Tapping on your body while talking about something difficult doesn't, on the surface, look like therapy. It looks a little strange. And the gap between what it looks like from the outside and what it does can be hard to bridge without some context, or without having experienced it yourself.

Where it comes from

EFT - Emotional Freedom Technique - developed in the 1990s, drawing on both the acupressure tradition that underpins Chinese medicine and more recent understanding of how the nervous system processes and stores difficult experience. It combines two things: gentle tapping on specific points on the face, hands, and upper body, and focused attention on something that's emotionally difficult.

The points used are the same acupressure meridians that acupuncture works with. The difference is that EFT uses finger pressure rather than needles which means this is something you're easily able to do at home as well. That accessibility is one of the things people tend to appreciate.

What happens in a session

A session tends to begin with conversation - understanding what's brought the person in, what they're carrying, what they'd like to work on. That conversation shapes what follows rather than being separate from it.

When something specific has been identified - a memory, a feeling, a situation that carries a charge - the person is invited to hold it in mind while tapping through the sequence of points. They don't need to go into it in detail or describe it in full. They need to be able to access the feeling - to have it present enough to work with - without being fully inside it.

What tends to happen during the tapping is that the thing being held in mind begins to shift. The intensity of it changes. Sometimes that's noticeable quite quickly - a sense of something loosening, a breath, a quality of release that's hard to describe but recognisable when it arrives. Other times it's quieter - the charge simply reduces, gradually, in a way that only becomes apparent when the person notices that what they were focused on feels different from how it felt when they started.

Sessions tend to feel like a conversation. The tapping is present throughout, but it sits alongside talking, noticing, following what emerges. For most people, what felt awkward in anticipation settles quickly once the session is underway.

Why it works

The evidence base for EFT has grown substantially over the past two decades - there are now a significant number of randomised controlled trials supporting its use for anxiety, PTSD, phobias, depression, and chronic pain, and the American Psychological Association has recognised it as an evidence-based treatment.

What's happening in the body during a session is relatively straightforward to describe, even if the experience of it is harder to anticipate. When a difficult memory or feeling is held in mind, the nervous system activates - the same response that generates anxiety, that keeps certain experiences feeling present long after they've passed. Tapping on acupressure points while that activation is happening sends a calming signal at the same time - one that gradually interrupts the association between the memory and the stress response. The charge reduces. The memory remains, but something of its grip releases.

This is different from what happens when we talk about something or think it through. Talking and understanding work at the level of meaning. EFT works at the level of the body's response - which is why it can reach things that insight and conversation haven't shifted. They're doing different things, and they don't always move together.

In my experience of using EFT with people over many years, what strikes me most consistently is how often it moves something that other approaches have circled without quite reaching.

What people tend to notice

Most people find the tapping itself easier to settle into than they expected.

What tends to be more notable is what happens to the memory or feeling being worked on. The strong charge begins to feel different - less immediate, less consuming. Sometimes that shift is accompanied by something more visible - tears, or a sense of physical release. More often it's quieter than that. The intensity simply reduces, in a way that can feel almost surprising given how stuck the thing had seemed.

Afterwards, people often describe feeling lighter, or clearer, or notice that something they'd been carrying has a different quality to it. Some feel tired, which tends to pass quickly. And between sessions, the things being worked on often feel genuinely different - not just temporarily reduced, but changed in some more lasting way.

It's also worth saying - because it matters to a lot of people - that EFT doesn't require going into difficult material in detail. The charge can be addressed while staying at a manageable distance from the experience itself. For people who have been reluctant to engage with something because the prospect of being overwhelmed feels too much, this tends to be one of EFT's more significant qualities.

What it tends to be useful for

People come to EFT for a wide range of things. Anxiety - both the generalised kind and the kind that attaches to specific triggers or situations. Grief that has become stuck and isn't moving in the way grief is supposed to move. Trauma and experiences that keep surfacing despite attempts to process them. Phobias. The persistent inner critic that doesn't respond well to being reasoned with. Relationship patterns that feel automatic and hard to shift. Chronic pain that has an emotional or stress dimension alongside the physical.

It also works well alongside other approaches. A significant number of people I see combine EFT with talking therapy - using EFT to work with specific feelings or memories, while using therapy to understand the broader context and pattern.

On trying it

The most consistent thing people say after a first EFT session is that they didn't expect it to feel the way it did - that something shifted that had felt immoveable.

If you're curious about how EFT can help you, please do get in touch. I'd love to hear from you. I also offer therapy, acupuncture, and reflexology in person at my clinic in Edinburgh or online.