Kaiser-Permanente is one of the largest hospital systems in the US taking care of more than 10 million patients each year.
The Veterans Administration (VA) is tasked with supporting the health care of our veterans.
These two huge health care systems now recognize EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques or Tapping) as an effective treatment for anyone, including combat veterans, and others that have experienced severe traumas from car accidents, domestic violence, sexual abuse, natural disasters and other traumatic incidents. Many times these victims of trauma have suffered for years, sometimes decades, with little to no relief from conventional treatments such as talk and group therapy or pharmaceutical drugs.
Now they can finally get the help that they deserve to heal debilitating PTSD symptoms.
Many randomized controlled trials (RCT) of EFT have shown that it is extremely effective at treating PTSD in just a few treatment sessions. In one clinical trial, veterans’ symptoms dropped by 64% after just 6 hour-long sessions (Church, Hawk, et al., 2013). A replication of that study found that 90% of veterans were free of clinical symptom levels after completing treatment and that they did not relapse later (Geronilla et al., 2016).
Kaiser Permanente recently published practice guidelines for using EFT with patients diagnosed with PTSD in ther peer-review publication, The Permanente Journal.
Practice guidelines are influential documents because medical and mental health professionals turn to them to find best practices for a specified condition such as anxiety, depression or PTSD. Practice guidelines answer questions like: How many sessions are recommended? How long should each session be? What percentage of patients get better? What further care is recommended for those who don’t? What level of training is required by therapists to effectively administer the treatment?
The guidelines published in The Permanente Journal surveyed 448 EFT practitioners, and combined their insights with the statistics from clinical trials of EFT. They recommend 5 hour-long EFT sessions for those at risk for PTSD, and 10 sessions for those with full-blown symptoms.
After reviewing the extensive evidence for the safety and efficacy of EFT, a group of experts in the VAs Integrative Health Coordinating Center publishes a statement approving EFT as a “generally safe” therapy.
The approval means that VA therapists will be able to use EFT with their clients suffering from PTSD, depression, anxiety, pain and other conditions.
EFT has been studied in over 100 clinical trials. They show that the approach is effective for a variety of psychological and physical conditions. EFT combines elements of popular therapies, such as CBT (Cognitive Behavior Therapy), with acupressure—in the form of tapping with the fingertips on acupuncture points. For this reason, it’s often called “tapping.”
A meta-analysis examined the effect of treatment with EFT on PTSD. It aggregated the statistics from 7 randomized controlled trials and found that EFT had a very large treatment effect (Sebastian & Nelms, 2016).
A meta-analysis of EFT for depression showed similar results, stating that: “The results show that Clinical EFT were highly effective in reducing depressive symptoms in a variety of populations and settings… The post test effect size for EFT… was larger than that measured in meta-analyses of antidepressant drug trials and psychotherapy studies” (Nelms & Castel, 2016).
What the above means is that EFT trials were compared to antidepressant drug trials and psychotherapy studies of people with symptoms of depression and EFT was found to be more effective than either of them.
With a 90% success rate after 5 to 10 one-hour sessions, for people at risk of or with full-blown PTSD symptoms, EFT is undoubtedly one of the most effective treatments to help these individuals return to a normal life.
Hunt for Hope Wellness Coach, Christine Hunt, is a Certified EFT practitioner that can help you. Contact her here to find out more or to schedule your first session.
She is located near Annapolis, Maryland in the Fort Meade area if you want to meet with her in person. Or she can work with you over a video conference program just as effectively.
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