The mind, and the body ….
The link between the mind and body, especially when it comes to trauma, either single or repeated, is becoming increasingly well recognised. Practitioners are continuing to discover new ways in which working with the body (somatic therapy) can help clients who have been affected by trauma.
We often take the relationship between our minds and bodies for granted. We generally don’t think about how we feel fear, anger, sorrow, joy or shame in our bodies, we just notice the thoughts that go with them, and quickly give them the names that we have got used to feeling.
When you’re stressed
When you feel threatened, your ‘front brain’, where the logical stuff happens, shuts down. The ‘back brain’, which controls the nervous system takes over, and responds by releasing a flood of stress hormones throughout your body, including adrenaline and cortisol, which rouse the body for emergency action. Your heart pounds faster, muscles tighten, blood pressure rises, breath quickens, and your senses become sharper.
When the ‘front brain’ is shut down, and the reactionary ‘back brain’ is in control, logical processing of the event goes out of the window. Memories of the event – be they sights, sounds, smells or even feelings, become stored as triggers. When experienced, these triggers are not understood by the brain as being in the past – they feel present, and dangerous, and set off the nervous system all over again.
The workings of the brain, and the way it connects to our body and our emotions, is still being understood, but therapies have recently been developed which work with these connections to help clients process emotions which often feel ‘stuck’
How EFT helps
EFT was developed in the 1980s. It brought together the different ideas of neurobiology, neuro linguistic programming, and knowledge gathered from acupuncture. The brain works using electromagnetic (energy) pulses which send messages from one area to another. These pulses are represented throughout the body as energy or meridian lines. These have been used for treatment in Chinese medicine for 1000s of years.
EFT was developed after pioneers of the therapy discovered that tapping on these energy points whilst focusing on the unwanted or unprocessed emotions, greatly reduced the emotional intensity. It is as if tapping whilst remembering allows the mind to process what it could not during the event, and file it neatly in the box marked ‘the past’ in the logical front brain.
Its a simple technique which involves honing in on the unwanted emotion, and tapping certain points of the head, hands and upper chest. The client taps on themselves, mirroring the therapists movements and words. It is an incredibly simple and easy technique, which can have astounding results. Clink this link for a demo of the tapping points by my trainer, Mary Jane Sharratt.
Medical research is starting to notice the results, and trials are starting to prove the effectiveness of EFT.
Client feedback
Some clients have given me permission to publish feedback from their sessions. See what they have to say
If you would like more information or book a free 30 minute phone consultation to find out more, get in touch.