Emotional Freedom Technique in clinical practice

Emotional freedom technique is a type of alternative intervention and psychotherapy methods that is geared towards addressing a specific issue and getting an individual to become desensitized to that issue. The technique is used by some to remove negative emotions, reduce or eliminate pain and to implement positive goals. The technique is administered by utilizing subtle energies as well as voice affirmation in order to address a specific issue, event, addiction, pain or something else that is bothering the individual. The emotional freedom technique has contributed to clinical practice and to issue of becoming self-aware through its process.

Foremost, the emotional freedom technique has the ability to contribute and informs clinical practice because when a person has an experience or thought; it is generally associated with an emotional problem. This process of experiencing a particular thought in relation to an emotional problem helps clinicians individualize their technique to care for a given individual. These emotional problems that people have also have the ability to cause some chronic conditions. For example, if someone has a problem with a particular stressor, it could lead to certain heart conditions or if someone is battling an eating addiction, they most likely will be at risk for diabetes, heart conditions, respiratory issues, among other things. The process of ETF informs clinicians as to what is causing the underlying emotional distress that may be manifesting themselves in physical ailments.

Though scholars debate if this is a credible technique to help individuals overcome certain issues in their lives, it certainly has contribute to the person's self-awareness. For instance, if a person has battled obesity all of their lives and has a negative self-esteem and perception because of it, then ETF forces the individual to identify the core of their self-esteem issues. If a person is becoming increasingly obese and they do now know why, they need to back track to find out. If the person has a negative self-esteem, and uses that as their crutch to continue eating and then gets the more negative about them, ETF forces them to identify the core problem. In this case, it would be the negative self-esteem caused by overeating. From that point, ETF can be used to address the issue. That critical transition from identifying the issue or problem at hand to the ETF procedure greatly aids in making an individual more self-aware. The procedure can only concentrate on one issue or problem at a time so to reach that single issue, individuals must grapple with all of the issues at hand and identify that issue.