All the therapists listed on the PTSDhelp directory have agreed to provide their professional services for no more than £35.00 Per individual therapy session to UK service personnel serving or retired who are affected by PTSD.
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EFT is a powerful new discovery that combines age old wisdom about the body’s energy system with a 21st Century understanding of quantum consciousness. Some people describe it as like emotional acupuncture – but without needles. And it is transforming the practices of many therapists.
The underlying idea behind EFT – which stands for Emotional Freedom Techniques -
is that negative experiences and thoughts disrupt the body’s energy system and the disruption causes the symptoms that bring people into therapy. The basic procedure is to tap on points on the body’s meridians while focusing on the negative feelings. Sometimes that is all that is required. However with PTSD, the disruption is massive. To be effective EFT will probably need to disempower at least some traumatic memories to release the effect they continue to have. Traumatic memories are memories stored maladaptively in the brain because they were stored in situations of such emotional and informational overwhelm that they could not be processed as other memories are. EFT seems to have a way of enabling the mind/body to complete that unfinished processing.
One of the joys of working with EFT is when clients spontaneously attribute a different meaning to their experience or to the role they played in it. When someone who has spent years believing that they are worthless because they feel they failed in a life-and-death situation suddenly says and means: “You know, I really did do the best anyone could have done” you know that, at least on that memory, they have finally achieved emotional freedom.
And the good news is that EFT has ways of processing memories with a minimum of distress. Unlike therapies that require clients to relive an experience, with the subsequent risk of retraumatization, EFT in skilled hands can be gentle and relatively painfree in the way it “sneaks up” on memories. There are EFT techniques which enable a sufferer to take much of the sting out of a memory before really going back into it. There are even ways to reduce the anxiety about addressing the past at all before starting to do so. Minimum distress, however, does not always mean no distress. Sometimes submerged painful feelings do erupt during an EFT session. When that happens EFT can usually relieve the distress quickly.
EFT has a reputation as a “one minute wonder.” Usually it is not. Particularly with more complicated problems such as PTSD it is important to take time, not least so it is possible to work really gently without having to jump into deep emotions and feelings any more quickly than feels safe for a client. Nevertheless if often achieves more in a small number of sessions than conventional therapy does in months, even years.
It has been used with Veterans suffering PTSD from Vietnam and Cambodia in the US since 1995. Currently a number of schemes are offering help there to servicemen and women from The Gulf War, Iraq and Afghanistan. Several pilot studies are underway and the interim results are extremely promising.
EFT is also often effective used directly on physical symptoms, and, conversely, physical problems often clear up spontaneously or begin to heal when emotional drivers such as anger or guilt or fear underlying them have been cleared. And clearing the emotions around a trauma memory often allows release of on-going related physical symptoms at the same time. It is as if the body has been holding on to the trauma physically as well as psychologically.
If you are considering EFT, you need to be aware that EFT is not a standalone therapy. It is a tool of therapy. When you are looking for an EFT practitioner for PTSD ask some questions about practitioners’ experience. You need someone who has a good therapy background and considerable EFT experience, not someone who has learned only EFT and is not yet very experienced in it.
Besides being a useful technique in trauma therapy, EFT is also an excellent self-help tool that anyone can learn easily to use for themselves for immediate first aid relief from physical pain, anxiety, anger and other feelings. EFT therapists usually teach their clients how to use it for themselves.
Some people have even cleared their own PTSD using EFT entirely as a self-help method. If you decide to go that route, you will need to be motivated to put time and persistence into it. And it is wise to promise yourself that you will seek professional help immediately if you realize you are getting into deep water. Symptoms can get worse before they get better and that is more of a risk if you are working without skilled supervision.