I first caught wind of the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) during the aftermath of 9/11. I’d heard that some therapists were treating Ground Zero workers, survivors, and volunteers with a bizarre-sounding “tapping” technique that was said to be astonishingly effective for easing post-traumatic stress disorder.

The technique fell off my radar, and I didn’t hear much about it until just the other day when someone sent me a DVD called Try It On Everything, a film about EFT’s effects on a random group of people with a variety of healing challenges, including profound grief, cancer, fibromyalgia, and chronic pain.

The film shared the insights of some interesting and accomplished healers, demonstrated EFT’s potential, and certainly piqued my curiosity.

To learn more about EFT, I visited Carol Look, a psychologist and hypnotist who teaches EFT to therapists; she’s one of Try It On Everything’s participating healers.

Look describes EFT as “psychological acupuncture.”

She told me that EFT melds acupuncture (in which a practitioner uses a needle to stimulate certain points along the body’s electrical pathway to release energy blockages that contribute to illness) with the mind’s power to heal the body. Instead of acupuncture needles, though, you use your own fingers to tap on a series of points on your hand, head, face, and body.

As you tap the points, you utter an affirmation aimed at your particular problem. EFT practitioners believe that emotional problems are blockages in your body’s “electrical system” and that combining fingertip pressure at key points with affirmative statements will free the blockages.

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Tapping my spider phobia away
I asked Look to demonstrate EFT on me, and she asked me what problem I’d like to address. The first thing that popped into my mind was my stupid spider phobia (which I’ve had for as long as I can remember, for no good reason). She asked me to think about an incident when I’d been freaked out by a spider.

I told her about the time when I’d moved from my New York City–home into a cozy little house in rural New Jersey with my sons, then 10 and 12. As I was cooking dinner in my new kitchen, a gigantic, hirsute arachnid scuttled across the floor near my feet.

I screamed, freaked out my sons (who then doubled over in laughter as they watched the scene that unfolded), grabbed a plastic dustpan, and hunted down the creature before slamming the dustpan down on him. It shattered and the spider, to my horror, crawled out from under a piece of it to escape and lurk God-knows-where. Just recalling the episode makes my skin crawl.

Look said she’d try to dampen my anti-spider emotions with EFT.

She took me through the tapping ritual, which you can discover here. Before we started, she asked me to repeat the story, and rate how creeped out I felt on a scale of 1 to 10. At the first recitation, I was an 8.

She demonstrated the tapping ritual she wanted me to follow and had me repeat after her, “Even though the spider disgusted and frightened me, I fully and completely accept myself.” At every tapping point—there are nine spots—I’d say the same affirmation, with a few variations, and then she asked me to rate how I felt again when I recalled the episode.

Honestly, I did feel a little less upset. Maybe a 6. We repeated the tapping again and this time, I could say that I wasn’t very upset at all, maybe a 3.

So is it worth it?
I know that I’m pretty suggestible. The connection between my mind and my body is tight. When I practice deep breathing, for example, I can measure my blood pressure and see it descend. So maybe I’m the perfect candidate for EFT.

But the reason I think it’s a worth a try is because it’s a technique you can do yourself, you don’t need any expensive equipment, and it’s harmless. So the downside’s nil, but the upside’s impressive.

Look suggests that people who have more complicated emotional issues seek the help of a trained EFT therapist. But since anyone can take an EFT course and call him or herself a therapist, find out how long they’ve been practicing EFT (it’s only been around since the 1990s, so at least try to find someone who’s had five years or so of practice).

And personally, I’d look for someone who’s been trained and licensed as a psychologist, too—not that a degree automatically makes someone a healer, but it at least assures you a person has a master’s degree and has passed the appropriate state tests for licensure.

You can find EFT practitioners at Emofree.com. To get a copy of the DVD, go to TryItOnEverything.com.