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Why Work With A Practitioner and What Characteristics To Look For

November 2, 2010 By Gene Monterastelli 4 Comments

Gene, You have so many great resources on your web site. Aren’t you worried you are going to put yourself out of business? Why would someone hire you (or any practitioner for that matter) when they can get so many free resources online at your site and other sites like EFT Universe?

photo by msspider66

This is a question I get quite a bit. But I think it has the exact opposite effect. I think there are four reasons why someone would work with a practitioner and I believe my web presence only helps me when it comes time for someone to pick a practitioner because I hope I am demonstrating these qualities.

Here are the four reasons why I work a practitioner (because I go to someone for my own work):

Expertise
There is more to Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT)/tapping than just knowing the tapping points and the set up phrases. The basic recipe is a great place to start and for most people it is the only tapping tool they are going to need. But there are going to be times when the basic recipe is not enough to quickly knock out an issue.

For example, tapping is great for dealing with cravings, but it might take a very long time to knock out the root cause of the craving by only tapping on the symptom – the craving itself. Because of the training a qualified practitioner has, they are going to be able to cut to the quick on an issue like this. They are more than likely going to knock out the issue in just one session.

I think Gary Craig’s assertion that the basic recipe is enough to take care of any issue is correct but for some issues there are much faster ways of healing. By working with a skilled practitioner their expertise is going to speed-up the healing process.

Experience
One of the benefits of working with an experienced practitioner is knowing that they have been down this road before and they are not going to be surprised by the possible outcomes.

I can remember the first time with a tapping client where there was a very unexpected jump. We were doing some work on a craving and all of a sudden we were talking about a very traumatic event from the client’s childhood. Even though this jump was something that was unexpected, because of the training and experience I had with age regression from my hypnosis training it didn’t catch me off guard.

An experienced practitioner is going be able to work with many different issues and know how to deal with something that is unexpected. In addition to begin able to work with the unexpected they are also going to be able to know when they are in over their head. I think knowing when you are not qualified to work with something is a very important skill to have. Experience doesn’t guarantee that a practitioner has learned this skill, but they are more likely to understand this point of view.

Distance
One of the great skills that any practitioner has isn’t really a skill at all. The simple fact that they are not caught-up in the client’s emotions means that the practitioner is going to see the situation much more clearly.

This is the reason we go to our friends for advice. Sometimes we even seek advice from friends in areas that we know more than they do, but we know that their outside point of view is going to see things we can’t. I have had client sessions where I was able to help a client heal and transform with one simple observation.

I was recently working with a client who has been dealing with Lyme disease for a number of years. While tapping on how his body was dealing with it I suggested, “Maybe the system is trying as hard as it can and it is just really tired. That is why it is not being as successful as it could be.”

He said, “Wow! That is a completely new way of looking at this. I have been so mad at my body for not doing better. It never crossed my mind that it was really trying hard and that I need to support its work. I need to stop beating it up.”

The interesting thing about this exchange was that right before I made my observation he had described his body as being like a damp, rung-out rag. I just took his metaphor and said it back to him in new words. My distance from the situation provided the insight.

There is a second way that distance server a good practitioner. When working with someone else, it frees you from having to think about how to deal with an issue and actually deal with the issue at the same time. This came to my attention with a recent client.

To start a tapping session we did a simple exercise that I like to call “clearing the decks.” It is a very simple few rounds of tapping where we tune-in to the whole constellation of emotions they are feeling in the moment, we thank the emotions for doing their job, and we let them know they have been heard. By doing this we end up with a much clearer mind with which to tune-in to the issue we want to work on.

After a few minutes of tapping I asked my client how she felt. She replied, “I feel much more clam. I try to do that exercise all the time, but I can’t seem to get the same effect. When you lead me through that, I can just tap and not give it any thought. It is much easier to relax when that is the case.”

It is so much easier to focus on one thing. When working with someone else we don’t have to worry about how we are going to deal with an issue. We can just sit back, tap along, and let the practitioner guide us.

Accountability Structure
If there weren’t such a thing as resistance we would have already made the change. Resistance is a fact of life. There are lots of reasons why we don’t do the tapping we need to do or why we don’t do it as completely as we could. It can be scary to do the work on our own. It can be uncomfortable to tune-in to negative emotions. There are a million other things that we feel we need to do with our time.

By working with someone else we are creating an accountably structure to increase our progress. First, when we are working with someone else they can help us to push-through the resistance. We are more likely to do our daily tapping when we know we are going to have to report to someone else in our next sessions. A good practitioner is going to push us (gently) to look at aspects we wouldn’t be brave enough to look at on our own. Finally, a skilled practitioner is going to keep looping back over the same issue again and again to make sure we have taken care of all of the aspects when we might stop work a little sooner on our own.

Not For Everyone and Not For Every Issue
One of the reasons I love tapping is because it puts an amazing tool at everyone’s disposal. There are going to be times when we all need (myself included) to reach out to a skilled professional to help us move through an issue quickly and safely.

Related articles and podcasts:

  1. Not Knowing What To Tap On
  2. Not Sure How To Be Specific – AKA I Don’t know what to say (part 6)
  3. After A Powerful EFT Session
  4. Taking Care Of Yourself As A Practitioner
  5. Struggling To Get Tapping/EFT To Work

Filed Under: Q&A Tagged With: How To, Practitioner

Comments

  1. nihal bhat says

    November 4, 2010 at 5:31 am

    great site and great article. man you’ve worked hard on the site, it is a complete product.

    best point is “Maybe the system is trying as hard as it can and it is just really tired.”

    perhaps that is true for a lot of conditions.

    Reply
  2. Ron Ames says

    November 4, 2010 at 7:31 am

    Gene,

    Nice to know you are in the neighborhood( Baltimore). I am in SIlver Spring. You have helpful insights. Thanks for sharing. Am looking forward to the ongoing flow.

    Reply
  3. Brenda McEachern says

    November 4, 2010 at 10:14 am

    I loved this article. I has been searching for this response to this question. I have been a EFT practitioner for 7 years. I have given answers to clients that were similar but this is stated very well.

    Thank you,

    Reply
  4. Sue says

    November 4, 2010 at 7:31 pm

    I use EFT by myself all the time… and it’s helpful on the little things. So are other energy psychology modalities. But for larger traumas, or underlying core beliefs that block us, working with someone like Gene is a really eye opening experience.

    For one, I’m not in my head trying to figure out where next. That’s his job. So I get out of my head where I overanalyze, and into my emotions where the real issues are. Also, I think my basic beliefs are normal because they’ve always been there–guess what? They’re not necessarily true!

    Just as self help books are not the same as receiving therapy depending on the degree of psychological distress, self-EFT versus using a skilled practitioner should depend on the size of the issue. And both have a place in one’s life. I’m sure most practitioners WANT their clients to do self-tapping in between as well.

    Gene’s not going to put himself out of business. He is demonstrating his compassionate self and furnishing value so some of the people who read and listen to his stuff will turn to him when it’s needed. I know that it was comforting to speak to him on the phone for the first time, hearing the same voice I’ve heard so many times on various podcasts.

    Reply

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Gene MonterastelliGene Monterastelli is a Brooklyn based tapping practitioner. In addition to working with individual clients and groups, he regularly writes and records about how to use tapping to move from self-sabotage to productive action.
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