By: Wayne Head
I learned what is colloquially called tapping probably 15 years ago. I was at a two-day conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico with about eight of my colleagues. We all worked for the Clovis Municipal Schools and had taken two days to attend various workshops at the conference. When I signed up for the Thought Field Therapy workshop, I had not heard of tapping. I needed to fill a workshop time space, so I decided that I would check out this offering. I am not exaggerating when I say that this workshop changed my life. Not that my life is problem free. Not that this technique has made me insanely wealthy. Not that I am better looking. No, none of this has happened. What I mean is it has given me one more strategy when the students that I am working with are in pain, physical or emotional. When this technique works it works quickly and almost effortlessly.
There are two styles of tapping to the best of my knowledge. Now, I am not an expert on tapping. I am going to share what I know from my own experiences with this unusual way to relieve physical and emotional upset. The first tapping style that I became aware of is Thought Field Therapy. Thought Field Therapy was innovated by Jack Callahan, and he claims that it uses the same meridian points on the body that are used in Acupuncture. As I explain to my students, while I show them the palms of my hands, look no needles.
To perform Thought Field Therapy, you need to get a SUDS, Subjective Units of Distress, level. SUDS is a subjective level of distress and runs from zero to ten, with ten being the worst feeling. The dynamic here is that you can tap on yourself all day long and not create any palliative results. The SUDS level opens the mind to a thought field. You are thinking about the distress and giving it a rating. This is like opening a filing cabinet drawer in your mind, now your efforts are focused on the distress and the tapping. After you have acquired a SUDS number, you now do a tapping sequence, called an algorithm by Jack Callahan. There is a short sequence used for small T traumas, three different points on the body are tapped. The big T (severe traumas) sequence uses seven points on the body. If the distressful event or memory is perceived by the person receiving the tapping as an important problem I use the big T sequence.
It does not matter if you tap on the left side then the right side of your body. It does not matter if you tap fast or slow, and it does not matter if you tap soft or hard. I had a boy with Asperger’s syndrome, on the Autism spectrum, who tapped himself with such a soft touch that it made me think of butterfly kisses, and it worked for him. After a sequence is completed you gauge another SUDS level and then apply a correction if the number did not move at all or if it only went down one number. If the SUDS moved two or more numbers down, you do a sequence designed for that event then you do the regular sequence again.
I have many stories of people finding relief using the tapping procedure. One of my first uses of tapping was for myself for two phobias. At the time, I lived in a mobile home near a large farm field and of course my trailer was besieged by mice. I had such a phobia for mice that I could not even watch commercials for a cartoon movie that was hitting the theaters at the time that featured a mouse as the main character. Adding to my distress was a strong upset while seeing something dead. I was trapping mice in mousetraps, so each time I caught a mouse I was experiencing my two phobias in one event. At first, I did a tapping for mice, which worked. Then I did a tapping for viewing dead animals. I knew this was working when I went to step up on a curb one day and at my feet was a deceased bird. I looked down, said poor guy, and realized that I did not do my usual crazy dance to get away from the remains.
I used tapping for a man who was greatly afraid of storms. We did one session and within minutes, he was freed from a fear that had been attacking him for decades. I used tapping for a student who was afraid of needles and was leaving the school to get an inoculation. He came back to school saying that the shot was no big deal. I have used tapping for old memories of tragedies that have haunted people for years. I explain that the tapping does not take away the memory, it backs off the heavy push of the memory, allowing the person to move on with their lives.
One of my most personal uses of tapping was not conducted by myself. A counselor in Farmington, New Mexico conducted it for my younger brother who had been diagnosed with early on-set Alzheimer’s disease. My brother was beginning to have intense anxiety concerning where he was in a moment, why he was there, and most importantly where his wife was then. The counselor did tapping for him about his anxieties and taught him to do tapping for himself. For a least a year around this intervention he would speak enthusiastically about how the tapping helped him with his intense anxiety.
I began this article claiming that tapping has changed my life, and it truly has in many different ways. I wanted to share the news of this gift with you.