and NLP
certified master practioner, between 1995
and 2010; the duration in which he devel-
oped and improvised upon his own tech-
nique. Gary Craig was a student of Dr
Rodger Callahan, a clinical Psychologist,
who has worked towards healing people
from fears, phobias, trauma, stress etc.
(Hartman, 2003)2. It dramatically reduces
the therapy time from months down to min-
utes or hours and there is no side effect from
EFT because there are no surgical proce-
dures, no needles, no pills, no chemicals,
no pushing or pulling on the body (Craig,
1995)3.
Assistant Professor Psychology1, Amity Institute of Behavioral and Allied Sciences, Amity University
Lucknow Campus, Uttar Pradesh, India

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PROCEDURE
a) Checking Subjective Unit of Dis-
comfort/Distress (SUD)
b) Set up: affirmation/EFT statement
c) Tapping on tapping points
d) Breath out: breath-in through the
nose and breath-out through the
mouth while keeping both hands on
the chest. Need to do it at least 7/8
times.
Repeating the affirmation along
with tapping on the karate chop (centre of
the fleshy part of the outside of our hand,
either hand, between the top of the wrist and
the base of little finger i.e. the part of the
hand one would use to deliver a karate
chop). Tapping with the tip of index and
middle fingers on the karate chop three
times and then on different tapping points
which proceed down the body below one
another. Tapping is preferred to be done with
dominant hand on the non-dominant hand.
Subjective level of discomfort being expe-
rienced by the client is explored before start-
ing with the tapping.
The intensity of an emotion is mea-
sured by noting down the Subjective Unit
of Discomfort/Distress (SUD) which was
originally named 'Intensity Meter Scale' by
Craig and later renamed as SUD. It provides
a benchmark against which to measure
progress. The client is asked to close his/
her eyes and rate the intensity of the dis-
comfort on a scale from 0 to 10, where 10
represents the highest subjective unit of dis-
comfort and 0 represents no discomfort, as
it exists now while he/she is thinking about
it. Case study research refers to an in-
depth, detailed study of an individual or a
small group of individuals. Emphasis is
placed on exploration and description of a
phenomenon. It is narrowly focused, pro-
vides a high level of detail, and can com-
bine both objective and subjective data to
achieve an in-depth understanding (Centre
for Innovation in Research and Teaching).
RATIONALE
The researcher has learnt the concept, use,
and effectiveness of EFT in hypnotherapy
training.
One case that had the most power-
ful impact on the researcher was of the stu-
dent (pursuing his post-graduation) who had
been repeatedly failing his semesters, was
a chain smoker and had been on psychiatric
medicine for 7 years for depression. She
used EFT continuously for two-and-half
hours with him, changing the statement as
and when needed, till the memory of the
core issue surfaced. It brought with it the
revelation that all these years he had been
reacting negatively to his situation. The new
awareness helped the student re-align his
thought patterns and the corresponding
emotional reactions. With guidance and
regular practice of EFT the student came
out of his mental status, started talking to
his father and improved his relationship with
him, quit smoking, was off the medicines,
and cleared his back-papers. Today he is in
his native place taking care of his father's
business.
While looking for published work
on EFT, the researcher found that maximum
publications were from other countries. she
could manage to find only two Indian pub-
lications and one conference presentation
which have worked with EFT. Ms. Ambika
Warrier (2018)4, and Dr Jasubhai with Prof
Mukundan whose work have been pub-
lished in 20185 whereas Mr. Yuvraj Kapadia
had presented his work in World Congress
for Regression Therapies, 20066. There are
many books on EFT which are written by
Indian authors. The published researches are
mentioned below in review of literature sec-
tion.

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REVIEW OF LITERATURE
Warrier (2018)4 worked with 46 clients to
understand the effect of EFT tapping on
Anxiety and Quality of Life on adults who
were invited to a two-week long interven-
tion programme. The anxiety level was re-
duced significantly with three sessions. State
Trait Anxiety Test was used to measure anxi-
ety level using 3 EFT sessions on everyone
in a span of two weeks. Jasubhai and
Mukundan (2018)5 worked with 10 subjects
suffering from anxiety and depression and
they concluded that EFT treatment produced
marked improvement in depression after
three sessions. Kalla, Simmons, Robinson,
& Stapleton (2018)7 interviewed eight prac-
titioners of EFT and after the data analysis
it was found that EFT may be used by health
practitioners to support the psychosocial as-
pect of chronic disease healthcare. Boath,
Good, Tsaroucha, stewart, Pitch, and
Boughey (2017)8 worked with EFT to re-
duce anxiety & improve communication
skills in students of social work. Participants
found EFT calming, relaxing and helpful.
Boath, Stewart & Carryer (2013)9 used EFT
on 46 Staffordshire University students to
reduce anxiety and to stay calm and focused.
Stapleton, Dawson, Sheldon, Porter, &
Carlopio (2013)10 have worked with de-
pressed adults who were obese. Four-week
EFT treatment brought the obesity down and
with it came down the depression symp-
toms. Feinstein (2012)11 researched fifty-
one peer-reviewed papers that reported
clinical outcomes of acupuncture tapping to
address psychological issues leading to con-
clusion that demonstrated strong effect of
EFT. Church, Asis, & Brooks (2012)12 used
EFT as an intervention for depression in
college students which resulted in reduced
depression in EFT treatment group. Beck
Depression Inventory was used to assess the
students for depression. EFT has also helped
people overcome their anxiety of public
speaking (Jones, Thornton, & Andrews,
2011)13. Church (2010)14 used EFT for
five days on 11 war veterans suffering from
post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and
statistically significant improvement was
found which was maintained at 30 and 90-
day follow-ups. It has been successfully
used as an alternative treatment for fear by
Wendy & Mark (2003)15.
EFT is being used for issues ranging from
chronic pains to phobias, anxiety, trauma,
depression, fear of public speaking, academ-
ics, PTSD and many more. However, efforts
to study the efficacy of EFT in India is in its
infancy stage.
OBJECTIVE: To examine the efficacy of
Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) on
with the anxiety.
METHOD
Case history of the client is taken,
mental postulate is picked-up (the distress-
ing emotion or issue based on which the
EFT statement is constructed using the
client's own words), check the subjective
unit distress/discomfort (SUD), start with
EFT, if the current issue gets resolved then
practice for 21 days advised for it to become
a habit. Using the Case Study method with
ideographic approach (observe and explore
a single participant) one case of anxiety has
been illustrated in the present paper.
CASE OF AK - Anxiety.
AK, a 24-year-old under-graduate
student had come to psychology department
as a subject in practical class and had scored
95 on Anxiety Scale. The psychology stu-
dent referred him to the researcher (a coun-
sellor and faculty in Psychology department)
for his high anxiety level. AK reported that
he has had anxiety since 2016 when he was
in another college in other state studying in
B.Tech. He could not clear three papers and
got year back twice. He used to fall sick with
severe stomach upset due to anxiety every
time during exams. Once he had slept dur-

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ing one paper. He has been living happily
with his maternal grandparents in India
since childhood whereas his younger brother
lives with their parents abroad. He reported
that his maternal grandparents (Nana and
Nani) are his substitute parents.
The presenting complaints were that
'he gets irritated with small things; gets at-
tached to things like a pen, once he lost a
pen and cried for two days because of it;
one thought keeps going in circles in his
mind'. His irritation, whenever the routine
was upset, used to get converted into anxi-
ety leading to non-productivity in terms of
his studies. 'Kutch socha aur who nahi hua
toh anxiety hoti hai, kutch karne lagta hoon
to ajeeb lagta hai'. He had the belief that 'to
be successful in life you need to adhere to a
set routine and if you do not follow the rou-
tine then you will not be successful'. The
researcher, with his consent, picked this up
as his mental postulate and asked him to
rate his anxiety on SUD. He put his anxiety
on SUD 10.
The EFT setup phrase that we con-
structed was: "Even though I feel that to be
successful in life you need to follow a set
routine and if you do not follow the routine
then you will not be successful in life, still I
choose to heal and integrate that part of me
totally and completely. I love and accept
myself". He repeated the statement loudly
along with gentle tapping on all the eleven
prescribed tapping points (referred to as
round one).
After first round of EFT, he had to
rate the intensity again and it had come
down to 7, after second round the intensity
was at 3, and by the end of third round it
had gown down to 1. The amazing part was
that during the third round of EFT, a memory
surfaced of the time when he was two years
old. In this memory he was scared of his
father who was shouting at him. He remem-
bered that the scolding was because of low
marks. Researcher used Psychodrama at this
point, asked him to remain in that memory
and visualise himself as the 24-year-old
adult putting both his hands on the shoul-
ders of the 2-year old AK to comfort him.
AK was instructed to tell the young one that
'it's over, I am here with you now' which he
promptly did. Then AK was asked to tell
his father, in this memory, that he loves him,
but AK refused to say so. Because the cli-
ent is not supposed to be forced to do any-
thing against his wishes, he was asked in-
stead to bring the 2-year old inside in his
heart and let him grow to the current age.
That part of AK's consciousness was inte-
grated which had been left behind at the age
of two. Understand, all our experiences,
memories and emotions are stored in our
subconscious mind.
EFT tapping continued and same
memory of 2-years of age resurfaced but this
time the young one was not scared, rather
father's face seemed nervous. The adult, 24-
year old AK, realised that father was ner-
vous for some reason and he was not angry
with him. This awareness was therapeutic
for AK who, in this memory, hugged his
father and told his dad that he loved him.
The complete session was of 40 minutes'
duration with three rounds of EFT tapping.
During this session, the researcher
became aware of disturbed father-son rela-
tionship wherein AK informed that he hadn't
talked to his father since childhood, his fa-
ther has been strict and had been more con-
cerned with percentage in academics. After
practicing EFT for 21 days, he reported on
23rd day that he was talking to his father
now. AK had called up his father and had
telephonic conversation with him. Later he
participated in college beauty pageant in
which he was the top five finalists.
This case represents a fundamental
aspect of emotional handling in everyday
life. Emotions that affect us negatively, that
do not let us live our life fully, that do not
let us achieve our goals, that are no more
needed and can easily be released.

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DISCUSSION
Effectiveness of EFT in dealing with
issues ranging from reduction in depression
to treating anxiety, PTSD, Phobias along
with physical ailments has been established
through researches (Dawson, Feinstein,
Stapleton and many more). EFT is a cost
effective, easy to learn, simple to use tap-
ping technique that can be used anywhere,
anytime, and any number of times in a day.
It can be used for any emotion and body
pain. Persistence pays in EFT.
The researcher has used EFT as a
tool to break through the resistance of indi-
viduals. Client reaches a very relaxed state
by the end of second, or at the most third,
round of gentle tapping. By this time the
conscious judgements, analyses, and justi-
fications get exhausted and suppressed
memories with corresponding emotions sur-
face up. Review of the event from present
grown-up's perspective becomes therapeu-
tic for the client. On the other hand, new
neural pathway is formed, by repeating the
phrase, "I choose". Also, the client is choos-
ing to take charge of how she/he feels. Thus,
the older pathways are counteracted. More-
over, when the memory of the painful event
surfaces, then psychodrama at this stage
helps let go of the somatic charge (bodily
reaction) associated with that memory. The
researcher has learnt to call this whole pro-
cess "onion peeling" because the emotional
layers peel away, one by one, just like the
layers of an onion till we reach the inner
core. EFT can be monitored by self. Ini-
tially, in the throes of emotional disturbance,
it is advisable to undergo therapy with the
therapist/counsellor to get a feel of it, to un-
derstand how to keep formulating the men-
tal postulates i.e. the EFT statements and to
become familiar with the emotional bodily
charges as and when they surface. It be-
comes highly effective with habit formation
of being aware of bodily changes under
emotional barrage.
Handling of emotions is the most
important life skill that a person can have
to be successful in life. Furthermore, under-
standing of emotions is most important to
be able to enjoy that success in life. Emo-
tional Freedom Technique is a skill that
empowers and enables the individual to first
identify the emotional disturbance and then
dissipate it. With practice and conditioning,
short version of EFT can be used which is
equally effective and doesn't take more than
five minutes. The short version comprises
of karate chop tapping and breathing out
only.
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