Interview Series: EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques) Stress Relief for Kids and Parents with Alison Morris at Full Potential Parenting
Anxiety and Stress Relief for Kids and Parents:
As anxiety therapists, Compassionate Counseling St. Louis works with a lot of kids, teens, and parents on ways to best reduce their stress levels. One really cool technique for this is called EFT, which stands for Emotional Freedom Techniques. Here in St. Louis, we have a great therapist who is trained and certified in this model. I’m so excited to share Alison’s answers with you today!
Why did you choose to become a Certified EFT Practitioner in St. Louis?
I've been offering EFT services online for many years now, but was really missing having face-to-face interactions with people, so have affiliated with the St. Louis Wellness Center to offer in-person individual sessions along with group tapping classes.
What kind of treatment do you provide?
I am a Certified Emotional Freedom Techniques practitioner. Emotional Freedom Techniques is usually referred to as EFT or Tapping. EFT is often called emotional acupressure. It's a highly effective form of stress relief where you use your fingers to tap on specific acupressure points on the face and the upper body to neutralize the emotional intensity associated with specific memories or events, beliefs, or fears.
It's also very effective at reducing or eliminating physical symptoms since almost all pain has an emotional underpinning. EFT has now been studied a lot and more than 100 published studies show that it is at least as effective as other "gold standard" therapies including Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and EMDR, and can sometimes get results more quickly. EFT quickly reduces the levels of the stress hormone cortisol, it shifts brain wave frequencies, increases heart-rate variability, decreases danger signals from the brain, and can literally change our brains so that something that was associated with a troubling emotion can be associated instead with calm. It's a true mind-body modality.
What ages do you work with?
I usually work with parents (of any age) but am open to working with children, provided the parent(s) have a session with me first to learn about tapping for themselves.
What can parents expect to leave with after working with you?
Most importantly, after an EFT session parents leave feeling better. They are calmer, less stressed, more hopeful, and feel better able to handle whatever may come their way. EFT was designed to be a self-help tool, so once parents learn how to do it, they can use it anytime, anywhere to relieve their stress.
How long have you been working as a Certified EFT Practitioner, and how long have you been in St. Louis?
I've been a Certified EFT Practitioner for about 7 years now, and have been in St. Louis for about 18 months. I just recently started offering individual sessions and classes at the St. Louis Wellness Center.
Who are your favorite types of clients to work with?
I love to work with clients who are really ready to make some changes. EFT works best when we're able to admit what we're really thinking and feeling and when we can also connect with how we're feeling in our bodies. So the more honest and vulnerable you can be, the more effective the tapping is. And while "believing" in EFT isn't necessary for it to work, it's always nice to work with people who are open to learning more about both the neurophysiology and the energetic components of stress.
What happens during a first appointment with you?
We spend some time getting comfortable with one another. If the client is unfamiliar with EFT I go over some basics about the modality and how it works. Then we discuss goals and start in with some tapping. Some things can be resolved quite quickly; other issues are more complex and have a lot of different aspects to them or different belief systems underlying them and those take more time to address. Overall, I offer a safe, compassionate space in which I help guide you to do your own healing.
Could you talk a little about your approach and how it plays into your work with parents recovering from anxiety?
Parenting brings up all our own stuff. It's incredibly humbling and can also be frightening at times, as we find ourselves feeling things we'd really rather not feel. What I love about EFT is that it first gives us permission to Acknowledge what we are truly feeling (instead of pretending things aren't as bad as they are or pushing our emotions away in the hopes that they'll just disappear).
Then, we Allow ourselves to feel those sometimes uncomfortable feelings. Not forever, but just long enough so we can tap them away. Next, EFT helps us Accept ourselves even though we feel things we wish we didn't, even though we may have said or done things we wish we hadn't.
In this way EFT helps normalize whatever it is we're going through and allows us to move through it - often quite quickly. The other area where EFT excels is at helping us erase our limiting (subconscious) beliefs. So often its our beliefs about ourselves and the world that keep us stuck. We often don't even know we have these beliefs - we usually picked them up when we were very young. But once we voice them and, once again, Acknowledge, Allow, and Accept, we can open ourselves up to more empowering beliefs that serve us much better.
What do you wish people knew about getting treatment for anxiety disorders?
All behavior is adaptive. Your nervous system is always doing it's best to keep you safe. So instead of feeling ashamed or angry at their anxiety, I'd love for people to accept and even appreciate how hard their body has been working on their behalf. That doesn't mean you want to stay feeling the way your feel, but hopefully it means that you don't beat yourself up, or feel like your body has betrayed you in some way. Instead, once you understand how and why it is doing what it's doing you can start to make some shifts that allow your nervous system to no longer be so reactive and that allow you to spend more time in a socially engaged, relaxed, and balanced state.
How can people learn more and contact you?
My email is STLStressRelease@gmail.com. My website is STLStressRelease.com or you can also find me at StLouisWellnessCenter.com. For more information about my work with parents of children with serious emotional and behavioral challenges, please visit Full-Potential-Parenting.com.
Share one fun fact about you that most people don’t know.
I play flute with the Compton Heights Concert Band!
Find Out More:
http://stlouiswellnesscenter.com/alison-morris/
Full Potential Parenting on Facebook
Curious to learn more about anxiety work with kids, teens, and college students? Compassionate Counseling St. Louis works closely with children and their families to build up anxiety management strategies. And if we’re not the best fit, we connect you with other amazing therapists in the St. Louis area - just like Alison! Schedule a free phone consultation right here on our website, at www.compassionatecounselingstl.com/consult.