Negative effects of therapy

A few months ago I tried EFT (emotional freedom technique / tapping). My anxiety significantly worsened and old behaviours such as self harm started to re appear. I also felt suicidal for the first time in many years. I only feel EFT has had a negative effect on me. I also felt my therapist was out of her depth and did not have experience or knowledge to deal with this effectively. I have been trying to find research to see if this is a common problem but all I can find is the positives of EFT, which may explain the previous sentence.

Does anyone else have experience of this etc. Or suggest other places I can look for it

Sorry you're feeling like this. I've not really tried EFT and don't know that much about it , but many techniques have the principle of energy being held in the body and addressing this along with other aspects like cognition and situational. I did EMDR , but for all of them there is the question of pacing and pitching which if it goes too fast brings up too much too soon and can feel overwhelming and having feelings such as you are. Perhaps your T is a little out of her depth and experience with this , maybe she could consult on it. Have you told her how this is making you feel ?

I found there were a great many negative effects from therapy

My therapist mentioned this once and I wasn't really behind it. Seemed silly. I think you have to believe in the therapy for it to work and it wasn't gonna work for me. Seems to be a shortage of research on a lot of these therapeutic techniques.

I've never heard of EFT before, but got curious and found this ... grrr, boards won't let me post a link, too few posts. Anyway, it was the second result in a google search for "eft negative effects", so you might have found it already, and it was unhelpful?

Anyway, if you feel your therapist is out of her depth, that might very well be the case. Is this something you can discuss with her? Do you have the option to switch therapists?

Personally, I have deep doubts about both tapping and EMDR. They seem a bit too much like waving a magic wand around to me. But who knows. There is some research that supports it, however I would suspect a placebo effect. I have several times gotten worse in therapy, much worse in fact. To me it generally seems to come down to the relationship...If I feel heard, if I am buying into the treatment approach, if I feel like the therapist likes me, if I feel like she has real competence, etc. Research has consistently shown that the relationship is an important component to therapy, perhaps the most important component. If you are feeling worse it isn't your fault. The treatment isn't working and it's time to try something else.

Do you think the mechanics of new modality is distracting
your T from your connectedness and alliance ?

I had someone try EFT with me once. They were not a T but trained in EFT. My reactions were similar to yours. The person doing it was shocked because she had never heard of negative reactions either. So... no answers but you are not alone in your reaction.

I can imagine the energy based approach having negative effect. Working with body energy may have serious side effects and isn't suitable for everyone. Just like meditation makes many people worse.

I have recently come across several people who posted on different forums that they had a negative experience with EFT.

Negative effects.
You're suddenly aware you're an ********.
Where as before you were, but couldn't see it 😂

What other forums are you a member of?

Thanks everyone else for your replies

Thanks. I've seen someone a few times who focuses on hypnotherapy as he wanted me to try EFT. I said how it affected me and got visibly anxious at the time of explaining it, he seemed really surprised and shocked as well.

With alternative therapies i'm not sure if all the training days and research is heavily biased and shows everything through 'rose-tinted glasses'. That's how it felt with this therapist and another practitioner I know. Seemed to get defensive and disregard feedback which makes me think training given is too simplistic and doesn't provide coping skills for the therapist when things don't go as planned.

I think the order google shows links depends on previous search results and location, so i'm not sure what information you're referring to. There was this one;

https:// medium. com /@stephen_56723/what-are-the-side-effects-of-eft-4cdad8276d8d

In a 2016 journal article ‘EFT for Anxiety’ by M. Clond, a review of studies involving more than 1,000 clients found ‘no adverse events’

So while EFT can involve elevated emotions (referred to as abreactions which are seen as signs that the treatment is working. Do not stop in these cases, keep going, as its working!

I've tried to find the article above as I can't believe anything has no adverse effects. Also I think if someone gets the to stage I did you should stop..

OK, I can post links now: Why People Sometimes Have Negative Feelings after Doing EFT | EFT Universe Learn EFT Tapping Emotional Freedom Techniques.

Did you manage to get your symptoms under control?

I was physically and sexually abused as a child. My T had me try tapping and it immediately triggered abuse feelings. I think it is because of the physical touch. Even though I am tapping myself, I don't like it.

MyPTSD - I remember seeing people mention this there. May have also seen it on Reddit, but I can't remember.