New Roots of Chronic Pain Discovered: Clear the Emotions, Clear the Pain (press release)

Originally published July 3 2006

A groundbreaking new treatment for fibromyalgia is successful because it addresses the emotional and physical trauma that is believed to be at the root of this chronic illness. According to the National Institutes of Health, "Many people associate the development of fibromyalgia with a physically or emotionally stressful or traumatic event, such as an automobile accident."

EFT is a do-it-yourself acupressure treatment that targets chronic pain by addressing these traumatic and emotional roots. There are no drugs involved and most fibromyalgia sufferers can find relief using EFT on their own.

Gary Craig, the Stanford-trained engineer who developed EFT, worked with Vietnam War Veterans to help them resolve some of their traumatic memories. Says Craig, "in the course of applying EFT, the Veterans experienced profound emotional peace for the first time in 20 years. A side-benefit was that many of the men reported that their chronic physical pain diminished or disappeared along with their emotional pain. Soon we were successfully applying EFT with people who were suffering chronic pain from arthritis, back injury and even fibromyalgia. Emotional and physical relief tend to go hand-in-hand when doing EFT."

Bestselling author and natural health advocate, Dr. Joseph Mercola uses EFT in his medical practice. "In my experience fibromyalgia is nearly always related to some severe emotional trauma that establishes a series of potentially devastating physical processes, which frequently incapacitate the person." Dr. Mercola did EFT with a patient whose fibromyalgia prevented her from sitting without pain for three years. As a result, she'd been unable to travel by plane to visit her family for several years.

Mercola continues, "within several minutes the EFT was able to completely and permanently eliminate her pain. Most of her pain was related to the sadness of not seeing her family, the stress and trauma of the accident that caused the pain and her need to forgive the driver of the truck that hit her." EFT neutralized the sadness, anger and trauma and eliminated the physical pain.

Craig explains, "to me, fibromyalgia and most other physical ailments are merely bodily manifestations or symptoms of unresolved fear, trauma, rejection, anger, guilt and other emotional causes. Take care of the emotional causes and the physical symptoms tend to fade."

EFT is a modern version of acupuncture that has been used for 5,000 years to treat emotional and physical ailments. It combines gentle fingertip tapping on key acupuncture points while focusing on physical or emotional issues. Says Craig, "It consistently provides relief to fibromyalgia and chronic pain sufferers where painkillers, antidepressants and even acupuncture have failed. EFT consistently helps fibromyalgia patients improve their disordered sleep, overcome fatigue and clear brain fog."

Estimates indicate that 3 to 6 million Americans suffer from fibromyalgia and 80 to 90 percent of those sufferers being women. "Most fibromyalgia patients learn about EFT after they have been through years of expensive conventional medical treatment for their symptoms", explains Craig. "Many feel hopeless and worn down from their search for relief. My goal is to have EFT presented as part of the first line of treatment available to people with chronic pain conditions, rather than the last resort. To this end, I am offering the EFT Manual as a free download from the EFT website."