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Articles & Ideas

Being Specific



Hi Everyone,

Ann Adams provides us with innovative insights on GETTING SPECIFIC with EFT. In addition to developing the clever mantra, "For results that are terrific, you have to be specific," she also gives us ways to...

1. "Buy insurance" to build credibility with clients, increase success and decrease the chances for problems.

2. Set proper expectations in presenting EFT to groups.

3. Create a high quality metaphor for BEING SPECIFIC.

4. Use body sensations (see-hear-feel) to aid the goal of BEING SPECIFIC.

I am intrigued by Ann's article and make several augmenting comments within it.

Hugs, Gary

By Ann Adams


Gary, rereading your tutorial #3 on the Movie Technique reminded me of several points I find helpful in quickly teaching EFT to a group - or to an individual. You will see several places in this process in which I "buy insurance" to build credibility, increase success and decrease chance for problems.

I am a serious proselytizer for EFT! I have presented many times to a variety of public forums, various conferences and agency groups, including my own agency. The majority of these presentations have been brief introductions to EFT, from 20 minutes to 2 hours, therefore, I do not have a client on stage with me. Even in such a short time the percentage of success people have using these techniques is very high and continues to amaze me!

In each introductory session, individual or group, I discuss how common it is to touch parts of our body for comfort and I demonstrate several examples. (I do keep it to touches ABOVE the waist!--smile) I ask why do they think people use these touches? Someone inevitably says because it makes them feel better. "Right! And let's learn another quick exercise also using our hands that makes us feel better."

I tell them that the amazing part of what they are about to learn is not that it works, we already know that touching our body makes us feel better, but that we can consciously focus on an issue we would like to resolve and consciously use a sequence of touches or taps to make us feel better about that issue!

The question is posed to the group about what would constitute success in resolving their issues in the time frame allotted. We have a discussion of what would be a "reasonable" percentage of success, e.g. half the group decreasing their discomfort in half concerning their issue. I write the agreed upon "measurement of success" on the board or overhead.

GC COMMENT: Excellent idea!! Audiences will almost always display expectations well below the levels you will probably achieve. Thus, the contrast between their written expectations and what is actually produced provides an impressive comparison.

I talk about problems being like a puzzle (in trainings I have an overhead with puzzle pieces with one piece of the puzzle colored in) and for this exercise it will be important for them to just pick ONE piece of the puzzle. I warn them to pick a trauma with a little 't' for their introduction to EFT, no more than a 5 on a scale of 0 to 10.

GC COMMENT: This is a good metaphor for BEING SPECIFIC (very important).

(While I have never yet had anyone get really upset in my classes I feel a responsibility to limit their 'exposure' initially. However, they do not always follow this instruction!!)

I tell them that traumas can be repetitive, such as being upset by parents constant fighting, or one time, like a traffic accident (the examples used vary according to the group.) For this exercise it is important to pick a specific incident, even if the same thing happened in different variations over and over. That what we are going to do is run this specific incident as a movie in our head. Realize that the part where we first got upset in the incident is actually a very short movie. I sometimes give examples like, how they looked at you, the tone of their voice, the smell of burning, the sick to your stomach feeling, etc.

GC COMMENT: For many people, reducing their SPECIFIC EVENTS down to a few second movie provides great benefits. If you can pick out the crescendo of a SPECIFIC EVENT (such as the look in an abuser's eye), you can often collapse the whole issue by simply using EFT on that mini-movie.

OK. Now close your eyes and run the movie of your puzzle piece. If the movie is longer than 2 minutes you still have too big a piece of the puzzle, select a smaller part of the movie. Got it? When all say OK, I ask them to write down their 0-10 intensity.

Using the little poem: "For results that are terrific you have to be specific", I tell them to freeze frame the movie at one scene and really go back to that scene and: "See what you saw, feel what you felt, hear what you heard, smell what you smelled (more common an issue than you would think) and to taste what you tasted. Make the picture as clear as you can. AND, recognize where you feel this upset IN your body."

GC COMMENT: Involving freeze frames and body sensations like this is another innovative and quality method for BEING SPECIFIC.

We then run through the tapping sequence twice, sometimes more if I sense the group needs to. Depending on the setting and the group I may not even use a set up phrase. Generally though, I use a generic: "Even though I have this problem, I chose to be calm and confident." (Trying to be mindful of the old social worker mantra to: Start with where the client is! Everybody wants to be confident; most everybody wants to be calm. Not everybody in my resident population (Severely Emotionally Disturbed children) accepts that they can deeply and completely love themselves. For the most part our residents hate themselves! For the purpose of demonstration I by-pass that problem.

The instructions are repeated to hear, see, feel, taste, smell what you were aware of and pay attention to where you feel it in your body. AND if you are aware that you are watching yourself in the movie, try to put yourself behind your own eyes. (This is again a safety precaution. It is less painful to watch than to BE there. In addition, my population is frequently very out of touch with their body and tends toward disassociation anyway. The initial tapping relaxes and seems to make them feel safe to 'associate' once more. I do warn that if being 'associated' increases their upset to go back to watching themselves.)

I also give the instruction that if they were fortunate enough to have already resolved that scene to just pick another scene to work on. We then tap through the sequence at least twice again before I ask for a new 0-10 intensity rating. I warn that sometimes people "cheat" and shift scenes and to make sure they go back to the original scene they chose!

We get the overall scores and compare our results with the measure of success established at the beginning of the training. It is, of course, inevitably superior to what they anticipated possible!

I remind them that they have just experienced EFT, one of the most powerful change agents available. I talk about how they can use it on everything. That some situations are very quick "one minute wonders" and others take persistent tapping to resolve. I mention that toxins can get in the way

Note: I'd like to make further 'oversimplified' comments about the associated verses disassociated issue. If time permits, I may ask if there was anyone who got NO resolution of their scene. If so, I ask about their movie - not the incident details but the see-hear-feel features of the movie. I ask them to change these features to assess the difference in feeling. I pay particular attention to whether or not they were looking at the movie as a movie (disassociated) or if they were IN the movie and seeing it through their own eyes (associated). Inevitably, the person is NOT seeing it through their own eyes. I ask them if they are willing to try to be actually IN the scene. We then tap again while they are actually looking at the scene through their own eyes. So far this has always resulted in reducing the 0-10 intensity to at least half.

GC COMMENT: Try the above for clients who are repressing or otherwise "unable to tune into the incident." It could make a breakthrough difference.

With individual clients who may get upset by looking at a scene from their own eyes I instruct them to avoid doing so by picturing themselves watching the scene from a movie theater seat. We tap in this much less painful way and many times when they go back to the behind-the-eyes version the upset is significantly reduced or gone.

Many times our residents just aren't "there'. I have them practice looking at a scene THROUGH their eyes by describing what they are looking at currently in the room. We then move to a pleasant scene from their memory to describe from behind their own eyes before we tackle the behind-the-eyes experience again.

Ann Adams

