It’s amazing how far acceptance of tapping has come in a few short years.

The other day I woke to see that a friend had shared a clip from Eastenders, a British TV soap, where a character Amy uses EFT tapping for her difficult emotions. Then I came to work to learn that ACEP member Rick Leskowitz had been invited to train the cast of an upcoming movie on the correct use of tapping (See a blog post about that here). Tapping has also recently been featured in Forbes and Readers Digest.

The next day, I presented a 2-hour webinar on Treating Trauma with Tapping for students, staff and alumni of Australian College of Applied Professions (they run courses in psychology, counselling, coaching, and more) and nearly 800 people signed up!

Back in 1998 when we started offering training in tapping we struggled to get 30 or 40 people to an event, yet now these numbers are common. 

As part of my preparation, I reviewed the research on tapping and was astounded to see how far things have come since our first randomised control study on EFT for specific phobias was published way back in 2003.

You might be astounded too, to learn that now, 20 years later, there have been over 155 studies documenting the success of tapping which have been published in peer review journals. And that’s just the English ones. There have also been over 80 studies on tapping published in non-English journals (Source: ACEP).

In fact, as ACEP (Association for  Comprehensive Energy Psychology) points out, in terms of the sheer amount of published research, tapping is now in the top 10% in terms of published research for psychotherapy modalities!  

The term “tipping point” has been used to describe the point where things flip from general ignorance and non-acceptance to widespread acceptance and proliferation of an approach. It would be hard to argue that tapping has not reached that point now.

That is, unless you read the Wikipedia entry on EFT, which states:

“EFT has no benefit as a therapy beyond (1) the placebo effect or (2) any known effective psychological techniques that may be provided in addition to the purported "energy" technique.It is generally characterized as pseudoscience, and it has not garnered significant support in clinical psychology.”

This is of course, incorrect and totally false, as EFT and tapping generally is both widely accepted and widely used within psychology and many other professions.

However, like the British Flat Earth Society, a small but influential group of closed-minded “Wikipedians” fiercely prevent anyone making changes to the EFT entry and steadfastly continue to maintain a head in the sand approach in the face of mountains of research that prove their outdated entries wrong.

A look at the references on the Wikipedia page for EFT tapping will show that they continue to highlight outdated theories and decades-old criticisms, include almost no references to the actual research, and nothing at all from the last 5 years!

After writing the last 2 paragraphs I found I needed to tap! It turns out I still get triggered by closed mindedness and people who lie, hide, or confound the truth. It’s clear that that’s what’s happening here, where those with vested interests and closed-mindedness collide. It’s amazing how often such people manage to work their way into places of relative power and influence.

One of the reasons I had to tap was that over the years there have been at least 3 organizations who were going to engage me for tapping training who subsequently cancelled it after someone in their group brought the biased Wikipedia entry to their attention.

However, as I tapped, I realised that was a long time ago. And even though the Wikipedia entry hasn’t changed, something else has, because the acceptance of tapping and other energy techniques has only continued to grow.

I believe this is due to something my good friend Dr David Lake said a few years back: Tapping will ultimately get out there through the people.

That’s because ultimately you can’t hold people back from using and sharing something that works for them, and tapping works so consistently to make people feel better and relieve their suffering that they want to share it.

In the past, in aiming to get tapping accepted, I often became bogged down in arguing for many hours with such closed-minded people. Until I realised that, in the words of Frank Farrelly, all it was giving me was “a tired back and a weak mind!”

I now know the best way forward is to offer tapping to those who are looking to find a solution to their suffering, and who are open and willing to using what works. That is actually the majority of people. And sooner or later that is all of us.

The last closed-minded cynic I spoke with, I said, "In the future when you really need help I am willing to offer you a free tapping session." I'll let you know if and when he takes it up. 

They say science only proceeds by the death of old scientists. Maybe that’s true when it comes to the “established ideas of what science is”, rather than what the science is actually showing us to be true. Like Wikipedia, there are plenty of “official seeming” sources that continue to teach as truth that which has been superseded.

Thankfully, the other day over 800 people signed on to take a look at what the actual research on tapping has to say, which I was able to share with them.

The best science is to follow and use what works. And, especially, to find what works for you and do that.

That is why tapping will continue to spread, even as the cynics and closed-minded people try in vain to hold back the tide, only to find themselves becoming increasingly irrelevant.

Let’s continue to use and share what works.

Warmly,

Steve Wells