Hi

 I have been using EFT for some time and been getting great results, I am comfortable in using it

I am about to potentially take on a client who suffers from Bi polar, he wants help giving up smoking and as I am also a hypnotist this is what drew him to me. He also wants to get his "spark" back which je says he has lost mostly since his diagnosis. He was diagnosed 7 yrs ago following a traumatic stage in his life, suffered a break down and was hospitalised for 4 mths.

 I have asked to speak to his psychiatric support worker before I progress any work with him but was hoping someone on here may be able to offer some advice. Should I stear clear as I am not trained in handling bi polar? should I ask his worker to also be present? any advice would be very much appreciated

 thanks

Hi,

I'm no expert on bi-polar, but I treat bi-polar and schizophrenia clients with Reiki instead.  

Thank you for this post.  I hope to learn from the answers. 

Hi Polly,

I use a combination of EFT, Reiki, NLP and the EFT Matrix Reimprinting Technique for depression incl. bi-polar, anxiety and other chronic/serious conditions. I have a pretty strong background in hypnotherapy and energy work, so it is not an area I feel uncomfortable with. It has taken me a while to get here though. However, in all cases clients with serious consditions are always being supported first foremost by a healthcare professional.

I do think though that had I had Karl's Matrix approach a few years ago I would have gotten up and running faster with this type of work. Dealing with bi-polar cleints may not be something you want to pursue at the moment, if you do not feel confident/skilled enough, but it may be a sign for you to start learning more about this much needed yet specialized area of EFT.

Hope this gives you some new avenues to investigate. Karen

P.S. Here is more info. on Matrix Reimprinting. In the video Karl works with Sasha Allenby who successfully dealt with her bi-polar using this technique. She recovered very fast but I think it was also because she has a strong background in personal development/healing. Some may lack this foundation and will need to develop their mental, emotional and spiritual coping skills as well dealing with the bi-polar.

EFT Matrix Reimprinting Info:

Matrix Reimprinting is an approach which was developed by EFT Master Karl Dawson, is not a replacement for EFT, it is an enhancement because it is just a variation of the EFT Movie Technique, although a very powerful one I might add! It is excellent for trauma and the associated negative side effects that happens at any age of life i.e. not just childhood.

1) 1 - Article - 'The Early Days': This is an article on the Movie Technique that Karl wrote for Gary Craig/emofree.com a few years ago. Likely just before he coined the phrase ‘Matrix Reimprinting’: http://www.emofree.com/Articles2/movie-technique-karl.htm

2) Article: A good explanation/overview of MR on Karl’s web sites: http://www.efttrainingcourses.net/matrixreimprinting.htm

3) Multi-Media: Rick Wilkes/Karl Dawson Interview. A short article, a youtube video clip and an MP3 download of an interview of Karl by Rick. Towards the end, Karl does some EFT Matrix tapping with Rick’s associate Cathy Vartuli that is a very good example of using it on one simple, specific issue/memory/event. http://www.thrivingnow.com/for/Health/karl-dawson-matrix-reimprinting/

For more info on the Matrix, check out these emofree forum threads
http://eftcommunity.emofree.com/forums/p/4691/26715.aspx#26715

http://eftcommunity.emofree.com/forums/p/4754/26922.aspx#26922

Hi KAren

 wow thanks for your answer I will look through all the links over the weekend. I actually feel comfortable working the client as I have been studying EFT for about 2 years and use it often with amazing results and feel able to judge my capabilites when in a situation and I really want to work with this person,

 I am also trained in nlp and hypnosis and use these professionally too altho am fairly new at it but again comfortable with them and I use them often.

 I am going to speak to his psychiatric support worker to make sure I have the full picture and will definately use this info you have sent me.

Where are you based Karen?? WOuld love to speak with you if you are happy to?

Karen,

I just wanted to thank you for all the information you've put out on Matrix Reimprinting.  It's been so helpful and I'm really excited about using this technique more for myself and with clients.  I've been reading and listening to all the links you've posted in various places and I so appreciate the information.  I've worked as a hypnotherapist for many years and with EFT for the past year and love incorporating the two...this now adds a new dimension and depth to the work.  It feels natural, healing and just makes sense....thanks again~

Mirabai

Hi Polly,

Sounds like the info. I passed on to you does grab your interest. For me, understanding more about how events in our life can lead to depression, anxiety etc I found it helpful to know more about trauma. Also, how it can occur as a result of things we would not consider traumatizing... especially in childhood.

Here are 2 interesting video clips below.

If you would like to chat on the phone or Skype some time just let me know. I am in the Niagara area of Ontario, Canada. Karen

I have suffered from a psychiatric disorder and it is workable with EFT but I have run the gamut of practitioners trying to find people who could handle it.

Can I make some suggestions? These conditions arise from a deep sense of being unsafe.  A person with high anxiety depends on cigarettes.  Its how they cope.  You cannot take away their crutch, its as needed to them as are their symptoms.

Tapping can be seen as intrusive and they may not react as you expect them too.  Working with this kind of condition is not like working with any other client.  There may be a part that is deeply mistrustful.  

I have an audio below about my personal experience which you may find helpful and some other information available.  I would stress the need to be comfortable with working with the inner child, and do not expect the child that comes forward to be pleased to see you. 

I am happy to talk with you about this privately.

Gillian

Hello again

I am still stuck trying to think of an approach for stopping smoking. As we understand smoking to be a crutch to cope with anxiety, I am thinking that at the very least you would need to consider the feelings about his illness and diagnosis as they are likely to be quite devastating to him.

I find often with bipolar expect to find a conflict between rage and love, or a deep deep anger that feels dangerous.That makes it trickier as there is a resistance to going to where the trauma is.  It actually took me years to be willing to do that, but I also never told anyone the extent of my symptoms. Just before my mum died I had a very bad period when I thought I was losing my mind and I felt like I was in a bipolar crisis.  Working on the extreme despair and anger, and love together brought amazing results for myself and my mother however.  I genuinely thought I was going mad at the time!

It is delightful to work with clients with 'psychiatric' disorders, but for that please read symptoms of extreme trauma, when they understand the purpose of the symptoms.  It can be a real challenge otherwise when all they can think of is how horrific it is and feel like they have a life sentence.  Added to that the fear that is abundant surrounding mental health issues and its a real difficult place to be.

What makes it hard to work with them is when they are still caught up in the horror of their diagnosis and feel very ashamed of that and oftne of their symptoms.  Helping them to understand what their symptoms mean is vital and working with the shame they feel is important.  Just like you would work with someone with serious disease. The example on Karls DVD is a very unusual one with someone with a high degree of awareness.  I work with many people who are thoroughly aware and conversant with their symptoms and it is no different to working with anyone else.  But then I get clients who are just plain terrified and there is alot of work involved.

If you feel you can handle it safely and sensitively I applaud you, as quite frankly there are not enough of us around!

Gill

Hi all,

Gillian is quite right about this. Some times times attempting to take a person's emotional coping/comfort/soothing aid i.e. cigarettes or whatever substance away when the situation is not 'ripe' energetically, can result in disastrous consequences for both the client and the practitioner. -- And as she says, it is imperative that practitioners gain experience i.e. doing inner child/ECHO work in these sensitive cases so as not to cause the client or their parts to lock up, revert backwards or even attack.

I know Karl Dawson claims that students of his are successfully doing Matrix Reimprinting/ECHO tapping after they have only taken his level I training, but this does not mean that we can tread in areas we do not belong if we do not have the skill, knowledge or experience.

Blessings, Karen

Hi there,

Now I'm a bit confused.  As far as I understand, bipolar is a genetic condition, which can be helped a great deal by the right nutrition for the person's body, releasing toxins, and medication.  On the other hand, I understand that many are misdiagnosed.

Of course, one has to consider childhood influences of a genetic condition.  Mum or Dad may have had it or something similar and may have been undiagnosed for many years, and so the ensuing behavior could have ranged from unsettling to violent. 

There is also the in-the-moment kind of feelings.  I believe I have Aspergers (self-diagnosed, but I tick all the boxes).  I cannot begin to tell you how suddenly I can go from calm and happy to rage in under a second.  EFT has helped me with that.  There is not a single past event that is not tapped out of my system (and I am lucky to have had a relatively happy childhood).  The other day I found a mild past event, but that was it.  I just have this amazing capability of sudden extreme rage.  I also have a tendency to fear or overwhelm sometimes, like in an unfamiliar place, but that's easy to tap on on the spot and afterwards, and if necessary, leave the premises.  I find that if I start tapping on my Gamut point within half a second of the start of anger, it does not turn into rage, and the anger soon subsides.  I must say, I don't always think fast enough to catch the anger within half a second.  It's always when I am not expecting it.  Luckily, my spouse taps on me sometimes or tells me to tap, quick, if I need to and don't realize it soon enough.  That catches most of it.  Having less wheat has also made a difference.

I am getting reports that some bipolar members of my email list are finding help with EFT for various things, so that's encouraging, although I still would feel out of my depth here.  It still is an area where I would not normally go in an EFT or hypnotherapy treatment.  However, If someone comes to me like with Polly, and I feel there really is something I can confidently help with, then after reading this, maybe I can consult their medical professional and proceed accordingly.  

Polly, please keep us updated  :-)

Hi again and thank you so much for you responses, I really do want to work with this client and my main concern is I don't want to cause any harm, I would rather not work with him than cause problems of any sort.

I haven't done any inner child work so will look at that carefully and then see how well it blends with my current work, I have found moving into this area almost effortless as I do find I have an instinct and compassion that i can draw on and so far has served me well, my need to understand this condition is to make sure I do the best I possibly can rather than dabble and see what happens which with the more straightforward client often works well, start somewhere and see where you are led so to speak! With this situation I want to know where not to go, what I may come up against and how to handle this carefully.

The client normally has real difficulty talking to people, almost impossible if he doesn't know them, yet was on the phone to me for nearly an hour, spoke easily and even laughed on several occasions he was so relaxed so I do feel we have made a connection and that I can help

And yes speaking would be great, let me know when is good for you

Hi Suzanne

 I was speaking earlier with a friend who is a psychologist and she said its beleived bi polar is genetic and the least likely of all the pyschological conditions to be triggered or caused by trauma or experience. I also believe that to a large extent we fulfil  the expectations set to us at a sub conscious level so to be told you have a condition that causes x, y or z often means those are fulfilled due to the expectation of them if that makes sense.

I have discovered over the time using eft, hypnosis etc that no one ressponds in what can be viewed as straightforward or in a way I amy have expected and I think the art is in following where you are led, my concern here is I maybe don't know enough about the "expected" behaviour to know where I may be headed, What has been very common is that the response to a powerful eft session de stabilised the clients view of the world in some way, mostly a positive way, suddenly what they believed wholly in, that shifting trauma/ptsd/fear/phobias etc etc wasn't either possible or would take years, to discover it could shift easily and quickly so suddenly they are unsettled with what is real. With psychiatric conditions my instint is that shifting reality could potentially have all sorts of dire consequences in the short term, soemthing I would want to avoid. I Do believe tho that using eft and related therapies can release the behaviour associated with the condition to make life far more manageable, but I am yet to know whether my theory has any legs!

I have had to revise my opinon of genetics as I have two truly horrible genetic illnesses in my family. Biology of Belief saved my sanity!

www.strangerinthemirror.com is very helpful.

Gill

An oncologist would tell you cancer cannot be caused by trauma.  

Gill Wightman:

An oncologist would tell you cancer cannot be caused by trauma.  

Yes  :-)  And cancer is a disease, whilst some would debate whether bipolar is a "disorder"  :-) 

There are often good sides to being neurodiverse which society usually ignores until it wants to split an atom (Einstein), listen to great music (Jimi Hendrix, Britney Spears), watch a brilliant show (Stephen Fry), etc.  I don't mean to harp on (and I have tapped whilst re-writing this post many times).  I just feel it's important to present other points of view  :-)