A Psychologist’s First Encounter with Energy Psychology
by David Feinstein

The procedures look strange: tapping on one’s skin; counting; humming; circling one’s eyes. What could this possibly have to do with psychotherapy and how could anyone claim that these incantations are more effective than established therapies that enjoy strong empirical support?

Those were the questions I asked when I first witnessed a demonstration of the Energy Psychology (EP) approach fifteen years ago. At the time, no peer-reviewed efficacy research was available, only passionate claims from a small number of fringe therapists who were enthusiastically promulgating the method. Anyone using this new “tapping cure” was not only suspect due to the lack of any coherent explanation of why it might work, they were operating without a shred of scientific support.

But that first demonstration had me hardly believing what my eyes were seeing. I had been invited to be a guest at a monthly meeting of local psychologists while visiting their city. The program that evening featured a member of the group who had recently introduced energy psychology into his practice. He was going to do a demonstration of the method with a woman being treated for claustrophobia by another of the group’s members. Having done research on “new psychotherapies” while at the Johns Hopkins Department of Psychiatry early in my career, I was keenly attuned to the influences on therapeutic outcomes exerted by factors such as placebo, allegiance, charisma, the contagion of a therapist’s belief in a method, and the suggestive power that any clinical intervention may wield.

My skepticism only mounted as I watched the treatment unfold. While what occurred during the first few minutes was familiar and comfortable for me—taking a brief history of the problem (which had not responded to treatments from several therapists) and having the client imagine being in an elevator and giving it a rating on a zero-to-ten SUD (subjective units of distress ) scale (which she rated at ten)—the next part seemed laughable. The client followed the therapist’s lead in tapping on about a dozen points on the skin while saying out loud “Fear of elevators.” This was followed by a brief “integration sequence” that included a number of odd physical procedures and then another round of tapping. When the client next rated being in an elevator, her SUD had diminished, from a ten to a seven. She said her heart wasn’t pounding as fast. I was surprised to see any decrease in her sense of distress. At that time, I was using systematic desensitization for such cases, and this procedure did not utilize any relaxation methods and required only two or three minutes from the first rating to the second. Perhaps the woman had developed some affection or loyalty to the therapist and didn’t want to embarrass him in front of his colleagues.

Another round of the procedure brought the SUD down to a five. After another round, however, it was back up to a seven. I was thinking, “See, I knew it wouldn’t work!” When the therapist inquired, the woman reported that a memory had come to her of being about eight and playing with her brother and some of his friends. They had created a fort out of a cardboard appliance box. When she was in it, the boys closed the box and pushed the end that opens against a wall so she was trapped in it. They then left her there amidst laughter and jeering. She didn’t know how long it was until she was found and freed, but in her mind it was a long time, screaming till exhausted. She had not recalled this incident for years, and she rated the memory as a ten.

I thought, “Okay, so something was accomplished! A formative event has been identified that some good psychodynamic therapy will be able to resolve over a series of sessions. However strange the method, it led to an important discovery that will give the treating therapist a new direction. It has been a useful case consultation.” But that’s not where it ended. The therapist doing the demonstration started having the woman tap using phrases related to the earlier experience. Within fifteen minutes, she was able to recall the incident with no subjective sense of distress (SUD at zero). They then returned to elevators and quickly had that down to zero, as well. I looked on with my skepticism fighting what my eyes and ears were registering.

One of the group members suggested that it would be easy to test this, and the woman agreed to step into a hallway coat closet and to shut the door. The therapist was careful to make it clear to her that she was to open the door at any point she felt even slightly uncomfortable. The door closed. We waited. And waited. And waited. After about three long minutes, the therapist knocked and asked if she was okay. She opened the door and triumphantly announced that for the first time since childhood, she was comfortable in a small enclosed space. Meanwhile, I was thinking, “Okay, I’m onto them now! This is a social psychology experiment. We are about to be informed that we have been subjects in a study of how gullible therapists can be!” That announcement never came.

Fast forward fifteen years. More than thirty peer-reviewed clinical studies show that the method works with a wide range of conditions, and that it is one of the fastest and most powerful therapies around.

You can learn all about this therapy at the 17th Annual Canadian Energy Psychology Conference, to be held October 1 to 5 in Victoria, BC. David Feinstein, along with his wife, Donna Eden, will be presenting a keynote address at the conference, and they will be offering a post-conference program on the topic of their NY Times relationship bestseller, The Energies of Love. For conference information, visit www.epccanada.ca. Also, see the colour display ad on page two (inside front cover) of the 21.3 September/October issue of the WHOLifE Journal.