As a teenager, Christina (not her real name) had been coerced into sex and then raped repeatedly by her much older boyfriend.
She was intimidated by him and afraid of him, and so had a hard time ending the relationship.
In subsequent relationships, she felt that all she was good for was sex; her self esteem was way down.
In my psychotherapy office ten years later, she was still traumatized, becoming upset and teary whenever she thought about that time, or tried to talk about it.
She was open to the process of EFT Tapping to alleviate her trauma.
  PTSD Stays Locked In Our Nervous Systems Extremely threatening experiences like Christina's often stay in our nervous system and have powerful effects on our emotions, the ways we relate to others, and our experience of the world around us.
That's what PTSD is-the conglomerate of emotional, physical, and relational symptoms resulting from threatening experiences.
The symptoms continue on, often for years.
Some people become very easily charged up or agitated.
Other people become spacy or foggy whenever something happens that's the least bit reminiscent of the original event.
Trauma Can Manifest as Fogginess, Spaciness, Dizziness For instance, when she began to talk about the relationship with her boyfriend and various times during it, Christina became agitated (stress) and also showed signs of trauma: the room seemed foggy to her and she was spacy and "fuzzy.
" We started by trying to bring down these symptoms of trauma with EFT Tapping.
 EFT Tapping is Extremely Effective for PTSD Trauma To give you a little background: EFT is a relatively simple method of alternative healing that can be effective with a number of issues, includingeffects of trauma and stress, pain and illness, injuries, addictions, weight issues, phobias,and anxiety.
How EFT Works EFT is an "energy psychology.
" Similar to acupuncture, it works on the body's energy system to heal emotional and physical pain.
One secret is to get to the core issues in us that are hindering healing.
When we can do that, EFT Tapping often has amazing results.
The other secret to EFT's success is that, each time we tap on an issue, we're simultaneously accepting ourselves even though we have that issue.
For example, if we're angry about something, there's usually a part of us that thinks we're wrong for being angry.
But with EFT, we accept ourselves with our anger for the moment and continue tapping while focusing on the anger.
That often helps our anger dissolve.
 Sexual Assault Victims Often Blame Themselves Just as with many sexual assault victims, Christina blamed herself, feeling that she brought the attack on herself, first because she "let" her boyfriend move things along too quickly in their relationship and then because she didn't stop him when he was assaulting her.
This is often one of the first things that comes up, and it was important to help Christina realize that her attacker was a much-older predator and that he was stronger than she was physically.
We had to move through self-blame about giving up fighting him, and blaming herself for being pulled in by him telling her she was beautiful and intelligent.
Powerlessness, Guilt, Sorrow After this, she realized she had felt powerless and disrespected and then sad thinking aboutthe many years that her life and her self-esteem had been affected by this trauma, and how long she had been living with anxiety.
Through EFT Tapping, she was finally able to feel safe again.
One EFT Session Cures Rape Trauma PTSD At the end of only one session, Christina said that the guilt was gone and her heart was no longer heavy at all.
She could still remember the event, but felt that it was just something she was looking at from afar.
She felt she had let it go and was letting herself forgive herself.
This all happened in one session of EFT Tapping!  Christina called a week later and told me she felt wonderful.
She said "this stuff really works!" I agreed heartily.