Sarah’s Case Study Using EFT
My first contact with Sarah was by telephone. She was in her late 40’s, married with a daughter. Her case was quite complex and over seven 2 hour sessions we made significant progress to enable her to overcome many of the difficulties that had plagued her for her entire adult life.
She told me that she had suffered from agoraphobia for the past 30 years. She has long suffered with panic attacks and feelings of sickness and nausea. She had a long history of alcoholism and also became addicted to drugs prescribed for depression.
Cars and coaches were a real problem for Sarah. She hated motorways, traffic jams and was not comfortable when being driven in a car by someone else; especially if she was with someone who she felt she could not be honest and say she needed to go home. Simple pleasures like being able to take her daughter out on the train or in the car shopping were almost impossible for Sarah.
Just getting out the house involved going through elaborate rituals of locking and checking everything was how it should be. She worked creatively in an artistic field and felt she was blocked and couldn’t take her business forward. We decided to use EFT to root out and treat the underlying emotional issues to help Sarah overcome her problems. I felt the best place to treat Sarah was in her own home.
EFT Treatment
By tapping whilst discussing Sarah’s difficulties, it came to light that she had a real fear of losing control of her bodily functions in public; especially of being sick. She had unpleasant memories of being travel sick during car journeys as a child which spoiled holidays and Christmas. Around the ages of 13 -14 she started to develop Obsessive Compulsive Disorder believing that she would be sick if she did not perform certain rituals before leaving the house. Other painful memories of occasions when she had lost control of other bodily functions exacerbated the situation.
We tapped whilst recalling some of these painful memories using the ‘movie technique’ and treated the physical symptoms which manifested using ‘visualization techniques’. We tapped on many issues including:
•The fear of embarrassment
•Lack of control of bodily functions
•Not wanting to get into the situation in the first place
•Not being able to come home when she wanted to
•The fear of being trapped
•Getting stuck in a traffic jam
By the age of 15 Sarah smoked, was addicted to alcohol and was sexually promiscuous. She was trying to fulfill a deep seated need. She later suffered great regrets and a feeling of loss from a broken long term relationship. She also failed a degree course due to drinking and suffering from panic attacks. Sarah had been punishing herself ever since. She felt a failure and wished she could be ‘normal’
We tapped on many more issues including:
•Her feelings for her lost love and how she felt about herself for messing it up
•Forgiving herself for getting hooked on alcohol
•Forgiving herself for failing her degree
•Being a ‘dependant’ character
•Her relationship with her parents
•Her lack of self confidence with her business
An important part of an EFT treatment involves reframing negative beliefs or looking for an alternative positive slant on an issue. For example, in Sarah’s case, we tapped away the hurt or ‘charge’ from her feeling that she couldn’t be dependant on herself and having to rely on other people or substances to get through. We reframed this to include:
•I don’t want to burden other people because I’m such a considerate person
•I don’t want to depend on other people
•I’m starting to trust myself more because I know I can rely on myself
•I feel good and strong right now
•I can give it a go
The Test
Part way through our 6th session I suggested to Sarah that we drop everything and go out in the car for a drive. At the start of our treatment Sarah would have been completely unable to do this for many reasons.
She agreed, got her coat happily and we went outside without her performing any locking or checking rituals. She hadn’t realised but I had arranged for my husband, a stranger to her, to drive us. Before the start of EFT treatment this would have caused her great anguish, but she seemed completely unfazed by it. I sat in the back with her and we drove off with me noting how she felt. She felt fine.
We approached a motorway junction and I asked her if she would feel happy if we drove down it. Before treatment she would have refused but she had no problems at all. After leaving the motorway we got stuck in queuing traffic. Normally this would have triggered panic in Sarah but she coped admirably.
This proved to Sarah and me that the EFT treatment had been very successful in freeing her from negative beliefs which triggered panic and prevented her from simply leaving the house and going out in a car.
Better still, a couple of weeks later Sarah was able to drive herself into a busy city centre approximately 15 miles away and spend the whole day exhibiting her work at an exhibition. She coped admirably.
Sarah still has EFT work left to do, but I have taught her self help techniques to use as necessary and her day to day life is now much easier.
My grateful thanks go to Sarah (not her real name) for letting me publish her case.
Charlie’s Case Study using Matrix Reimprinting
This case study was first published in the text book Matrix Reimprinting using EFT by Karl Dawson and Sasha Allenby in 2009 and later in 2019 in The Science Behind Tapping by Dr Peta Stapleton. At the time I did this work, Matrix Reimprinting was a very new, evolving technique and to my knowledge I was the first person in the world to use this technique with a child.
Here I guided Charlie through the process of working with his ‘ECHO’, the ‘Energy Consciousness Hologram’ or the part of his consciousness that froze and split off energetically into his energy field or ‘Matrix’ at the point of trauma.
Creating an ECHO during the freeze response, that naturally occurs when we are subjected to a trauma, is a safety mechanism that protects us from being overwhelmed. It helps us deal with the trauma at the time. As long as the trauma is held by the ECHO, it subconsciously alerts us to avoid similar situations in the future. Working with ECHOs is an extremely effective, yet gentle way of dealing with the long lasting effects of trauma.
Charlie’s Worries about Starting a new School
Charlie is a very likeable, sensitive and intelligent 11 year old. He adores playing football, is a devoted Manchester United fan and in my opinion is spiritual beyond his years.
My first EFT session with Charlie was conducted during his final weeks at Primary School. He had passed his 11+ and was due to start Grammar School in September. He was worried about an unpleasant incident that he had had with two older, local boys who would be attending his new school. We successfully used the Movie technique to tap away the anxiety of the memory and also tapped on the anxiety he felt about the long bus journey he would be taking to his new school.
Charlie later attended a talk and demonstration I gave about EFT and displayed a poster he had drawn of the tapping points for the benefit of the members of the audience. He learnt the whole process very quickly and seemed very confident in the application of EFT.
My second session with Charlie was a few days before he was due to start his new school and he was worried about his first day. Because Charlie had taken to using EFT so naturally I decided to try the Matrix Reimprinting Technique with him. I feel that what happened next was quite remarkable and is best expressed in Charlie’s own words (and spelling).
Charlie’s First Day Back 2 Skool
I was worried about starting my new Grammar School. Carol showed me how to survive my fears, she asked me to think about a time when I felt worried. I can remember Carol asked me to think about another time when I felt frightened about going to school.
Whilst Carol tapped me, I remembered my first day at ********* Primary School. I didn’t want to go. There I was sitting on the backseat behind 7 year old Charlie, tapping him about his fears on the way in.
Carol helped me picture myself standing in the playground with my Dad. I could see myself standing in my school aged 7. My Dad was telling the teacher how frightened I was. I had my arms around my Dad; I had my head buried in my Dad’s stomach. I tapped on him to get my attention, he turned around and saw me and I told him who I was. I gave him a tour of his new school whilst tapping him. I took him back into the playground and showed him to his new friends. Then I told him I was going to look after him, then he was happy. I took him back to the teacher and said good-bye. Dad had gone but he was still very happy.
Here I am now, worried about starting my secondary school and my 18 year old self was taking me around my big new school showing me where everything was. He was looking after me for when I start. Then I’ll have my 20 year old me when I start at University!
I think the most remarkable thing about this session was that 11 year old Charlie quite naturally took himself into the future with this technique. This was something I hadn’t expected.
Charlie is now settled and happy in his new school and the transition went far more smoothly than was expected thanks to the application of EFT and Matrix Reimprinting.
