Simple tools to boost your therapy results

Are you a therapist who is always looking for tools that get great results? If you are already using energy psychology tools like EFT, TFT, AIT, or CEP, you know how powerful these approaches can be. And as great as they are, sometimes a little tweak can lead to big improvements, even in an already-fabulous therapeutic toolkit! Here are four often overlooked yet simple tools to boost your therapy results.

Tapping the finger points

The most popular form of energy psychology is EFT tapping. EFT stands for the emotional freedom techniques. Plural. Yet we often think of it only as tapping the side of hand with the setup statement, then tapping the head and torso points while stating the problem. That is certainly the basic recipe for EFT. But there’s more!

Tapping the points at the base of the fingernail on the thumb, index finger, middle finger, and pinky finger allows us to access important meridians where energy can also be stuck. Try adding these points in your next EFT practice and see how it feels. You may be surprised at how powerful it is!

The 9-gamut

Another underutilized technique in EFT is what’s called the 9-Gamut. This term was coined by Roger Callahan, father of energy psychology tapping techniques and creator of Thought Field Therapy (TFT).

To do this, tap the back of your hand, between the bones leading up to the pinky and ring fingers. This is a treatment point for the very important Triple Warmer or thyroid meridian. This meridian is associated with a host of emotions. While steadily tapping this point, do the following nine things:

Close your eyes
Open your eyes
Look sharply down to the left
Look sharply down to the right
Roll your eyes slowly in a big clockwise circle
Roll your eyes slowly in a big counterclockwise circle
Hum a little tune
Count to five
Hum a little tune

You will be amazed at how the distress level drops after doing this simple exercise. In fact, in online tapping groups, my group-members found that adding the finger points and 9-gamut reduced their SUDs (units of distress, on a 0-10 scale) by at least a point or two, and often more. Adding these techniques to a round of tapping, at least with these groups, seems more efficient than adding a new round of tapping.

The Brief Energy Correction

This is a simple tool that is taught in ACEP’s comprehensive energy psychology training. It was designed to rebalance an energy field that had become scrambled, where the nerves are not sending the correct signals. A “tell” of this scrambling is homolateral walking (same arm and leg move forward together, rather than the opposite arm as normal). Confusion and clumsiness are also “tells”.

Interestingly, Robin Bilazarian found that this simple exercise reduced workshop participants SUDs dramatically in just 90 seconds of practice. You can read more about Robin’s study here. Her article even has an image showing the hand placement!

To do this simple exercise, place one hand below your naval. Then place your other hand on the following areas, holding each for just one breath:

Both sides of the collar bone, using thumb and index finger on either side
Under the nose, using index and middle finger
Under the mouth, using index and middle finger
At the tailbone, with the back of the hand on your body and thumb facing upwards

The next time you need a quick fix for your energy or mood, give the brief energy correction a try. I recently guided a stressed-out client who was having therapy from his car in this subtle exercise. He dropped from a ten to a four after three rounds, and to a two after an additional three rounds. It was easier for him to do than a full tapping protocol because of logistics, and got him a dramatic reduction in just a couple of minutes.

Collar bone breathing

This is another simple tool that is part of the comprehensive energy psychology training but can be a fantastic standalone technique. It also was meant to help restore balance in a scrambled energy system and offered help for clumsiness and confusion. However, clinicians like Mandi Freger are using it to address more basic issues in therapy.

To do this technique, cross your hands over your chest with your fingers resting just below your collar bones. You’ll do two sets: for the first, put your fingertips under your collar bones. For the second set, place your middle knuckle just under your collar bones. For each set, breathe as follows:

Inhale and exhale completely
Inhale halfway and hold
Inhale the rest of the way and hold
Breathe halfway out and hold
Breathe the rest of the way out and hold
Inhale and exhale completely

Give this simple technique a try and see how easy it is to come back into balance!