EFT for Sexual Trauma Series
Safely processing Big Anger & Sadness about keeping the secret.
This post is written with the express permission of my client “Zoe” who was happy to share her story with the intention of educating others about the impact of sexual trauma, and the benefits of EFT in processing trauma and gently shifting strong negative emotion out of the body. Zoe would like to see more Psychologists and Social Workers registered with Medicare and Victims of Crime using EFT in Australia, so it is more accessible and affordable to the people who need it. She has not found much benefit from talk therapy, and has needed to borrow money to pay for her EFT sessions with me, but she still prefers that option to doing talk therapy again, even though it might be free or low cost.
All identifying details changed to protect privacy.
This post is an account of a fourth session, where tapping on overwhelm about Uni leads into big anger and sadness about family wanting Zoe to keep her secret about the childhood sexual abuse. This brings up associated emotions around feeling the sexual abuse was not taken seriously enough, that she was not really believed, protected or supported by her family. These are all important elements for a person to recover well from such trauma.
Background:
Zoe is a Uni student in her twenties who came for EFT as she had heard from friends that it is a good way to process trauma. For many years she had been experiencing trauma symptoms in her body and mind and it was really affecting her daily quality of life and her ability to move forward. She was really ready to do the work and to learn how to help herself when feeling triggered.
Zoe was sexually abused by her grandfather for years since she was a small child, and although he is now dead, she continues to be haunted daily by the trauma caused by the abuse. She suffered emotionally and physically thought her childhood, experiencing multiple serious physical illnesses, saying she was “always sick” as a child. In her teenage years she was diagnosed with severe depression and anxiety and had seen numerous mental health professionals for the standard talk therapy. She had attempted suicide once as she was so tormented. Even though she was in talk therapy, she simply could not speak of what her grandfather had been doing to her at that time. (It is very common that children are unable to speak about the sexual abuse when it is happening, or even once it is stopped. Often they are threatened by the perpetrator, or told that no one will believe them if they tell).
When Zoe finally did tell what had been happening to her, it was like a bomb went off in her family. She did not feel believed by everyone, or adequately supported or protected by the people who really mattered to her. This left her feeling pretty worthless. Zoe explained that to her it felt like the abuse was not taken seriously enough by her family, despite the fact that it had clearly ruined her childhood, her confidence, and her capacity to have normal relationships as an adult.
Zoe still struggled with massive guilt around the impact of her abuse on other family members. She blamed herself for how much it had upset others, yet she felt so angry about how these events had unfolded in her life and the impact they were still having on her now. On the one hand she said she feels bad for “not having let this go”, and on the other hand she said “It angers me that I am now having to pay for EFT / therapy for something that was done to me.” Rationally speaking, she knows it was not her fault.
Zoe did not find talk therapy helpful, as it “brought everything up”, but did not provide her with any relief and did not decrease any of her symptoms. She often ended up feeling worse from going into details about what happened, and frustrated that the therapy did not change how she thought or felt about anything. It was like pain with no purpose. In our first EFT session we had to tap on her fear that doing EFT would be similar, that tapping on her feelings might “bring it all up again and leave me spiralling out of control and feeling worse”.
EFT for trauma Tip #1: Tapping on safer, more recent things first: frustration, embarrassment and the fear that it won’t work.
A good safe place to start when working with people who have experienced chronic trauma symptoms can be tapping on the frustration or anger they feel about all the things they have already tried that haven’t helped so far. And the resulting fear that EFT will just be another one of those experiences, and therefore possibly a waste of time and money. There may also be a need to tap on the embarrassment the person feels about having to discuss anything to do with the sexual abuse. But wait for them to raise this, as you implying that it is a problem may suggest to them that they ought to feel embarrassed. People are understandably very sensitive about such things.
Your client may be unaware of how present emotions like frustration are, and they may be quite nervous about working on any issues related to the trauma. And so focusing on something else like “frustration about what hasn’t worked” feels safer. It also acknowledges and validates the experience of the person, that they have been trying hard to get better, as they often feel like a failure because despite lots of therapy, they still have many symptoms. Explaining how common this is can help normalise the experience for your client.
I always reassure people in my free consultation that with EFT and the gentle techniques, we can provide a lot of relief without ever having to discuss anything in detail. Frustration/ worry/embarrassment can be a nice safe place to start in a first session, demonstrating with recent examples how strong negative emotions can be decreased in the mind and body fairly quickly and painlessly, using very few words. Usually starting where your client is at in relation to any one of these topics can increase you client’s confidence in you as a practitioner, in the techniques, and will show your ability and desire to keep them feeling safe and comfortable. But beware, there can still be a lot of emotional intensity attached to any of these topics.
Presenting Problem:
By the time Zoe came to me she had been having horrific nightmares almost every night for about nine years, explaining that “90% of my dreams are violent, dark and gory”. As a result she did not look forward to sleep, and she constantly felt low in her energy and needing to take afternoon naps. She often felt anxious for no apparent reason, and had difficulty concentrating on her Uni work. She scored highly on the PTSD screen in the first session, although she had never been diagnosed with PTSD.
In finding a goal to work on, Zoe explained what was bothering her most apart form the nightmares, was that she was constantly being triggered by “random things” like hearing the word “innocent”. Recently she had been triggered by listening to a podcast about an “innocent young girl” as it brought up lots of feelings about how her own innocence was stolen from her at a young age. Hearing the word “grandfather” was also triggering for Zoe, and she described how hearing a person talk about having a good relationship with their grandfather at Uni recently had completely derailed her emotionally for the rest of the day.
Zoe described that once she has been triggered like that, she would start thinking about her grandfather and asking in her head “How could he do this?”. This would then spiral into anger and disgust toward him, and feeling ashamed of herself. Then she would start thinking about details of the abuse and “what actually happened”, which would lead her into believing that she is “damaged goods” and that she can never have a normal relationship. She stated that she felt she had coped for a long time by keeping herself really “busy” and distracted, however once COVID hit, “it all came crashing down” as she couldn’t hide from her trauma any longer. She felt it was finally time to try and deal with this again, but was nervous about doing so.
In talking about how the trauma is showing up for her, Zoe said she finds herself feeling unworthy of love or friendships, and is unable to accept praise, compliments or kind gestures from others. She stated that she always questions “nice” behaviour from others, internally thinking people always have ulterior motives and do not mean what they are saying. She feels uncomfortable when people are nice to her, and feels undeserving of such treatment. “I think they are just buttering me up because they want something”. One of her goals is to feel grateful when a person pays her a compliment, rather than cautious, triggered and and untrusting .
I am able to accept compliments and praise from people comfortably VOC pre-EFT was 0%
I am unworthy of love from men VOC pre-EFT 90-100%
I am unworthy of friendships VOC pre-EFT 70%
The focus for this fourth session had initially been on overwhelm around Uni, as Zoe was finding herself unable to concentrate and anxious about what lies ahead in the degree. However, what came up as a result of tapping on that was the extreme anger she felt after a recent conversation with her grandmother. Zoe was told that her uncle did not want Zoe telling other family members about the sexual abuse she had experienced at the hands of her grandfather (his father). Apparently this uncle wanted the memory of his father to be “protected”, which meant Zoe had to keep the abuse a secret within the extended family. Zoe’s unconscious mind was clearly telling us that this was where we needed to go.
EFT for trauma tip #2: Safest time zones: the present, recent past and the future. Stay away from tapping on childhood events in early sessions.
Be aware that people are putting a lot of trust in you when agreeing to tap with you on their sexual trauma. And trust is a major issue for most people who have experienced this type of trauma, so you want to be very aware and respectful of that. So when picking specific events, stick with things that haven’t happened yet (the near future), the present (how you feel about this now) or something that happened recently (like last week, a few months ago). You can explain to your client that when tapping on these more recent events, we are still lighting up all the neural pathways we need to work on, and the body will usually start feeling sensations once you start tapping to show us all the places the trauma is being held in the body. So we are doing the work we need to do on the trauma formed by childhood events, but in a way that feels comfortable for the body. People may be unprepared for the feeling of sensations in their body, and it can feel quite scary for some people, so explain that this may or may not happen, and either way it is totally ok.
Don’t go where you don’t belong and don’t take your client where they don’t belong - back into childhood memories. At least until you have a lot of safety and rapport established with your client. And realise that whilst we as EFT Practitioners we might think it’s really fascinating how tapping on something recent can lead the hippocampus to drop a memory, that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to go there now.
Pre-frame with your clients that this can happen, so they know to tell you if it does happen, and reassure them that if it does happen you will decide together what to do, your priority being to keep them feeling safe. Most clients will feel reassured by this, as they have spent their life trying to avoid thinking about this stuff, and they will not feel confident yet that the tapping will be adequate pain relief for processing such a memory . Your job is to build trust and confidence in you as practitioner, and in the EFT as a modality, so your client feels ok about working on earlier events when the time is right. This takes time, patience and usually a number of sessions. I make this clear from the beginning.
Back to the session:
I could tell that the anger Zoe was feeling about this was very strong, and also that it felt “old” as well as recent. So we started with a round or two of silent tapping just to assist with regulation.
EFT for trauma tip #3: I always pre-frame with my clients that we will come back to silent tapping any time there is a lot of emotional intensity present, and that this not about saying sadness and tears aren’t appropriate, of course they are.
But this session is about keeping the person in the “window of tolerance” for doing trauma work. If your client abreacts or floods emotionally, you will be spending the rest of the session getting them back into the present, you won’t be able to process any emotions or trauma, and you may never see them again. You may have broken the rapport if this happens, as emotional flooding and abreactions can leave people feeling terrified, out of control, unable to speak or extremely embarrassed about their own response.
Lots of people will have already spent countless hours crying about these issues at home, and whilst it can be a nice release for some people, others hate crying or feeling vulnerable in front of others, and have not found that this helped them in any way. They’ve come to you for help in moving forward, and deserve to feel comfortable whilst doing so. Done at the very first sign of distress, silent tapping or “orienting tapping” can help prevent unpleasant flooding of emotions. But if the person can still talk normally through the tears, you can usually proceed safely.
We came up with the following set-up statement, using only Zoe’s words, starting with fairly global round:
“Even though there’s a whole lot of anger about this, I accept this is just where I’m at and I know I’m safe now”.
Then a little more detail.
“Even though I feel this Anger in my chest, 8/10, and it makes me sick, like WTF are you thinking?? But I accept myself and how I feel, and I’m safe now.”
Reminder phrase was just “this Anger in my chest”.
We were then able to get a bit more specific;
“Even though I feel this anger, just thinking about that conversation with my grandmother last week, when she said my Uncle wants me to keep the abuse a secret from the family, and I feel this tightness in my chest, tension in my head, and physical holding in my throat, like I just want to yell, but I accept myself and how I feel”.
Reminder phrase “This Anger in my chest / my throat.”
We checked in after this round and Zoe reported that the Anger now felt like 5/10. She also noticed sadness coming up, asking “does he not believe me?”, but said she wanted to work more on the Anger before switching to sadness.
“Even though I feel this Anger 5/10, thinking about that phone call, because he’s undermining what’s happened to me. Does he not think it’s a big deal? And I feel this as tightness in my stomach, and a heaviness around my mouth but I accept myself anyway”.
Reminder phrase “this Anger, this anger in my stomach and around my mouth”.
Zoe noted after that round that the Anger was about 3/10 now. She asked “Why does HE (the grandfather) deserve protection?”. We continued tapping on the points while she talked about how she was not protected from him as a small child, yet the family wants to protect him now, and he’s not even here anymore. “He was such an asshole” she said.
Zoe stated at this point that she felt more disappointed than Angry now.
“Even though I feel this disappointment 6/10, because I am thinking what was the point of even telling anyone in the family if this is the way they are going to react? And I feel this heaviness on the side of my lips, like I want to frown, and this heaviness in my chest, like a heartbreak feeling, but I accept that this is how I feel”.
Reminder phrase “This disappointment, this disappointment in my chest and around my mouth”.
Zoe then said “I should never have told anyone, I should have just dealt with it myself”. She said that the telling of the abuse had caused her even more stress, anger, anxiety, isolation and heartache, from the way her family had responded to her and the secret. And she did not feel she had received any real support from any of them. It did not feel like it had been worth it to talk about what happened at all.
Zoe said that now she was just feeling pure sadness, “why did I even bother telling my family, they don’t even think what he did to me was that bad”. We did another round of silent tapping, just to acknowledge this important shift and help her regulate herself.
“Even though I feel this sadness, 5/10 thinking about that phone call with my grandmother now, it feels like my story is not worth telling to the family, they don’t think I am hurt by this. And the sadness is sinking in my stomach, and there’s a tingling feeling in my nose, but I can still accept myself and how I feel”.
Reminder phrase “This sadness, this sadness sinking in my stomach, this sadness tingling in my nose”.
Zoe then reported the sadness felt about a 3/10.
“Even though I feel this sadness, 3/10 as I'm thinking about the phone call now, haven’t I already been through enough? Am I going to get any support from my family? And it feels like it’s pooling in my stomach, like black water just sitting there, but I accept myself and how I feel”.
Reminder phrase: “This sadness pooling in my stomach” After this round Zoe said a few choice swear words about her uncle. Followed by: “He’s just a horrible person”.
EFT for trauma tip #4: If your client swears, you can obviously use their words in the set-up. If they don’t use swear words, then you shouldn’t either. You just never know what words can be triggering to people.
I have never sworn so much since doing EFT with people on their sexual abuse trauma. It’s a good thing I work from home and there are no houses close by, as the swears that come out are big, and loud and forceful, and they can provide a huge release for people when combined with tapping. But for me the swear words are only ever initiated by the client, and not ever initiated by me. You can see from this blog post just how powerful a single word can be for a person who has experienced sexual trauma, and you cannot make any assumptions about what language people find acceptable. I have had clients whose perpetrators used a lot of swear words during their abuse, and so those words can carry an extra lot of charge. And if you are uncomfortable with swearing, you may need to tap on that yourself if you want to work with people who feel the need to swear during their EFT sessions.
Zoe said she was now feeling a lot better about the phone call, having expressed her true feelings about it in combination with the resource of the tapping to provide relief. She said she now felt more able to accept that her family had really let her down in relation to this, and that the main thing for her now was to feel better about it in herself, which is what she is working on with me. She now felt able to get back to tapping on her overwhelm and anxiety about her Uni degree, and interestingly once we checked in again on that overwhelm, Zoe noticed it had decreased significantly.
We spent some time going over how Zoe could tap on things like overwhelm about Uni at home for herself, and Zoe mentioned that she still did not feel confident tapping on any of these “bigger” emotions like anger and sadness by herself, as she was worried she could end up spiralling out of control and not know how to get herself out of that. So we just focused on tapping on things which felt more manageable for now. She had experienced some success in tapping on feeling triggered at home after hearing the word “innocent” on a podcast. She noticed that instead of the feelings lasting for hours and ruining her whole night, she found these triggers were now happening less often, felt less intense and she found she was more able to handle the triggers with tapping. She also noticed that after three sessions of EFT her nightmares were also happening less often, (three times the last week instead of every night) and her dreams seemed less intensely dark and gory.
Zoe is happy with her progress to date, saying she has achieved more in three sessions of EFT than in many sessions of talk therapy.