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Martha Gillis Delafield, LCSW
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Basic PrinciplesThe underlying principle governing all energy psychotherapy techniques is that everything is energy, and any "symptom" you may be experiencing -- that is, anything you're feeling that isn't perfect health and total bliss -- is caused by a disruption in the flow of that energy. The energy psych techniques are all designed to get you back into flow again. Most techniques that I use utilize the meridians, which are the same energy channels used in acupuncture. Fortunately, many of the points that are near the beginning or end of these meridians are on the bone or close to the surface of the skin, and so can be stimulated by tapping on them with your fingertips (the deeper points need the acupuncture needles). So you can give yourself an energy balancing treatment by tapping on certain points on your face, torso, and/or hand. They are quick, easy, safe, gentle, and surprisingly powerful. What are some energy psychotherapy techniques?The ones I use the most are Emotional Freedom Techniques, or EFT; the Spinal Release Technique; and the Tapas Acupressure Technique, or TAT. I also use Be Set Free Fast, or BSFF, and the Snow Globe. Each one has a different "feel" to it, and so are good at different times for different people. How do you use them?I think in patterns. We organize our experiences in patterns to make sense of them, and to try to establish some predictability, efficiency, and safety. Any new experience we have is compared and contrasted with other experiences we've already had -- and then using that information, are interpreted using the elements of past experiences that have had the most emotional impact, greatest importance, or had the greatest survival value. Some patterns, like your morning routine, are mainly designed for efficiency. Other patterns, like your tendency to by hyper-tuned into people's moods and to try to keep the peace at all costs, are a survival pattern based on early experiences. Some patterns are useful, but often we outgrow them, by continuing to interpret current events by past standards and frames of mind. In other words, we may have been very smart to become hyper-alert to other people's moods (like our angry mom's) when we were children, but we're not children any more, and so the pattern or trying to placate and keep the peace at all costs doesn't save our life the way it once might have done. Now, it's getting in the way and holding us back. Sometimes we don't even realize we're doing it, or why. But even if we do, it's often not enough to change it. There is too much emotion -- too much energy -- keeping the pattern going. There's too big a "charge" to it to be relinquished just by thinking or talking about it. That's why, so many of my clients would get to the point of saying, "I understand why I'm doing what I'm doing, but I can't seem to stop doing it!" (I've said it a few times myself.) Something more than insight is needed, and that's where the energy psych techniques are so powerful and helpful. By focusing on that pattern, the one with the "charge" to it (and often, just a specific piece of it), and then using an energy psych technique, we can discharge some of the energy that's keeping it going, and make it more open to change. Keep doing the technique on the next specific piece of it, and then the next, and pretty soon the whole thing collapses because there's no more energy/emotion keeping it going, and you are free, really free, to create something new. It's the way that it addresses issues at what I think of as "the first domino" in the sequence of events that concludes with our having a feeling, or our doing something, that makes energy psych so powerful. Yet it's so deceptively quick and easy, and frankly, goofy looking, that it hard to imagine that it could be helpful at all. The Power of Energy PsychotherapyI began studying these theories and techniques over 10 years ago, because I was so frustrated with people getting to the point of having all the insight in the world, but still feeling stuck and miserable. It seemed too good to be true, to expect that just by tapping on acupuncture points on your face and torso, that anything could happen. My internal Drama Queen rejected the idea immediately. I knew that my own problems were too Important and Complex and Long-Standing to be gotten rid of in so cavalier a fashion. Big, heaving, cathartic dramatics were my best way out, or so I thought. And had done for years. It was my experience of helping to cure my son's stutter that blew me away and made me a believer, ten years ago. And it's been the thousands of similar miracles I've facilitated and been a witness to since then that has opened my eyes to the phenomenal potential of all the energy therapies. My son had stuttered when he was a toddler, which the books said was not uncommon. My older brother stuttered all his life, though, and I saw how frustrating it was for him, so I was concerned about my son having to deal with it in his own life. The books said not to worry unless it came back around age 6 or so. It did come back at age 6, and with such a vengeance that within a year my son could hardly speak at all. He would hit his head in frustration, trying to get the words that were stuck out of his mouth. The speech therapies I researched didn't seem all that different from the ones my brother used decades before -- the only thing to have changed seemed to be the use of computers. I was really discouraged. It was around that time that I was learning about energy psychotherapy, and I learned to use a couple of techniques with my son, which we did together first thing in the morning and last thing at night. It probably took about 5 minutes each time. As the weeks went by, his speech got more and more fluent. He wasn't trying to talk more clearly, he just was! After about 5 weeks, I noticed we were "forgetting" to do the techniques sometimes, but I realized it was because we were really just needing to do them less and less. After 6 or 7 weeks my son was completely fluent and we stopped them altogether. He was talking like any other kid, without having to think about it. It was stunning. And he's remained fluent ever since -- I don't even think he remembers stuttering anymore. Since my experience with my son, I've been truly awed by the power of energy psychotherapy. It really has seemed miraculous at times. It will often work when everything else has failed. It will work on the most unlikely and seemingly impossible of issues and problems. I have yet to find the limits of it. I've concluded that any time it doesn't appear to work, it's only because I haven't found the right way to apply it. You Have the Power!A really great aspect to these techniques is that anyone can learn and use them, even kids. Because they're quick and easy, they can be used throughout the day, in all kinds of circumstances. No special equipment is necessary, no major time commitment, and no side effects! It means that you can have these amazing tools to use yourself -- you don't have to go to a specialist to have something done to you. I will say, though, that it's extremely helpful to learn it from someone who knows what they're doing -- like me -- because it does take some getting used to, and it's helpful to have me to guide you, and give you feedback and suggestions. The techniques are simple, but deceptively so. Learning how to use them with confidence makes all the difference. What is a session like?We talk. I want to get a picture of what's going on with you, what you're having trouble with, what you want, what's in your way, what's familiar about what you're dealing with now. I listen on multiple levels. One of the levels is listening for the places where energy is blocked. As I get a sense of what's going on, I may suggest we stop and "tap on that" to see what else is underneath it, or to gain some understanding of what it's connected to, and then to release it and ultimately to install what you want in there instead. Our sessions are very interactive and dynamic. I've found that I can now help people accomplish in a session or two what used to take months of traditional therapy. You get a lot of bang for your buck. You may begin to conjure up even bigger dreams for yourself. You begin to understand that you don't need to fear any feeling or memory, because you have effective, powerful tools for dealing with them. You begin to understand that you're free!
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