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Energy Psychology Is Proving to be a Powerful Antidote to PTSD

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In an effort to make the research around tapping more accessible to the general public David Feinstein, Ph. D., is writing summaries of these studies. You can find all the summaries that have been shared so far here.

Every year, more than 8 million people in the United States struggle with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) along with another 350 million people worldwide. PTSD can occur in people who have experienced or even witnessed a severe trauma, and it affects areas of the brain connected to managing difficult emotions, especially fear and anxiety. PTSD can create intense physical, emotional, and mental distress, and if left untreated, it can lead to long-term psychological and physiological damage. Thankfully, energy psychology – in this article acupoint tapping – can help! read more…

About David: DAVID FEINSTEIN, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist and a pioneer in developing innovative therapeutic approaches, leading to nine national awards for his books on consciousness and healing. He and his wife, Donna Eden, have built the world’s largest and most vibrant organization teaching energy medicine. Their latest award-winning book, The Energies of Love, achieved best-seller status on the NY Times Relationship List. David has served on the faculties of The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Antioch College, and the California School of Professional Psychology.

The Trouble With The Word Quit

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I just typed “quotes with quit” into Google and here are some of the results:

I hated every minute of training, but I said, ‘Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.’ — Muhammad Ali

If you live long enough, you’ll make mistakes. But if you learn from them, you’ll be a better person. It’s how you handle adversity, not how it affects you. The main thing is never quit, never quit, never quit. — William J. Clinton

Effort only fully releases its reward after a person refuses to quit. — Napoleon Hill

Winners never quit and quitters never win. — Vince Lombardi

We will all fail in life, but nobody has to be a failure. Failing at a thing doesn’t make you a failure. You are only a failure when you quit trying. — Joyce Meyer

If you quit ONCE it becomes a habit. Never quit! — Michael Jordan

For the most part, I agree with these quotes.

Most of the success in my life has come after I pushed past the place of struggle and pain. A sound work ethic and persistence are both important.

But there is a big problem with all the “Quitters never win” talk. It builds the unconscious belief that we shouldn’t quit anything. On a subconscious (and sometimes a conscious) level we equate quitting with failure. AND sometimes we make it even more dramatic than that. Instead of saying we have quit (an action), we call ourselves a quitter (as in defining ourselves as such).

There Are Things We Need To Quit!

Sometimes quitting something is the smartest thing we can do.

Some of them are obvious. People want to quit smoking, eating too many sweets, or staying in bed past midday on the weekend.

If a friend told you they wanted to quit smoking, I’m sure you wouldn’t respond, “Quitters never win.” That would just be silly!

But there is a part of us that thinks we have to finish everything we start and that quitting is a sign of weakness, or it questions our integrity because we are not living up to our work.

In truth, there are lots of things in your life that you need to quit doing.

Some of them were never healthy to begin with (like smoking), whereas others started out as helpful, but are no longer.

For example, you might have enrolled in a class because you thought it would help your career, but your goals have changed since you started the class. By staying in the class you are wasting your time and money.

BUT…a part of you won’t let you give up the class because of the belief that quitting is a sign of weakness. Quitting signals your lack of integrity. And quitters never win!

I Give You Permission To Quit!

I want you to be a quitter. I want you to give up. I want you to let go of the commitments.

Not all of them. Not even most of them. Just the ones that are no longer serving you.

As you are thinking about this, is there a knot in your stomach? Is there a part of you that feels like you are letting yourself down, your family down, your pattern down, your collaborators down, or your religion down?

If so, tap along to this:

There is a part of me that doesn’t want me to quit…Because quitters never win…And winners never quit…But this is no longer serving me…It is a waste of my time and effort…It is holding me back…I am not quitting it because it is hard…I am not quitting it because it is too much…I am quitting it because I need to be doing something else…Quitting this is not a sign of weakness…It is a sign of strength to let go of something that is no longer serving me…It is OK for me to quit this thing that is no longer good for me…It is better for me to quit…I am not failing…I am crafting the life I want and need to create…I am not choosing away from something…But instead choosing toward something that is serving me.

Have you met energy psychology’s mother?

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In an effort to make the research around tapping more accessible to the general public David Feinstein, Ph. D., is writing summaries of these studies. You can find all the summaries that have been shared so far here.

Did you know that Energy Psychology is a derivative of Energy Medicine? Energy Medicine works with at least nine major energy systems. In contrast, Energy Psychology modalities generally focus on only one of these systems. These may be the chakras, the aura, or most frequently, the meridians (by tapping on or otherwise stimulating the acupuncture points that are distributed along the meridian lines).

Energy Psychology draws from a narrow range of Energy Medicine techniques and applies them to psychological and spiritual issues. Research shows that it is very good at this, with clinical outcomes that are notable for their power, speed, and durability.

A way to think about the relationship between Energy Medicine and Energy Psychology is to look at the relationship between conventional medicine and conventional psychiatry. Psychiatry draws from conventional medicine, using only a small range of the tools available for treating health issues, and it focuses what it does use on mental health issues. In this sense, psychiatry is a derivative of conventional medicine. In a parallel way, Energy Psychology is a derivative of Energy Medicine.

So Energy Medicine, whose roots extend back thousands of years, is the “mother” of Energy Psychology. The glaring difference with psychiatry is, of course, that psychiatrists have gone through four years of medical school, including hands-on clinical “rotations” in eight of the major medical specialties before entering their three-year intensive residency in psychiatry. Many Energy Psychology practitioners, on the other hand, may have never taken a single course in energy medicine.

This article offers Energy Psychology practitioners and others who might be less schooled in Energy Medicine a glimpse into the development of one of the most widely-known and highly-respected contemporary forms of Energy Medicine, Eden Energy Medicine, based on the work of Donna Eden, an ACEP Lifetime Achievement Award recipient. It then delves into the controversial question of whether subtle energies that science hasn’t been able to measure or even detect—Iike the “life force,” “chi,” or “prana”—can be accessed for health and healing, and whether they even, in fact, exist. Read more…

About David: DAVID FEINSTEIN, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist and a pioneer in developing innovative therapeutic approaches, leading to nine national awards for his books on consciousness and healing. He and his wife, Donna Eden, have built the world’s largest and most vibrant organization teaching energy medicine. Their latest award-winning book, The Energies of Love, achieved best-seller status on the NY Times Relationship List. David has served on the faculties of The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Antioch College, and the California School of Professional Psychology.

How Tapping Can Help to Heal the Psychological Roots of Illness: Saving Pauline

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In an effort to make the research around tapping more accessible to the general public David Feinstein, Ph. D., is writing summaries of these studies. You can find all the summaries that have been shared so far here.

Over 2,000 years ago, Aristotle said, “Body and soul respond to one another in sympathy.” His poetic observation probably arose from the fact that physicians of ancient Greece believed the life of the spirit is somehow intertwined with the state of the body and that emotional balance is a crucial influencer in health. 

Although Western medicine has long grappled with connecting the mind and emotions in treating illness, significant, positive breakthroughs have been made in recent years. This is particularly true when it comes to a mind-body intervention that appears to have special strengths in its ability to address psychological factors in illness. 

Energy psychology is proving to be a highly effective approach to overcoming difficult emotions and unhelpful beliefs without a long course of psychotherapy. Read more…

About David: DAVID FEINSTEIN, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist and a pioneer in developing innovative therapeutic approaches, leading to nine national awards for his books on consciousness and healing. He and his wife, Donna Eden, have built the world’s largest and most vibrant organization teaching energy medicine. Their latest award-winning book, The Energies of Love, achieved best-seller status on the NY Times Relationship List. David has served on the faculties of The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Antioch College, and the California School of Professional Psychology.

They Don’t Want You To Change (No Matter What They Say)

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Note: This article was first published May 14th, 2014 and has been updated.

I need to warn you upfront: This article may come across as a little harsh.

I don’t mean to be harsh. I don’t intend to be mean. But this is an important concept you need to keep in mind when approaching change work.

The fact is simple:

Our loved ones want us to transform and have a better life as long as they don’t have to change too.

It’s not that they don’t want the best for us or that they don’t think our progress is a good thing. The fact is there is something happening under the surface that makes it hard for our loved ones to support our change.

They aren’t doing it consciously

I want to be clear. In almost every case our loved ones are not doing this consciously. The people who truly care about you DO want better for you.

They want you to move forward. They want you to heal. They want you to achieve your goals.

The problem comes when your change impacts their lives.

In each of our relationships there is a whole set of unwritten rules for what we expect of each other. These rules have been crafted through experience over time in a natural, unspoken way.

When we change, these expectations may no longer be met.

Here’s an example of how this might play out. Let’s say that you have a friend who always calls you to vent their emotions whenever something goes wrong in their life. After much thought, you decide you need to go back to school in order to achieve your long-term life goals.

Now that you are in school you have less free time and don’t pick up the phone every time your friend calls. It is not that you no longer care, but you are busier.

From your friend’s perspective (more than likely in an unconscious way) it feels like you no longer care because you aren’t there to pick up the pieces of their life and they slowly start to resent you.

Your moving forward has transformed the relationship and it is possible that they feel hurt and left behind as a consequence.

Our loved ones want us to transform and have a better life as long as they don’t have to change too.

Difficulties in our relationships with loved ones can arise when their lives change in an unexpected way.

Our transformation doesn’t happen overnight, but it feels that way to others

It is important to remember that your change and transformation didn’t happen overnight. Usually healing our past issues is something that happens gradually.

I like to think of the healing process as a new sprout bursting from the ground in the spring. Although the growth seems to have happened overnight, in reality weeks of hard work has been taking place beneath the surface.

When we are healing issues we often put in the difficult work of transformation for many weeks or months before real change shows up in our lives.

For us, change is a process that unfolds gradually. But for our loved ones, our change can seem like a sudden and unexpected event, which may catch them off guard.

They will catch up with you (one way or another)

Just because change may make our relationships difficult at first, it doesn’t mean that it will always be that way.

Our relationships are constantly being renegotiated and expectations change. In time, all of the relationships in our lives will catch up with our transformation.

In almost every case this will make our relationships better in the long run. (And it is also true we might lose some relationships along the way if they are unable to adjust or catch up.)

This fear can hold you back

When we realize that the people in our lives will resist our transformation it is common and understandable that we resist taking action for fear of having to deal with the possible repercussions.

Recognizing this conflict turns it into a tappable issue. Here’s a simple script you can follow:

I recognize the fact that I am changing…I am evolving…I am healing…These changes are going to impact the way I show up in the world…Not only does it impact how I spend my time and the choices I make…It will also impact my relationships…I know most of the people in my life want what is best for me…I also know that as I change and evolve my relationships will change…And those changes might catch some of my loved ones off guard…They might feel a little overwhelmed by the changes…They might not like the way our relationship is changing…The reality is all of my relationships are changing all of the time…Most of the time it is happening in subtle ways…But when there is a more drastic change it is more noticeable…I know I am on the right journey…I know I am evolving in the right way for me…I know the people in my life want what is best for me…My relationships will catch up to my transformation…And it will be better in the long term for all of us.