If EFT doesn’t work

There could be several reasons for that. The mechanics of EFT are easy to learn and apply, but the Art of EFT requires practice, persistence and insight.

I tried it myself and it didn’t work

If you’ve worked on your own with no success, you may :

  • Have the tapping points not quite right
  • Have been too general in the description of the problem
  • Have a problem with lots of different “aspects”
  • Be too close to the problem to be able to see what is causing it
  • Be dehydrated
  • Be affected by energy toxins
  • Be chronically reversed

Some steps you can try:

  • Drink some water
  • Say everything louder and with more feeling, really mean them
  • Check whether you’re still looking at the same “aspect” (eg you were feeling sad, and now you’re feeling angry)
  • Get more specific eg. instead of “this headache” say “this stabbing pain at the top of my right temple near my eyebrow” or instead of “lack of self esteem” work on the specific situations that lead to that feeling.
  • If you’re working on an emotion, try tapping on the physical sensations in your body instead (see Other ways to tap)
  • Try the full recipe:
    • 1. Setup: You can also try using the sore spot (see below) instead of the karate chop point
    • 2. Sequence: Use all the shortcut points, plus the finger points (see below)
    • 3. 9 gamut (see below)
    • 4. Sequence again
  • “Energy toxins” might be interfering with your energy system. The most common are: wheat, corn, dairy, refined sugar, herbs, pepper, tea, coffee, caffeine, nicotine, alcohol and perfume. Refer to the manual for help.
  • See an EFT therapist for expert guidance.

The other tapping points

The Sore Spot – On either side of the upper chest, about 3” down and 3” out from the tips of the collarbones, you’ll find a tender or sore spot. (Feel around with your fingers a little to locate it.) With this point, you rub gently, instead of tapping.

The finger points:

  • Th: Outside edge of the thumb nail
  • IF: Edge of the nail of the index finger, the side closest to the thumb
  • MF: Edge of the nail of the middle finger, the side closest to the thumb
  • LF: Edge of the nail of the little finger, the side closest to the thumb

The 9 gamut:

The gamut point is on the back of the hand, in the gap between the bones that run down from the ring finger to the wrist bone and from the little finger to the wrist, close to the knuckles. While tapping on the gamut point, perform the following brain integration exercises:

  1. Close your eyes
  2. Open your eyes
  3. Look hard down to the right
  4. Look hard down to the left
  5. Move your eyes in a full circle clockwise
  6. Move your eyes in a full circle anti-clockwise
  7. Hum a few bars of a song
  8. Count from 1 to 5
  9. Hum again.

I tried it with a therapist and it didn’t work

If you still have no success, a good therapist should be able to work through any of these with you. But what if you’ve worked with a practitioner, and had no results? Or had a temporary improvement, but it didn’t last?

It could be that your practitioner doesn’t yet have enough experience.

But more likely is that you didn’t give it enough time. There are so many “one minute wonders” on Gary Craig’s website, that people often expect quick results. But with a multi layered problem it can take multiple sessions to clear every part of it. Be patient, and allow yourself enough time to get a thorough result. If you’re concerned, talk to your practitioner about it.

Another possibility is what is called the “Apex effect”. Some time EFT works so well, that we can’t even remember how the original problem felt. So you may feel that you’ve had no help from an EFT session when, in fact, you’ve had such a profound shift in the way you see things, that it seems like you always felt that way.

While EFT has produced remarkable clinical results, it is still be considered to be in the experimental stage and each user must take complete responsibility for their own use of it.