Phobia - EFT, hypnotherapy and CBT on TV
I decided to do a separate post for this as the programme covered 3 different treatments for phobia, with two common themes throughout.
1) The patients only had a limited number of sessions that did not delve deeply into root causes.
2) All the patients had a measurable success that they were delighted with, even though this success was clearly less than 100%.
In my experience, points 1) & 2) are related. Also, there are times when the phobia is only something like two-thirds gone and the client decides to terminate the treatment because two-thirds is good enough for them, and they decide they want to work on the rest of it themselves. Or because they came for a phobia related to a journey they have to make (usually fear of flying or fear of insects) and we only had limited time before the date of travel.
Thanks to Dez for pointing out this programme on TV, it was very illuminating, especially to sufferers expecting a miracle in one session. Of course we all have many 100% successes in one session (often in minutes), but I am also happy that the programme showed the other side of the coin, for realistic expectations and time-planning (eg if someone has booked a flight and they have fear of flying). What do you think?
Answers:
I still think that it was a very disappointing programme and I didn't see any outcome for the frog lady (did I miss something?!). The theme throughout the whole film seemed to be "Facing Your Fear" and if I had watched this as a phobict thinking of getting help for the first time it would have put me off. There are ways of treating phobias (with hypnotherapy, ETT and I'm sure others) that don't involve haivng to go through the pain and suffering of facing your fear. I recorded the programme, thinking that it may have been useful to show my EFT clients, but now I'm hoping that no one saw it and it put off trying to seek help.
Sarah x
Answers:
Hi,
I saw the programme and was disappointed too. I would have liked to see more on the treatments and certainly something about the different treatments.
I did feel however that there were some useful ideas shown, particularly in the CBT bit with the guy who was phobic about Baked Beans. It would appear that something specific about Baked Beans had 'generalised out' for this poor chap, which meant that his reaction was fairly unconscious. The therapist spent quite a bit of time getting him look at the details (e.g. the date on the Heinz tin) and different aspects of the situation (e.g. one bean vs a plateful) which successfully got him out of his 'baked bean trance'. By then adding in a new state of curiosity to his old one of revulsion ("Look at this, doesn't that remind you of a map of a country. What does it look like to you? etc.") the old state couldn't be maintained. Neat.
And in the hypnotherapist section I liked the use of changing the colour to shift the salesman's feelings about things
Re the EFT I tend to agree with the comments made on the other thread. It would have been good to have seen a rather more structured approach!
But interesting nevertheless, as at least it did show that phobias can be treated.
All the best
Jonathan
Answers:
It's woth saying again.. EFT works, definitely - and without having to bully the poor client into doing something they are not ready to do just to get it on camera!
Even got photographic proof that I'm cured of my beard phobia!
Would not have done that six months ago... *tap tap* Martins beard ..
Answers:
I agree about the EFT therapist not being very thorough. He also didn't use any of the more advanced refinements that any of us here would use with a phobic client. However, I am under the distinct impression that he was short of time and feel that given a chance, even with his rudimentary approach, he would have got better results. The frog phobic seemed to be calmer about the presence of the frog after the treatment, although I agree with Sarah that the practitioner then changed tactic and forced the issue. Still, I do think that had he been more experienced, he would have asked for a longer time for this and insisted that finding the root causes or underlying emotions could take longer than the time allocated. The hypnotherapy session also seemed to be only one session, and again, same thing. The CBT involved more sessions; is that because the programme makers expected hypnotherapy and EFT to work in one session regardless and the CBT to work in more sessions regardless? Would the EFT and hypnotherapy not have worked better than CBT if both the EFT practitioner and hypnotherapist had been given the same number of goes as the CBT therapists? What do you think?
Answers:
BTW, well done, gussie! Nice pic too :)
Answers:
We don't know how many sessions of hypnotherapy and EFT there was ro the outcome of the EFT. The EFT may have seemed rushed but I expect this was down to editing. No doubt he had a regular length session with the frog fear lady, it's just that the programme makers decided not to let us see the procideure and outcome. [:@]
Well done Gussie!! And know I now what you look like... not as strange as you made out!! ;)
Sarah x
Answers:
i think the EFT was not very good at all, it did however bring to the public eye the attention of this strange looking therapy.
the therapist did kind of bully the client into touching the frog.
we dont know how much was edited out however.
lab
dez
Answers:
Hello,
This is my first our page posting, so hi to everyone! Although I didn't see the programme you've mentioned above and I'm not an EFT practitioner, I do have a client that went to one. Her fear was sudden loud bangs/noises. I referred her to an acquaintance that practises EFT, and after 9 sessions, it hadn't helped her [:@]. I then wrote in to This Morning to see if Paul McKenna would help her - don't know whether any of you have seen it, but every week he takes 1 viewer and cures their phobia. Well, my client was on the telly this morning, and I actually received a call from Mr McKenna before the 'after-treatment' part to tell me that my usually frightened client had taken a pin and was popping balloons like a mad thing, and was laughing when they set off pyrotechnics around her. When he'd asked her about her previous therapist, he said he didn't know why she'd been told to tap in the places like the collarbone, and that he would do it slightly differently. I need to sit down with her and find out what was so different, but the fact was Paul McKenna did in an hour, what the previous EFT therapist didn't achieve over 9 hours. Does it depend on how you train, and who you train with?
I'm very chuffed for my client, though. I was nearly in tears watching her on the telly, it'll make such a difference to her and her family's life [sm=jump2.gif] Yay Paul!
Answers:
What a lovely story! I don't know what the first EFT practitioner must have done wrong. From what I've learnt so far with EFT it doesn't matter so much the points you tap (EFT is a fail safe therapy in that you tap all the points) but that the wording you use is much more important.
I wish I'd seen This Morning today. You said Paul McKenna treats one phobic a week - is it always on a Tuesday? I'd love to catch it next week.
Sarah x
Answers:
Yes of course it makes a difference which training a person has had, paul uses NLP hypnosis and TFT during his sessions.
He just knew what to do, simple as that really
lab
dez sellars
Master Hypnotic Consultant
Answers:
Hi again, and hello Sarah,
Yes, Paul used to have his slot on Fridays, but it's now every Tuesday. They introduce the person to be cured at just gone 10.30am, and then come back to them after 12pm. He hasn't failed with anyone yet, and he's covered fears of: sliced onions, fish (dead or alive), spiders, and more unusual ones like body dysmorphia. He even 'cured' a chap who had a bad stammer. It was as bad as Gareth Gates', and after an hour the guy was reading off an autocue in front of 4 million viewers, and didn't stutter once.
What I do know is that last week, Paul had rung my client personally, and went through a few techniques with her: imagining her fear at its worst, and seeing it as a spinning wheel in her stomach. He asked her what colour it was, and what colour she associated with peace. He guided her through the wheel stopping, spinning the other way, and the colour changing into the 'peace' colour. The same day he did another 3 minute phone session and asked her a few questions, explaining that some people can take up to 4 sessions to be fully cured. He could only take her on for the programme if he thought he could do it in an hour, and he said she was a good candidate. He was very sweet, because he'd said at the beginning that if he felt he couldn't cure her in that time, he'd personally recommend a therapist in her area (Manchester) who would be able to do it for her.
I've just watched the video of it again, and I'm still amazed at the difference in her.
Answers:
Might be speaking out of turn her, but these are my thoughts. It's a bit worrying someone having 9 hours of EFT, I presume being charged, showing no signs of improvement, yet they still were invited to join.. normally improvements should be noted within a couple of sessions and I would have thought that from an ethical point of view, the EFT practitioner would have suggested this isn't the right method for them. Perhaps there were undiscovered issues the person needed to have investigated.. odd they were not found / worked on. If it's going to work, the signs are pretty obvious - in my experience anyway..
Answers:
That is beautiful, Red Bess :)
As for the collarbone point, some people have a certain point that works best, but it may not be the collarbone, so for him to insist on the collarbone when it produced no result was rather rash imho. I totally agree with Dez about the training. The EFT person seemed to have done only the most rudimentary training or experience, so I can't understand why he was chosen to represent EFT on the programme. If it's any consolation, two of my EFT/hypnotherapy clients have reported seeing the programme and feeling good about it.
Answers:
Hiyas,
I'm a bit confused now. Don't know whether I explained it properly: my client had been to an EFT practitioner (female), and I know that she was concerned a lot with the reasons behind my client's phobia. Paul McKenna (quite famous telly hypnotist but doing more serious stuff now) is the one on This Morning, and he's done different techniques (like Dez said) for years. He runs very successful training courses on EFT himself. He also didn't insist on the collarbone point: he just thought it odd that the previous EFT person had insisted on it.
Hope this helps,
Answers:
Hi Red,
It's not you, I just went off on a tangent. The EFT guy on TV on Sunday (unlike Paul Mackenna) got the client to tap on the collarbone point as he forced the issue of touching the frog in front of the cameras (she was a frog phobic).
Answers:
[sm=hidesbehindsofa.gif][sm=hidesbehindsofa.gif][sm=hidesbehindsofa.gif]PLEASE CAN SOMEONE LET ME KNOW IF HYPNOTHERAPY WILL WORK ON ME.I SUFFER EVERY DAY WITH SOCIAL PHOBIA. MAJOR PANIC ATTACK MONDAY MORNING. DOCS PUT ME ON DIAZEPAM FEELING ANXIOUS. ANY ADVICE APPRECIATED
Answers:
yes hypnosis can help you, also eft and be set free fast and nlp fast phobia cure
lab
dez
Answers:
Just a thought but your friend may have needed 10 sessions and Paul Mckenna just happened to do number 10.
Some people also do not realise that they are making progress.
I am an eft and nlp practitioner and find that I will only use them both if it seems to be taking to much time to find the underlying cause.
On the flip side I never gone over two sessions.
1) The patients only had a limited number of sessions that did not delve deeply into root causes.
2) All the patients had a measurable success that they were delighted with, even though this success was clearly less than 100%.
In my experience, points 1) & 2) are related. Also, there are times when the phobia is only something like two-thirds gone and the client decides to terminate the treatment because two-thirds is good enough for them, and they decide they want to work on the rest of it themselves. Or because they came for a phobia related to a journey they have to make (usually fear of flying or fear of insects) and we only had limited time before the date of travel.
Thanks to Dez for pointing out this programme on TV, it was very illuminating, especially to sufferers expecting a miracle in one session. Of course we all have many 100% successes in one session (often in minutes), but I am also happy that the programme showed the other side of the coin, for realistic expectations and time-planning (eg if someone has booked a flight and they have fear of flying). What do you think?
Answers:
I still think that it was a very disappointing programme and I didn't see any outcome for the frog lady (did I miss something?!). The theme throughout the whole film seemed to be "Facing Your Fear" and if I had watched this as a phobict thinking of getting help for the first time it would have put me off. There are ways of treating phobias (with hypnotherapy, ETT and I'm sure others) that don't involve haivng to go through the pain and suffering of facing your fear. I recorded the programme, thinking that it may have been useful to show my EFT clients, but now I'm hoping that no one saw it and it put off trying to seek help.
Sarah x
Answers:
Hi,
I saw the programme and was disappointed too. I would have liked to see more on the treatments and certainly something about the different treatments.
I did feel however that there were some useful ideas shown, particularly in the CBT bit with the guy who was phobic about Baked Beans. It would appear that something specific about Baked Beans had 'generalised out' for this poor chap, which meant that his reaction was fairly unconscious. The therapist spent quite a bit of time getting him look at the details (e.g. the date on the Heinz tin) and different aspects of the situation (e.g. one bean vs a plateful) which successfully got him out of his 'baked bean trance'. By then adding in a new state of curiosity to his old one of revulsion ("Look at this, doesn't that remind you of a map of a country. What does it look like to you? etc.") the old state couldn't be maintained. Neat.
And in the hypnotherapist section I liked the use of changing the colour to shift the salesman's feelings about things
Re the EFT I tend to agree with the comments made on the other thread. It would have been good to have seen a rather more structured approach!
But interesting nevertheless, as at least it did show that phobias can be treated.
All the best
Jonathan
Answers:
It's woth saying again.. EFT works, definitely - and without having to bully the poor client into doing something they are not ready to do just to get it on camera!
Even got photographic proof that I'm cured of my beard phobia!
Would not have done that six months ago... *tap tap* Martins beard ..
Answers:
I agree about the EFT therapist not being very thorough. He also didn't use any of the more advanced refinements that any of us here would use with a phobic client. However, I am under the distinct impression that he was short of time and feel that given a chance, even with his rudimentary approach, he would have got better results. The frog phobic seemed to be calmer about the presence of the frog after the treatment, although I agree with Sarah that the practitioner then changed tactic and forced the issue. Still, I do think that had he been more experienced, he would have asked for a longer time for this and insisted that finding the root causes or underlying emotions could take longer than the time allocated. The hypnotherapy session also seemed to be only one session, and again, same thing. The CBT involved more sessions; is that because the programme makers expected hypnotherapy and EFT to work in one session regardless and the CBT to work in more sessions regardless? Would the EFT and hypnotherapy not have worked better than CBT if both the EFT practitioner and hypnotherapist had been given the same number of goes as the CBT therapists? What do you think?
Answers:
BTW, well done, gussie! Nice pic too :)
Answers:
We don't know how many sessions of hypnotherapy and EFT there was ro the outcome of the EFT. The EFT may have seemed rushed but I expect this was down to editing. No doubt he had a regular length session with the frog fear lady, it's just that the programme makers decided not to let us see the procideure and outcome. [:@]
Well done Gussie!! And know I now what you look like... not as strange as you made out!! ;)
Sarah x
Answers:
i think the EFT was not very good at all, it did however bring to the public eye the attention of this strange looking therapy.
the therapist did kind of bully the client into touching the frog.
we dont know how much was edited out however.
lab
dez
Answers:
Hello,
This is my first our page posting, so hi to everyone! Although I didn't see the programme you've mentioned above and I'm not an EFT practitioner, I do have a client that went to one. Her fear was sudden loud bangs/noises. I referred her to an acquaintance that practises EFT, and after 9 sessions, it hadn't helped her [:@]. I then wrote in to This Morning to see if Paul McKenna would help her - don't know whether any of you have seen it, but every week he takes 1 viewer and cures their phobia. Well, my client was on the telly this morning, and I actually received a call from Mr McKenna before the 'after-treatment' part to tell me that my usually frightened client had taken a pin and was popping balloons like a mad thing, and was laughing when they set off pyrotechnics around her. When he'd asked her about her previous therapist, he said he didn't know why she'd been told to tap in the places like the collarbone, and that he would do it slightly differently. I need to sit down with her and find out what was so different, but the fact was Paul McKenna did in an hour, what the previous EFT therapist didn't achieve over 9 hours. Does it depend on how you train, and who you train with?
I'm very chuffed for my client, though. I was nearly in tears watching her on the telly, it'll make such a difference to her and her family's life [sm=jump2.gif] Yay Paul!
Answers:
What a lovely story! I don't know what the first EFT practitioner must have done wrong. From what I've learnt so far with EFT it doesn't matter so much the points you tap (EFT is a fail safe therapy in that you tap all the points) but that the wording you use is much more important.
I wish I'd seen This Morning today. You said Paul McKenna treats one phobic a week - is it always on a Tuesday? I'd love to catch it next week.
Sarah x
Answers:
Yes of course it makes a difference which training a person has had, paul uses NLP hypnosis and TFT during his sessions.
He just knew what to do, simple as that really
lab
dez sellars
Master Hypnotic Consultant
Answers:
Hi again, and hello Sarah,
Yes, Paul used to have his slot on Fridays, but it's now every Tuesday. They introduce the person to be cured at just gone 10.30am, and then come back to them after 12pm. He hasn't failed with anyone yet, and he's covered fears of: sliced onions, fish (dead or alive), spiders, and more unusual ones like body dysmorphia. He even 'cured' a chap who had a bad stammer. It was as bad as Gareth Gates', and after an hour the guy was reading off an autocue in front of 4 million viewers, and didn't stutter once.
What I do know is that last week, Paul had rung my client personally, and went through a few techniques with her: imagining her fear at its worst, and seeing it as a spinning wheel in her stomach. He asked her what colour it was, and what colour she associated with peace. He guided her through the wheel stopping, spinning the other way, and the colour changing into the 'peace' colour. The same day he did another 3 minute phone session and asked her a few questions, explaining that some people can take up to 4 sessions to be fully cured. He could only take her on for the programme if he thought he could do it in an hour, and he said she was a good candidate. He was very sweet, because he'd said at the beginning that if he felt he couldn't cure her in that time, he'd personally recommend a therapist in her area (Manchester) who would be able to do it for her.
I've just watched the video of it again, and I'm still amazed at the difference in her.
Answers:
Might be speaking out of turn her, but these are my thoughts. It's a bit worrying someone having 9 hours of EFT, I presume being charged, showing no signs of improvement, yet they still were invited to join.. normally improvements should be noted within a couple of sessions and I would have thought that from an ethical point of view, the EFT practitioner would have suggested this isn't the right method for them. Perhaps there were undiscovered issues the person needed to have investigated.. odd they were not found / worked on. If it's going to work, the signs are pretty obvious - in my experience anyway..
Answers:
That is beautiful, Red Bess :)
As for the collarbone point, some people have a certain point that works best, but it may not be the collarbone, so for him to insist on the collarbone when it produced no result was rather rash imho. I totally agree with Dez about the training. The EFT person seemed to have done only the most rudimentary training or experience, so I can't understand why he was chosen to represent EFT on the programme. If it's any consolation, two of my EFT/hypnotherapy clients have reported seeing the programme and feeling good about it.
Answers:
Hiyas,
I'm a bit confused now. Don't know whether I explained it properly: my client had been to an EFT practitioner (female), and I know that she was concerned a lot with the reasons behind my client's phobia. Paul McKenna (quite famous telly hypnotist but doing more serious stuff now) is the one on This Morning, and he's done different techniques (like Dez said) for years. He runs very successful training courses on EFT himself. He also didn't insist on the collarbone point: he just thought it odd that the previous EFT person had insisted on it.
Hope this helps,
Answers:
Hi Red,
It's not you, I just went off on a tangent. The EFT guy on TV on Sunday (unlike Paul Mackenna) got the client to tap on the collarbone point as he forced the issue of touching the frog in front of the cameras (she was a frog phobic).
Answers:
[sm=hidesbehindsofa.gif][sm=hidesbehindsofa.gif][sm=hidesbehindsofa.gif]PLEASE CAN SOMEONE LET ME KNOW IF HYPNOTHERAPY WILL WORK ON ME.I SUFFER EVERY DAY WITH SOCIAL PHOBIA. MAJOR PANIC ATTACK MONDAY MORNING. DOCS PUT ME ON DIAZEPAM FEELING ANXIOUS. ANY ADVICE APPRECIATED
Answers:
yes hypnosis can help you, also eft and be set free fast and nlp fast phobia cure
lab
dez
Answers:
Just a thought but your friend may have needed 10 sessions and Paul Mckenna just happened to do number 10.
Some people also do not realise that they are making progress.
I am an eft and nlp practitioner and find that I will only use them both if it seems to be taking to much time to find the underlying cause.
On the flip side I never gone over two sessions.