That depends…

Our bodies are very powerful healing machines. Healing machines that we still don’t fully understand. There have been a number of studies in the last 100 years showing that the body will heal if it thinks it is receiving some sort of healing treatment or medication, even when it is not. In one recent study people were told that they were going to receive antidepressants without the active ingredients (meaning it didn’t contain the medicine) yet some still showed an improvement in their condition.

This phenomenon of the body healing itself without any treatment is known as “the placebo effect”. The name comes from the fake pills given in double blind drug tests, called placebos. It was first observed when test subjects receiving placebos showed improvement.

If you are interested in the topic, I highly recommend reading 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 entirely possible that this is the case with some experiences of tapping. I would not be surprised if this were true in some of my clients.

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

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

As there are no known side effects to EFT, we will not cause harm in using it. To me, therefore, it doesn’t really matter why it works.

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