Traditional therapeutic interventions are always helpful, but treatment methods have developed greatly in the last few decades, offering new outlooks and treatments including more somatic and holistic approaches. One of these that is rapidly gaining in popularity is the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT).
Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) explained
EFT is a combination of various different schools of thought, but its key characteristics are that it is non-invasive, drug-free and aimed at removing energy blocks within the body.
It’s a holistic treatment that doesn’t simply address your eating disorder but also helps improve your overall wellbeing. Clinical research has shown that EFT can be effective for treating many conditions, including depression, phobias, PTSD and relationship problems, among others.
EFT starts by classifying the intensity of emotional responses to a certain trigger. When addressing eating disorders, EFT allows you to hone in on your cravings, the psychological foundations of your eating disorder, and even the consequences of your behavior.
When focus on these blocks has been established, you will be mentored regarding how to tap points of what are referred to as energy meridians in your body. Affirmations geared towards accepting one’s self help the body undo its flawed conditioning with the tapping, which makes you open to the suggestions. The power of your word choices pertaining to the process is what makes the therapy so effective.
‘Top-down’ v. ‘bottom-up’ therapy
You might have heard about top-down v. bottom-up therapy. Top-down generally refers to working from a cognitive, thoughts based place. In top-down therapy we use words and ideas to communicate, understand and process.
Bottom-up therapy implies that we start more from a body-based approach. It is now commonly known and accepted that our life experiences have a great impact on our bodies, even down to our nervous systems. Bottom-up therapy address these impacts and uses somatic or movement-based approaches to understand and process past or present experiences.
Treating Eating Disorders from all angles
Emotional Freedom Technique utilizes both bottom-up and top-down approaches because it involves the action of tapping pressure points while verbally categorizing and working through moments or experiences.
For more information on the wide range of therapeutic modalities that ‘Ai Pono Hawaii offers, please check out our website.