Learn EFT – EFT 101: Are Emotional Freedom Techniques’ (EFT’s) results due to either placebo effects or distraction?

This article is part of the EFT 101: What is EFT? series.

That depends…

Our bodies are very powerful healing machines.  Healing machines that we still don’t understand.  There have been a number of studies in the last 100 years that have shown the body will heal if it thinks it is receiving some sort of healing agent (eg treatment or medication) even when it is not.  In one recent case people were told that they were going to receive anti-depressants without the active ingredients (meaning it didn’t contain the medicine) as still saw progress in some clients.

This phenomenon of the body healing itself without any treatment has been termed “the placebo effect”.  It gets its name from the fake pill given in double blind drug tests, called placebos.  It first was noticed when test subjects receiving placebos showed improvement.

If you are interested in the topic, I highly recommend the book Timeless Healing by Herbert Benson and Marg Stark.  In the book they explore what remembered wellness (a more precise term than the placebo effect) is and how it might work.

It is very possible for this to be the case with some experiences of Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT).  I wouldn’t even be suspired if this were the case with some of my clients.   But for remembered wellness to work there needs to be belief on some level that it is going to work.

I have worked with skeptical clients, even clients who didn’t want it to work because they thought it was a bunch of “new age mumbo jumbo.”  If I was able to get them to actively try the protocol we had success, letting me know anecdotally there is a mechanical component to it.

With all of that being said, I don’t really care.  I don’t care if EFT is powerful or if it is just the power of the body and mind believing EFT is powerful.  All I am worried about is healing in a safe way.

There are no know side effects to EFT, so we aren’t doing any harm.  Therefore, to me, it doesn’t really matter why it works.

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About Gene Monterastelli
Gene is a Baltimore, MD based EFT practitioner, the editor of Tapping Q & A, and the host of the Tapping Q & A Podcast (archive | iTunes). Learn more about Gene here or find out how to work with Gene here. You can connect with Gene on his personal twitter, his tapping twitter or on facebook.