An experimental process to undo the healing effects of
meridian therapies; a possible way to work around this
problem; and comments from Gary Craig of EFT, David
Grudermeyer of ACEP, and Kate Sorensen of Trauma Relief
Services
Dear
Reader:
In 1999 during one of our workshops, we asked our
participants to try and reverse the effects of a well known
meridian therapy, EFT. To our surprise, one of the
experimenters rather quickly worked out a way to do it, at
least part of the time. The results we got from this test,
a preliminary process to undo meridian therapies, and the
implications as we see it are contained below.
This does not mean that the test was conclusive! More
experiments need to be run before we can even say our
results have validity. By publishing it on our website, we
hope that other interested healers and therapy developers
using meridian therapies will follow up on this work, with
an eye to making energy therapies more robust.
Below is a description of our experiment. Included are
comments from Gary Craig (inventor of EFT), David
Grudermeyer of ACEP (Association for Energy Psychology),
and Kate Sorensen of Trauma Relief Services.
Grant McFetridge, July 8, 2001
Institute for the Study of Peak States
UPDATE 2002: A possible way to work around this problem
This year, one of the readers of our website encountered this reversal problem while working with a client in his office. He came up with a process to work around this problem, as described below. Please give it a try and let us know if it's successful.
Thanks!
Grant, September 30, 2002
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Dear colleagues:
I read Grant's write up of how people could use Meridian Energy Therapy (MET) tapping to disconnect the emotional response that was connected to a specific incident and how some people could hold their breath etc. and undo the MET thus returning to their previous state.
After mulling this over for a while I thought, why not use the MET tapping to try and stop the emotional reconnect that some people are able to do.
Earlier this year I had a client arrive in a highly agitated state. Using MET tapping they were able to become calm (0 on a scale of 0-10). Yet when I asked if they could reconnect with their previous emotional state they very quickly became highly agitated again.
I had them repeat the MET tapping and they were again able to become calm (0 on a scale of 0-10). Then I had them start tapping while they tried to become agitated again. We continued through all the meridian points. The result was that they were unable to reconnect to their highly agitated state.
They disconnected the reconnect.
Last week when I bumped into them at the store they said the issue they came in with had been resolved and was no longer a problem.
I know that one success is just that -- one success. This in no way proves that this disconnecting the reconnect will work with most people.
You might try this approach with your family, friends or clients. Let me know if it is successful for you.
LOL Scot McGee
An experimental process to undo the healing effects of
meridian therapies
The Initial Experiment:
In our last
workshop, we deliberately asked for volunteers who knew EFT
to try and reverse the healing effects of EFT. Since we
didn’t know what might be the key pieces in reversal,
we had the participants focus on two types of traumas from
their pasts, and experiment on themselves. The first trauma
type was purely emotional, while the second had a physical
injury associated with the emotional content. We had the
participants tap out the first trauma, then try to undo it
in any way they could think of. We repeated the process for
the second physical trauma, and again asked participants to
try and undo it. We iterated when one person discovered
that moving his diaphragm opposite to normal breathing was
effective in undoing the tapping. Below is a tabulation of
how many people could undo the trauma and how many
couldn’t. Essentially, they were just using Step 2
(in the process listed below) by itself.
Emotional Trauma: Undone-2; Unchanged - 7; Other - 0
Physical Trauma: Undone - 4; Unchanged - 4; Other - 1
(The ‘other’ case was fascinating, and gives a
different verification of this test. The person could undo
the trauma while using the reversing breath, but it would
go back to peace as soon as she stopped the breath
reversal.)
Preliminary
steps for Undoing EFT:
After the workshop, we spent a little time isolating what
seemed to be the key pieces for undoing EFT, noted below in
three steps. These are the steps we’ve identified so
far. Not every step is required to undo every trauma,
issue, or condition.
1. Focus on the problem feeling, just as if doing normal
EFT
2. Tense the diaphragm and throat. One way this can be done
is to breath in a way that is the opposite of normal
breathing, i.e., suck up the diaphragm on an in breath
while tensing the throat.
3. Initiate a sort of shuddery sensation, as if one were
cold, with the kinesthetic feeling of pulling into oneself,
as if pulling a blanket tight over one’s body. This
last step is not necessary in many cases.
Example:
A client inadvertently reversed healing we’d done
with EFT. She had an issue involving the feeling of dying.
After successful treatment, involving a womb trauma, her
experience of everyday life radically improved. Eight days
later, after a kayaking trip, her improved condition
reversed itself. What happened was as follows: she was
kayaking, and it looked like they would all be killed in
bad weather on the ocean. She was feeling that she might
die (Step 1). She was frantically paddling, straining and
breathing hard as she fought the waves (Step 2). And she
was cold after hours in the water (step 3). The reversal of
healing was dramatically noted after that by the client.
Comments:
Apparently, meridian therapies act to sort of soothe or
relax the body, causing it to stop triggering stored
emotional and physical material from past traumas. However,
after an EFT treatment the stored trauma is still in
storage, just not available. Thus, EFT is like using
white-out on a catalog entry (the trauma trigger) in the
library, while leaving the volume (the traumatic emotional
and physical content) in the stacks.
In Step 2 above, tensing the throat and diaphragm acts to
reinforce separation between the body (reptilian brain),
heart (mammalian brain), and mind (primate brain). Tensing
the diaphragm is a key piece in storing traumatic material.
For more information, refer to The Triune
Brain in Evolution by Dr. Paul
MacLean, Evolution’s
End by Joseph
Chilton Pearce, or the page on this website called
"The Underlying Model for Peak States,
Abilities, and Experiences"
Step 3 above, involving a shuddery pulling towards oneself,
is particularly interesting. This action tightens a layer
around the body which contains some allergy response
information and other ‘inherited’ problems.
Hence, the shuddery tightening feeling apparently makes the
information content in the layer become more dominant, and
induces the observed phenomena of ‘energy
toxins’. At our Institute, we call this surface layer
the shell, or ego/personality, and it is what gives us the
sensation of having a boundary at our skin. For more on
this, see www.PeakStates.com.
Recommendations:
1) Continue to use EFT and it’s cousins mostly as we
always have, because under most circumstances they are
still fast, simple, and effective therapies. Their use is
an incredible boon to suffering clients, and is radically
changing the expectations of clients, therapists, and
performance coaches worldwide.
2) Take good notes during a session so that for difficult
cases the client can quickly get back to the core issue of
the presenting problem if the EFT becomes undone.
3) For severe trauma which would be difficult for the
client to face or access by themselves, such as birth or
womb injury, I would recommend using a non-meridian based
power therapy, such as TIR (Traumatic Incident Reduction)
or WHH (Whole Hearted Healing).
4) I hope other researchers involved in developing energy
techniques look into isolating more accurately how to undo
EFT (and related meridian therapies), with an eye towards
finding a fix for this problem. This research could be
valuable work for other reasons, as it might lead to a
simple solution to the ‘energy toxin’ problem.
This is the text of the letter I sent to ACEP (the Association for Comprehensive Energy Psychology), with copies to other key people in the energy therapy field:
Dear Dorothea:
As the title of this email says, in September in one of my workshops we looked at the problem of how to deliberately reverse the healing that meridian therapies provide. Since everyone knew EFT, we used that. Below is a copy of a letter I sent to Gary Craig about the experiment and it's results. He chose to not put it out to the list, and I have to admit that I wasn't wild about having my name on a letter that would draw the anger of all the latest 'true believers' in meridian therapies. However, this issue is of serious concern to people in the field as well as an OPPORTUNITY to technique developers working to improve the techniques. When you read the letter, you will see that the experiment is preliminary, and needs a lot more work.
Since ACEP has an academic component to it, I felt that from what I read about your organization that it would be right up your alley. Clearly, there is incentive for this sort of thing to be pushed under the carpet...
I don't have any desire to pursue this topic further myself, as the experiment was designed to demonstrate that the meridian processes could deliberately be reversed. This in turn proved that the originating trauma was still present, but that meridian therapies work by turning the access to trauma off. This then demonstrated to me one of the fundamental principles of how energy therapy worked in comparison to other power therapies. Since my own technique does not use meridians, I have no incentive to go further with this. BUT I believe it's obviously important for SOMEBODY (else!) to pursue it...
Please let me know what happens with this. I will be discussing it briefly at the upcoming energy conference in Las Vegas during my talk, and would like to have some more resolution on the matter I can share with my audience.
Sincerely
Grant McFetridge
Institute for the Study of Peak States
Comments from Kate Sorensen of Trauma Relief Services
From: Kate Sorensen
To: Grant McFetridge, Dorothea Hover-Kramer, David & Rebecca Grudermeyer
Subject: Re: How to reverse/undo meridian therapy healing
Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2000 09:57:41 +0000
Dear Grant,
Fascinating ideas and your unique viewpoint, as usual. One thing that jumped out at me as I read this is the need to consider the role of Intention. That's certainly a factor in eliminating (or disconnecting) the traumatic stress reaction in the first place, so it makes sense to me that it would be a factor when people "try and reverse the healing effects of EFT". I'd be interested to see what would happen if people (especially those with no knowledge or expectations of EFT) do the EFT treatment to a 0 SUDS and then carry out the steps you outline, but without knowing that they were supposed to be trying to reverse the treatment. Then there's the factor of researcher expectations to take into consideration-- if you set out to prove that EFT can be reversed, guess what you're likely to get??
Since the field is just now starting to do research to establish that these methods accomplish something in the first place, I imagine it will be a while before anyone does serious research on *undoing* them. Sooner or later we (someone) should get around to it, though, and I'd like to see it done with an open, curious attitude rather than by someone bent on debunking these techniques. As you say, we're bound to learn some useful lessons through this exploration-- maybe a lot more than if we just stick with trying to prove we can get the results we want to believe in.
Kate Sorensen
Trauma Relief Services
Comments from David Grudermeyer of the Association for Comprehensive Energy Psychology
-----Original Message-----
From: Drs. David & Rebecca Grudermeyer [mailto:DGRUDERMEYER@prodigy.net]
Sent: Monday, March 27, 2000 1:42 PM
To: Grant McFetridge; Dorothea Hover-Kramer
Cc: Gary Craig; Patricia Carrington, Ph.D.
Subject: Re: How to reverse/undo meridian therapy healing
Dear All,
I received a copy of your e-mail to Grant, Kate, and wanted to add a couple of words of my own to Grant and some others too. I am copying in Dorothea because of your correspondence with her on this topic, Pat as ACEP's Research Committee chair, and Gary, since Grant (with some relief!) noted that Gary had not posted his letter on the EFT e-mail list:
First of all, I agree that it is imperative that we investigate whether, how and under what conditions Energy Psychology treatments can be undone, and I thank you for being courageous enough to raise the question and also do some preliminary research on this question.
Second, your comment, Grant, that the results of your experiment to reverse meridian processes "proved that...that meridian therapies work by turning the access to trauma off..." is a wild and unsound conclusion to draw, scientifically speaking. To use the word 'prove' in conjunction with ANY pilot study is contrary to all sense of scientific objectivity. You are concluding way, way beyond the data. To word things this way during your presentation at the upcoming Las Vegas conference would, in my opinion be professionally irresponsible. I do, however, hope that during your presentation you propose this explanation as a postulate or hypothesis.
In actual fact, neither you nor I have no right to draw any conclusions, empirically speaking, as to why these results came about. From an empirical point of view, the mixed results you got in your pilot study actually point make another hypothesis more likely than yours: when only 2 of 9 emotional trauma treatment effects were 'undone' and 4 of 9 physical trauma treatment effects were 'undone,' one of the many questions we must ask is: "Why did it appear that sometimes the EFT treatment DID prove resilient under challenge, and sometimes it did NOT?" I'll say a little more about this below, but, again, the ONLY scientifically responsible conclusion that can be drawn from a pilot study such as yours is that further study should be conducted to ferret out whatever the actual answers to this question happen to be.
You propose that "meridian therapies act to sort of soothe or relax the body, causing it to stop triggering stored emotional and physical material from past traumas. However, after an EFT treatment the stored trauma is still in storage, just not available. Thus, EFT is like using white-out on a catalog entry (the trauma trigger) in the library, while leaving the volume (the traumatic emotional and physical content) in the stacks."
This is a perfectly legitimate theory, but, again, your pilot study by no stretch of the imagination proves it. Another possibly more likely potential explanation is that the EFT treatment was incomplete. That is, when an Energy Psychology treatment (no matter which variety) is not continued until the person: a) reports no distress or symptoms; b) this absence of distress is verified in vivo; and c) possibly, a new relationship that person wishes to have with that issue is energetically fully embedded in the person's system, that Energy Psychology treatment cannot be said to be complete. Your results seem to me to indicate that in some of your subjects, the treatment issue may indeed have been brought to completion, and in others it had not. In other words, another possible explanation for your results is that they indicate that practitioners are not always appropriately diligent in completing and confirming the treatment, and in helping the client embed an alternative relationship to the issue.
You also listed four recommendations based on your pilot study:
Your first is to continue to use Energy Psychology treatments because they appear to be fast and relieve suffering. My comment: I agree.
Your second is to take careful note of the core issues connected to the presenting problem so that if the treatment effects are undone you have a bookmark to refer back to for further treatment. My comment: Actually, if there are core issues feeding into a presenting problem, I believe those issues should identified and treated as aspects of the presenting problem, as part of the course of any thorough and professionally responsible Energy Psychology treatment.
Your third recommendation: For severe trauma, use a non-meridian-based power therapy such as TIR or WWH. My comment: I am NOT a 'true believer' in the idea that Energy Psychology treatments are good for all people and problems. I AM an avid believer in mixing modalities in whatever ways that are in the best interests of the client. But to conclude from a pilot study with mixed results that Energy Psychology treatments are insufficient to successfully treat severe trauma is another one of those leaps of logic that have no place in empirical research.
Your final recommendation: To further research the question of undoing Energy Psychology treatments to find out if there is a 'fix' for this, which could, in turn, lead to a simple solution to energy toxin problems. My comment: I agree wholeheartedly with the importance of doing further research on this question. As far as solutions to energy toxins go, there are already a number of wonderful interventions for these problems, and I share your hope that ultimately even simpler interventions might surface, perhaps as a byproduct of the research you've proposed.
Thank you again for your courage to bring up these kinds of controversial questions, and for being willing to propose potentially controversial explanations as well. In the name of honest inquiry and collaborative debate, I want to encourage these sorts of dialogues and research inquiries. In the name of helping establish credibility for Energy Psychology treatments, I also want to encourage people to not make conclusions or recommendations (in contrast to questions, hypotheses and proposals) that go beyond what the data support.
Best wishes,
David
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The Association for Comprehensive Energy Psychology (ACEP) is an international organization that promotes collaboration among Energy Psychology practitioners and researchers, and enhances this field's credibility with consumers and professionals. Energy Psychology is a rapidly developing field within mind/body psychology that explicitly, directly and methodically treats the human vibrational matrix. This matrix includes the biofield that envelops the body, the energy centers (chakras), and the energy pathways (meridians and related acupoints). Energy Psychology treatments are increasingly used to alleviate psycho-spiritual or mind-body distress, and promote high level psycho-spiritual or mind-body functioning. ACEP was co-founded by psychologists Drs. David & Rebecca Grudermeyer and Dr. Dorothea Hover-Kramer. ACEP is a nationally-approved Continuing Education Provider in the USA for NBCC, NASW and AHNA. For more information, contact ACEP.
ACEP web site: http://www.energypsych.org
ACEP e-mail: acep@energypsych.org
Comments from Gary Craig, originator of the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT)
Dear Gary:
I’d like to share with the EFT list what our preliminary tests showed would reverse (undo) the healing that EFT gives. I feel this is important for the list to know, since: 1) this knowledge allows us to either warn our clients to avoid doing it; or 2) to cause us as practitioners to emphasize that if a problem returns, to just tap it out again.
Grant
From: "Gary Craig"
To: "Drs. David & Rebecca Grudermeyer", "Dorothea Hover-Kramer"
CC: "Patricia Carrington, Ph.D."
Subject: RE: How to reverse/undo meridian therapy healing
Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2000 18:53:06 -0800
Hi All,
I am replying to David Grudermeyer's response to Grant McFetridge's claims about "undoing EFT" or, I presume, any of the other variations. I do recall Grant writing me about this a few months ago and, indeed, I did not publish it on the EFT list. As I recall it, Grant had either previously to (or simultaneously with) that email made other claims to me which I thought were too aggressively stated and not backed up by much. I put the "undoing EFT" claim in the same category until presented with reasonable evidence to the contrary.
One of these claims was that he could, with his methods, cure schizophrenia. I'm all for this, if it can be done. In fact, I'll support Grant or anyone else who can pull this off as it would clearly be a major milestone in this field. I don't even need pristine validating scientific evidence to support it. Just have 5 or 10 cured schizophrenics call me to discuss their experience. To date, however, I have been given no substantive evidence for this claim other than Grant's statements.
[Grant comments in 2001: I invented the method to heal my own schizophrenic father, who had been hospitalized most of my life. Dr. Clarence McKenzie MD, using large populations of schizophrenics in a controlled research study uncovered the same key to the problem a few years ago (www.drmckenzie.com). Another recent study on Scandinavian mothers during WW2 who suffered hunger during a winter and were pregnant during that period had children who were much more likely to be schizophrenic than children born before or after that winter, showing the connection between prenatal trauma and the disease.]
[Grant comments in 2002: Good news! Gary documents a schizophrenic who managed to use EFT to eliminate his symptoms. This matches our own findings that EFT or other psychological processes can be used successfully for curing schizophrenics.]
[Deleted text]
On the "undoing EFT" claim, I would love to see how to do this because it carries with it the potential for our greater understanding. Like David, however, I see too many variables in the process to make this claim without much more rigorous evidence. Was the "undone" healing just an untreated aspect? What was the skill of the therapist who originally applied EFT? Did the therapist simply reduce a surface issue and ignore an underlying core issue (which later shows up as being "undone"?).
Also, I have many clients that, in my opinion, have complete resolution of specific issues. I doubt seriously if anything short of re-traumatization would "undo" these benefits but I'm willing to ask some clients to see if they will try Grant's method. I have some former height and other phobic clients in mind. Can Grant take them to the top of a building and make their heart pound again....or vomit?
It would be more appropriate, however, to start with an issue of mine. That way we don't have to bother clients. About three years ago I was making my bed and had sudden tremendous back pain that brought me right to my knees. I thought I had severe back damage and would end up in a wheelchair IF I could even somehow get to the phone (about 15 feet away) and call for help. About 30 seconds of tapping and the whole thing went away. I got up as if nothing had happened. This may sound like a temporary muscle spasm but I've had many years of competitive sports and I am well aware of what a muscle spasm feels like. This wasn't one of them. It felt like something much more serious.
Anyway, I would be willing to see if Grant could "undo" this EFT benefit.
Those are my thoughts.
Cheers, Gary
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