Update
Shortly after posting this, Steve Wells and Helen Walker (bless their hearts) emailed to let me know I had got it wrong (as usual by not reading the small print).
The EFT research does meet the standards of the APA but it has not yet recognised as evidence based by the APA - a big difference.
So I’ll strike out the bits that aren’t yet true and leave the post up as a reminder to me: post in haste, repent at leisure.
Sorry about that
One of the difficulties of getting EFT into mainstream organisations (such as the NHS here in the UK) is that opponents or doubters say that it is not evidenced based.
Many people in many places have been doing the hard work of researching the effects of EFT for various problems, all this work is paying off.
The American Psychological Association wrote in its journal Review of General Psychology:
“A literature search identified 50 peer-reviewed papers that report or investigate clinical outcomes following the tapping of acupuncture points to address psychological issues. The 17 randomized controlled trials in this sample were critically evaluated for design quality, leading to the conclusion that they consistently demonstrated positive statistical results that far exceed chance and showed moderate to large effect sizes after relatively few treatment sessions. Criteria for evidence-based treatments proposed by Division 12 of the American Psychological Association were also applied and found to be met for a number of conditions, including PTSD.”
This is great new for EFT and for the people it can help.
It’s also great news for the hardy folk in the NHS who want to add EFT to their therapeutic toolkit (although I imagine it will take a while)
You can find out more about the EFT research method at EFTUniverse.com
