BENGALURU: Everyone has heard of tap dance and tapping the face to improve blood circulation, but now there’s an alternative form of healing called Emotional Freedom Therapy or EFT. It combines tapping on acupressure points while repeating specifi c phrases which are said to release stress and emotional trauma. The technique claims to integrate ancient wisdom and acupuncture with modern-day psychology without the need for needles. The Bangalore-based EFT practitioner and trainer, Mridula Mohan Nair has worked with several individuals using this technique; cases of aches and pains which don’t go away even after years of medical attention, stammering, autism, cancer, people with low esteem and feelings of shame and guilt that haunt them due to societal pressures and norms, particularly women depression and other maladies.
“EFT is like fi rst aid for the mind,” says Nair “and can be used on care givers who look after cancer patients, or alcohol and other substance abusers. They need love and compassion and sadly they are the most neglected people.” She shares her experiences. “I worked with a young girl who had a stammer. We began tapping on the stammer itself fi rst. Then we began tapping on the way she felt. The helplessness and deeper than that there was anger and then fear. When we worked through all these emotions and released them, forgiving the people who played a part in this she began to feel much lighter.” In another case, a middle-aged man came with extreme pain in his right leg and had diffi culty walking. “We began tapping on the pain and he remembered a trauma he had gone through a few years earlier.
He found it diffi cult to connect it to his present health condition. We began tapping on the trauma anyway. The emotions that came up were abandoned and we worked through this when guilt came up. This too was released after tapping and in the third session he was able to reduce his medication. “ Nair also practices Matrix Reimprinting is a technique created by Karl Dawson that evolved from EFT and is used to treat traumatic experiences in the past that consciously or sub-consciously affect our daily lives. This approach is said to be particularly helpful in treating addictions, phobias, relationship issues and so on. “Patients often do not wish to share their stories, but sharing the emotion is enough for catharsis to take place,” says Mridula Mohan Nair.