The Science Behind Emotional Freedom Technique (Tapping)
Welcome back to my Science of Life series! Today’s topic was inspired by my own curiosity as I’ve had a number of people introduce or ask me if I’ve ever tried tapping before. Talk about something that always seemed incredibly woo to me. I couldn’t possibly understand how anything about this was valid until it was explained to me from the perspective of it being like manual acupuncture.
And then, something clicked! Hmmm…maybe this is legit? So, I sought out to see for myself what the science actually says about emotional freedom technique as a therapeutic tool…
the history & Background…
For those of you who have absolutely no fricken clue what emotional freedom technique (aka EFT or “tapping”) is…lemme break it down for you! Basically, tapping is an alternative, therapeutic technique meant as a brief intervention for the management of pain and emotional distress. It combines together multiple modalities - exposure, cognitive therapy, and touch (whose fancy science name is “somatic stimulation”) - at specific points on the body, similar to the points used in acupuncture and acupressure.
I’ve had a teeny bit of training in NLP (for personal use), and how it works is this:
Someone receiving therapy would start by expressing a concern or issue they wish to address and then rate their level of distress from 1 to 10 (1 being low, 10 being high)
Then, the person would express a set-up statement, such as: “Even though I have this problem (eg. anger issues, self-doubt, etc.), I deeply love and accept myself…” The idea here is that you express whatever your struggle is and then you reframe it in a self-accepting way.
The person then starts tapping at certain points on the body. Those points are detailed below, but they are the top of the head, eyebrow, side of the eye, under the eye, under the nose, chin, collar bone, underarm, and then the last point (which is not included in the diagram), the side of the hand below the pinky (often called the karate chop). As the person taps, they’re repeating a reminder phrase…
The process is typically repeated with the participant rating themselves each time until their distress is rated from 0 to 1.
What’s really interesting to me is that the American Psychological Association (APA) seems to have accepted EFT as a therapeutic treatment and a lot of effort has been put into determining the crucial pieces of proper EFT treatment. More about that here >>
Gary Craig, the founder of EFT, says:
Top of the head.png
Top of the head.png
“…no matter what part of your life needs improvement, there are unresolved emotional issues in the way. Even for physical issues, chronic pain, or diagnosed conditions, it is common knowledge that any kind of emotional stress can impede the natural healing potential of the human body….The EFT premise also includes the understanding that the more unresolved emotional issues you can clear, the more peace and emotional freedom you will have in your life.” (Original source)
Now, I don’t know about all that (and it seems a little bloated to me - but I’m kind of an eternal skeptic…), but my goal today is to evaluate whether or not there actually is science behind this process, how good the science is, and to present a couple resources for trying out EFT for yourself…
the science…
Now that we’ve looked at what the hell this is, let’s look at the work that’s been done around it. I was surprised to find that there are EFT studies that have been done looking at a number of things. But, let’s start with a broader study…
I started by reading through a great meta-analysis that I found. Meta-analyses are studies that take the data from multiple studies, combining the results and assessing them statistically. I like meta-analyses because in many ways they’re better than single studies because they’re combining the data from multiple studies into one. This can make the information more powerful because now you have a larger sampel size.
In this particularly analysis, they took 14 different randomized, controlled trials, which, in total, assessed 658 people (impressive!), and looked at the change in the anxiety score of a patient receiving EFT compared to a control. It’s really important that studies have controls because it serves as a benchmark for person’s who are not receiving treatment. If there was a change in the treatment, but the same change in the control, that suggests that the treatment isn’t actually doing a whole hell of a lot. On the contrary, if there’s a big difference between the control patients and those receiving EFT, that suggests that EFT is doing something. What they found in this study was that EFT resulted in a significant decrease in anxiety scores, even when accounting for the effect of the control treatment. This suggested that EFT was having an impact on decreasing patient anxiety, but the author’s of the study wanted to see more work comparing EFT to standard-of-care treatments, like cognitive behavioral therapy.
This information is interesting, but you always have to take meta-analyses with a grain of salt. Just because they’re larger than single studies doesn’t always mean they’re reliable. So, I did want to dive into some single studies to see what their findings were and to assess their experimental designs.
In one study, which looked at the physical and psychological effects of tapping on a impressively large sample size (n=203 patients with n=31 receiving physical testing) after a 4-day EFT training program, they found a number of results. They noted significant declines in anxiety, depression, postraumtic stress disorder, pain and cravings. In their physical testing, they assessed a number of factors and saw improvements in resting heart rate, coristol, and systolic and diastolic blood pressure, suggesting improvements in the circulatory system and endocrine system, respectively. They concluded that EFT provides health effects from the physical as well as the mental perspective.
This study definitely left me with some lingering questions. For example, did the benefits last beyond the treatment period? I would have loved to see some follow-up. I also would have loved to see more patients receiving the treatment and for a longer period of time to be certain of the longevity and depth of the benefits of EFT.
Another study looked specifically at EFT for depression, particularly in how it compared to another common therapeutic approach that has become a mainstay in depression treatment, cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). The study was random (which is super important because it diminishes the potential for bias in a study group), and tested two different interentions - EFT and CBT. Now, my biggest complaint about this study is the very small sample size. The experimental groups that were used to test the two interventions, EFT and CBT, were quite small (10 people), compared to the control group, which was 57 people. But something that I do like about this particular experiment is that the intervention was a lot longer. Instead of a 4-day treatment, like in the last study we looked at, these patients were treated for 8-weeks. But what was particularly interesting about the data from this study was this:
CBT had a significant effect, but the effect didn’t last when the patients were assessed at 3 and 6 month follow-up
EFT had a significant reduction, but that reduction was delayed and didn’t actually show-up until the 3 and 6 month follow-ups.
I really enjoyed this study. This is definitely one of those situations where I can understand the smaller sample size. Doing 8-weeks of treatment on a study population is hard enough. Add to that 6 months of follow-up and you’re bound to lose people during that time. So, yes, I would have liked to see a much larger one and it would’ve been much more powerful to have it, but I appreciate what they did here. I thought they had good controls, I liked seeing the comparison to CBT and that it provided a comparison to the standard of care, and I loved that they looked at the longevity of the results. I definitely would’ve liked to see a 12 month follow-up to see if the interventions continued in the EFT and a larger sample size, but it definitely is very promising in terms of EFT’s ability to help person’s suffering from depression. Interestingly, though, another meta-analysis looking at EFT in depression didn’t see a difference between EFT and eyemovement desentization and reprocessing (EMDR) therapy, another common depression treatment. So, the jury’s still out on whether EFT is the “best” treatment modality…
As I wrapped up my research, I was really excited and interested to find that EFT has also been investigated as a treatment for thigns as wide-ranging as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) all the way to teacher burnout . For example…
A study looking at EFT for addicition found that EFT may help reduce the severity of psychological distress in person’s who self-diagnosed with addiction issues (thought the sample size of the study was small and they really didn’t have a great control group).
A study looking at EFT for managing traumatic memories in 17 abused teenage boys found that a single-session of EFT significantly improved in a variety of anxiety and trauma scoring scales compared to controls 30 days after treatment. I definitely would want to see more follow-up and larger sample sizes, but their control seemed sufficient in this study. I also am curious about if the assessments were self-reported which can definitely lead to some “placebo effect”-esque results.
A study looking at EFT for managing student stress found that EFT tapping using compassionate, self-talk statements decreased immediate stress levels. The study used self-report and really didn’t have the most unbiased sample size (all volunteer, by convenience sampling). They did have a shame group that was tapping non-EFT points, which I liked, but they definitely could’ve looked at more of a long-term tapping program and would’ve benefited from long-term follow-up, particularly because student stress is a chronic, not acute issue.
A number of studies looked at EFT for managing PTSD in veterans (and other groups), which you can find here, here, here, and here. All 4 studies found that EFT was effective for managing PTSD, but 2 very interesting takes on it suggested the following:
This study found that EFT “may be a clinically useful element of a resiliency program for veterans and active-duty warriors” and essentially implied teaching EFT as a self-help management tool for veterans and active-duty military.
This study also noted that EFT can be used as a self-help tool, but also went so far as to claim efficacy down to a number of sessions — 4 to 10 sessions to be exact — over which EFT is efficacious for PTSD management.
the verdict?
Okay…okay…there might be something here…
The eternal pessimist in me has always doubted if there’s actually anything to tapping and emotional freedom technique and I wanted like hell for the science to be shit. I’ll admit it. Hell, I’ve been recorded on podcasts saying how I don’t think it’s legit, even after guests/hosts have come back and countered my pessimism. But, you know what, even I can sit here and say that there might be something to this...
But, any EFT and tapping practioner will tell you that whether or not it “works” is really a personal thing. You’ve gotta experience it to truly know. It’s hard to say just be reading about it if it will work for you. Honestly, I kind of wonder if it will ever “work” for me. At least until I can get out of my eternal pessimist, “this just feels too woo” headspace. Sometimes it’s our own doubt that we have to shake, you know?
However, if after reading this you’re sold and want to try it, I’ve included a couple links to some podcasts where my guests have talked about it and even given some advice for how to do it. Both the podcasts linked below, featuring Phyllis Ginsbery and Taryn Johnson, havel links to where you can either learn more about it OR have them facilitate an experience for you. So, if you’re interested, definitely check it out!
Resources to learn more:
My first ever exposure to tapping with Taryn Johnson from the Remote Yogi - click here
My podcast episode with Phyllis Ginsberg where she does a tapping demo on me in the podcast - click here
