August 14, 2025 • 25 mins
Dr. Graham Taylor—clinical psychologist, educator, and founder of The Taylor Study Method—brings 25+ years of wisdom and warmth to his work in Honolulu.
Dr. Lawrie Ignacio, also based in Honolulu, blends clinical expertise with a rich academic background in philosophy and literature, specializing in couples and trauma therapy.
And Robert Schwarz, PhD, has over 35 years of experience as a licensed psychologist specializing in an approach that is holistic combining the best aspects of traditional approaches with complementary approaches to treatment including energy psychology, hypnosis, imagery, mindfulness, and nutrition.
In This Episode:
You can learn more about what I do here:The Trauma Therapist Newsletter: celebrates the people and voices in the mental health profession. And it's free! Check it out here: https://bit.ly/4jGBeSa
———
If you’d like to support The Trauma Therapist Podcast and the work I do you can do that here with a monthly donation of $5, $7, or $10: Donate to The Trauma Therapist Podcast.
Click here to join my email list and receive podcast updates and other news.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-trauma-therapist--5739761/support.
Dr. Lawrie Ignacio, also based in Honolulu, blends clinical expertise with a rich academic background in philosophy and literature, specializing in couples and trauma therapy.
And Robert Schwarz, PhD, has over 35 years of experience as a licensed psychologist specializing in an approach that is holistic combining the best aspects of traditional approaches with complementary approaches to treatment including energy psychology, hypnosis, imagery, mindfulness, and nutrition.
In This Episode:
- https://www.triadhq.com/behavioral-health-today
- https://www.hellotriad.com
- https://twitter.com/BHT_Podcast
- https://selfmeaningbasedtherapy.com/about
You can learn more about what I do here:The Trauma Therapist Newsletter: celebrates the people and voices in the mental health profession. And it's free! Check it out here: https://bit.ly/4jGBeSa
———
If you’d like to support The Trauma Therapist Podcast and the work I do you can do that here with a monthly donation of $5, $7, or $10: Donate to The Trauma Therapist Podcast.
Click here to join my email list and receive podcast updates and other news.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-trauma-therapist--5739761/support.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the special guest host series of The Trauma
Therapist podcast, where I'm going to be handing over the
mic to some incredible guest hosts. In each episode, you'll
hear fresh perspectives and unique insights to inform and inspire you,
all the while keeping the heart of this podcast alive.
So sit back and enjoy.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Welcome to the Trauma Therapist Project. I'm doctor Graham Taylor
and this is my colleague, doctor Lori Ignacio. Doctor Guy
McPherson has kindly invited us to guest host on his
awesome and very well respected podcast platform, and we're so
grateful to him for this opportunity, as well as you
as a listening audience joining us today.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
We're so excited to have us have us have doctor
Bob Schwartz return to our podcast as a guest.
Speaker 4 (00:46):
Welcome again, Bob.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
Bob is over thirty five years of experience as a
licensed psychologist, specializing in an approach that's holistic in combining
the best aspects of traditional approaches with complimentary approaches to treatment,
including energy, psychology, hypnosis, imagery, mindfulness, and even nutrition.
Speaker 4 (01:05):
Bob is the.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
Former executive director of the Association for comprehensive energy psychology
and the author and co author of three professional books. Bob,
in our first show together, you gave us a really
nice overview of your work within energy psychology. Today, we'd
like to take a deeper dive into your work, allowing
(01:26):
our audience to better understand a more practical, hands on
understanding of the various therapeutic technique, strategies and constructs that
are part of the work you do. Would you mind
down for us if you would, and describe your mind
body approach that focuses on removing the traumatic energy and
(01:46):
emotions attached to traumatic events in order to regulate what
comes with trauma, emotional hyper arousal and things like that
to facilitate insight and as we talked about in our
first pot cast, post traumatic growth. Take it away.
Speaker 4 (02:05):
Sure, thanks for having me so, I mean, so there
are a number of things that you know, I have
learned over the years and can do, but let me
just focus I think on e f T. There are
other tapping approaches like TFT. Each have their own advantages,
but you know, people can get lost if you start
to say too much. So even with e f T
(02:28):
there's a lot going on. So For instance, if you
were to go online and look up YouTube, you just
find tapping approaches all over the place, and some of
them are on you are better than others, and you
have to think about how you're using it. So in
terms of trauma, there are two main ways that I
think about it. One is this idea of self regulation,
(02:51):
that what happens for a lot of folks is that
they cannot regulate their bodies, their anxiety, their trauma, their
their bodies you know, feel horrible, you know, in one
way or another, and they can't control it. And so
one of the first ways that if somebody is anxious
(03:12):
or upset in some way and they want it to change.
And I have to emphasize that because a lot of
people sort of get this idea if you're going to,
you know, get rid of it, like we're going to
get rid of the truck, We're going to tap it out.
That's not and people actually say, let's tap it out,
but that's not really the way to think about it.
It's really more about let's tap and let things become
(03:35):
freer and see what happens. So we're not trying to
kill the problem, because whenever you do that, it tends
to stay stuck. So one of the things we would
do with ef T is there's something called a setup phrase.
So somebody might say, let's just say something simple like
I'm anxious, right, So you would we could say, with okay,
(03:56):
let's focus on the anxiety, and we would probably I
would ask someone to tell me a little more because
I want to know not just the word, but how
somebody feels. So like, you know, my mouth is dry,
my stomach's turning, my heart's pounding, and I'm thinking, oh
my god, you know the sky's going to fall. Let's
just say that's what it is. So then I would
(04:17):
have some they would tap their hands. There are a
few different ways, but there's an energy point right here
I have. These people have taped their hands like this,
so this is the body activation part. And then we
say this you know phrase, which always is in the
form of even though I fill in the blank, I
deeply and completely accept myself. That's the basic version. There
(04:38):
are some variations. So I might have someone say even
though I feel anxious and my heart is pounding, and
my mouth is dry, and my stomach is turning, and
I'm thinking to myself, oh my god, the sky is
going to fall. I deeply and completely accept myself. And
we would say that two or three times, and that
(04:59):
would be the first part. Uh, And then I would
have the person just focus on their sense feeling, and
then they go through a series of points. The first
is here, I'd say, just focus on it, okay, So
I might have might say what's a reminder phrase? Okay,
my stomach is I'm anxious, And then there's the point
here my stomach is churning. I'm thinking, oh my god,
the sky's falling. My mouth is dry, right, And we
(05:24):
would just be focusing on these things, and this is
how we would tap and I would tap along with
the person, and then we and that this is the
basic thing. We would stop here, and then I'd say
take any breadth, Oh, I forgot to say. I usually
have someone say, well, how strong is on a scale
of zero to ten, how much does it bother you?
So maybe they'd say seven, and then I'd say, okay,
well what's up now? And oftentimes I'll say, well, it's
(05:47):
down to a five or four or you know, something
like that, And then I would ask, okay, is it
the same feeling or just less or has it shifted
is you know, And a person might say, yeah, you know,
I my heart isn't pounding anymore, but now I feel
this tightness in my throat. That's what's making it a four. Yes,
(06:12):
that's what's making it a four. The rest of it's gone. Okay,
then we'll even though, and then we were I have
this four of anxiety and there's this tightness in my throat,
I deeply completely accept myself. And then we would go
through the thing again while they're focusing on the tightness,
and you know, depending what happens, it might go to zero,
(06:32):
it might not, and we would repeat that as long
as we need until it goes down. So that is
just but I'm just focusing on the symptom. It could
be a craving for chocolate, it could be anything. It
could be, and it's just sort of helping the person.
It's like taking an aspirin, you take a rye, you
(06:53):
take an advil. You know, thirty minutes later, you know
you're a muscle soreness is gone. That would be what
I would call a self a self regulation approach, which
is what you will see a lot on like YouTube
or whatever. And there's nothing wrong with that's great. It's
really helpful to have that, and people can learn to
(07:15):
do that, I think in many ways for a sec
and then we can talk about the more trauma stuff.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Well, we'll speak to that first. I want to get
into the trauma stuff. Like glory is kind of nudging
us here, but the fact that sometimes people are so
aroused sometimes that this is such an essential start, isn't it.
Speaker 4 (07:34):
Yeah. Yeah, that's phase one of trauma treatment. Like you
you know, it's like when you go to the emergency room,
the first thing you do is stop the bleeding. Yes, right,
So if something's all freaked out, you're not gonna and
there they're not regulated, you're not going to have them.
You don't want them to start thinking about all, you know,
the trauma and because that'll just disregulate them even more.
(07:55):
As a rule, I mean, there are, like anything else,
there are exceptions, but.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
Yeah, yeah, it's always a calm that allows right then
to go into this.
Speaker 4 (08:05):
Mixt right and right, which helps people feel, oh, okay,
I'm relief, I've got and I can learn this. Yes,
So that's kind of part one. Then if we were
to go deeper into it, and assuming the person wasn't
it the trauma wasn't. I don't want to over complicate things,
but there are steps that we take to make sure
people aren't overwhelmed. It's really important not to be overwhelmed
(08:29):
by it. I would have someone tell me about a
specific event. It's usually kind of has a beginning and
an end, and the important thing is I'll tell them. Look,
I want you to tell me what happens, but as
soon as you start to feel upset, we're going to
stop and we're going to tap. So we're not going
to go through the whole story. We're going to go
only till the first part where the there's like it's
(08:53):
called a crescendo, where you're starting to feel bad right
and often. And I'll also ask permission advice. If it
looks like you're having you're getting upset, may I stop you?
And usually people want to barrow ahead. So I don't
know whatever the traumatic event is someone starts to think about.
It could be like a car. Okay, like someone has
a car, you know, a car crash, right, and so, okay,
(09:16):
So I'm driving along in my car and I see
there's a person all of a sudden coming into my
lane and they start Okay, what's what what's what's how
much does it bother you? Now? Oh, it's already a four. Okay.
So even though I see the car company and i'd
ask them about even though I see the car coming
in my lane and I'm thinking myself, oh, this is
(09:38):
gonna be bad, and my heart's pounding and I don't
know what to do. I deep think bability except myself.
And then once again, we go through that event a bunch,
that piece of the event until it's sort of down
to zero or very near zero. We don't even go
for That's one of the big differences. And then we
go the next step. Okay, now what happens, Well, you
(09:59):
know the car, you know, there's an impact on my car,
and I'm just I don't even I can't even speak.
If the car is spinning, and I'm thinking that's it.
I'm buying the I'm gonna die. Okay. So even though
I feel the impact and I'm my head's all discombobulated
(10:24):
and I'm thinking, oh my god, this is that I'm
going to die. I deep thing that really accept myself,
and then we're going to go there. We go through
that tapping on these points, all right, until we might,
and then as as you tap, certain things might begin
to come up. And that's what's interesting. We're not in
a rush. We do not rush to zero. We don't
(10:44):
care about zero. We eventually would like to get there,
but no attachment to that. Because this happens, and you know,
whatever things start to happen, they people recall, oh, there
was this, there was that. And we go through the
whole thing until finally it's down to zero or almost zero,
(11:05):
and then we do some things to make sure it's
we've got it all, but we take it slowly, bit
by bit, and if it's a really long thing, we
break it into chunks. It's kind of like, you know,
like you don't take an entire t bone steak and
throw it in your mouth and try to check it.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Right.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
There's such a wisdom too, right that you're sharing about here.
We find tun in our work that we really are
being led by the person in front of us. That's
that we're basically sort of just told in hands and
going in, you know, and they're leading, and we follow,
and we just provide a strategy for navigating the minds
(11:45):
and then healing them. I guess I'm curious you know,
we find in our work, presumably in yours too, that
there are simpler processes and then more complex one, particularly
complex trauma.
Speaker 4 (11:58):
I guess.
Speaker 3 (11:59):
Curious about what you found in your work using the
kinds of interventions you do in the cases of you know,
complex trauma trauma yea years of trauma.
Speaker 4 (12:10):
Yeah, what your experience might be around that. Hm, Well,
so with complex trauma. Uh, it's kind of interesting because
the way I sort of tend to do it is
that even with it, I mean, complex trauma is basically
(12:32):
a lots of traumas put together with a lot of
like neglect and all kinds of things, right, And so
oftentimes it's the actual tapping part. You're going to pick
something that's meaningful or maybe it's about uh, maybe somebody's
(12:53):
got a certain belief in this complex like I'm no good. Yeah, okay,
I shouldn't. And so you'd say, okay, can you give
We would find out three to five, Actually, what are
some things that happen in your life that lead you
to believe or support the belief that I'm no good?
And which is a part of what's called the personal peace.
(13:15):
It's a it's a variation of the personal peace procedure,
which is we're going to find all the things in
a category and we're going to systematically tap on each
one of them. So an e f T. It's called
the tabletop is called or schema for your cognitive therapists
out there, I'm no good and then the individual legs
(13:37):
are the specific events and we're going to tap on
each of those specific events and which basically makes helps
the table to collapse. And we may take time. We don't,
you don't, you've gotta. We might depending on how you
know what's up with the person and their ego resources.
(13:59):
We might do quickly, we might do it slowly. We
might take a break because other things happen. But you
want to kind of stay on this idea of Okay,
let's work on this idea that I'm no good. And
then what happens is the person starts to think, you know,
it loosens it up because all those specific events no
(14:19):
longer inform the person.
Speaker 3 (14:21):
Yeah, yeah, we find something similar that if we can
get at that table top, you know, and then the
legs essentially collapse.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
So yeah, we have a similar It's a powerful thing,
isn't it When you know the event itself is significant
to the point of hyper arousal.
Speaker 5 (14:43):
But the meaning that we hold the takeaway part of it.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
In our prior podcast, whether you talked about this woman
who had an intruder in her home and how upon
working with you, she realized that she had done much
more and this victimhood stance she has that was.
Speaker 5 (15:00):
In fact not true.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
She was quite the heroine in her own story, and
to watch and see what she did. But the assignment
of how I'm feeling about it, what I believe.
Speaker 5 (15:14):
About it, is such a powerful.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
Shaper of what we hold in that trauma that keeps
people stuck in the process, It keeps them re traumatized
over and over, doesn't that.
Speaker 4 (15:24):
Yeah, well, I know you guys focus on the meaning making,
which I think is great, and you know my kind
of I mean play with it would be I would
find the meaning and then I would say, okay, well
what you know what informs you? And then that might
be the thing. Might we might just talk too, Oh
(15:45):
you might just tap. And sometimes, depending on style, some
people will include more active sort of reframing as part
of a part of mapping. And sometimes that's a good idea,
that's a good choice. Sometimes you don't and just wait
until somebody changes it themselves, and then I want to
kind of you know, reinforce that. So you know, there's
(16:07):
some very there's some variant, you know, variability there, and
how you apply the.
Speaker 5 (16:10):
Work, Bob, do you find it as you're doing the work.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
Sometimes they're going down one path, but then they'll start
to kind of go to you know, this brings up
another memory for me that has a similar theme, and
another memory with a similar thing where they're tied together
thematically in some ways.
Speaker 5 (16:25):
What do you notice about that?
Speaker 4 (16:28):
Well, that's a really good interesting point. Now, if you
did E M. D R the way at least when
I was trained, maybe it's changed because back when the
dinosaur's wronged anyway, you would follow that. In EFT we don't.
It's actually considered a problem because what happens is, well
it's called daisy change. We call it's called daisy chaining.
(16:49):
And so what happens is you end up kind of
going away and you never solved, you never finished this thing.
What we would do is make a mental note. Someone says, oh,
that reminds me of X, Y and Z. Okay, let
me write that down. We're going to come back to it,
and you're going to finish what you're working on, and
you keep them separate, No, because you finish because you
(17:13):
want each piece done to help break up the the
chain of associations. You're taking out a link and then
the next one. Yeah, or in this case it might
be maybe the metaphor is more like a link, because
a sociated link, right, So if I get but it's
(17:33):
just a metaphor, so but you know that that's what
you would probably do, but you would definitely want to
make mental note of it and then come back. And
sometimes if you fix this one, you say, now let's
go back to them. Does it still feel the same,
And sometimes they say yes. Sometimes you know, it's funny,
I actually it doesn't feel quite the same anymore, because
(17:55):
especially if the other one was an earlier one, like
if the thing I work on at seven and the
one they have an association too is at say thirteen,
seven almost always trumps thirteen, because that's where the early
earlier the memory, the more it tends to already filter,
you know, color, what you how you think about something.
(18:16):
And that's for everybody. I mean, it's not like no
one's doing anything wrong. That's just how it works, you know,
like yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:25):
Well we were just I was just reflecting on again,
so much of the overlap the earlier. We also find
that the earlier the more comprehensive. Right, it's those meanings
or those experiences. The younger we are tend to have
a lot of grit to them, and they they have
us hijacked, you know, more red than more recent stuff.
Speaker 4 (18:49):
Yeah. Like so if you're a therap for the therapist,
so sometimes you get like common like relatively like okay,
COVID right, or some there's this really bad thing happened,
or the fires. Right, there's something bad happening right now,
and it's perfectly fine to work on that. However, when
they when they say, oh, you know, I feel that
(19:11):
or which means of course, it's not that if I
say that, it means that, but I believe I feel
that this event, and you know I always feel so
it makes me when they did that, that made me
feel so alone. Yes, okay, so it's this story right
of I'm alone and you instead of focusing on this thing,
now you can say tell me, you know, uh, you know,
(19:34):
tell me Graham, when was the first time you felt alone?
I bet that right, and then I go goes, well, well,
well there was that time when my you know, I
was you know whatever, I was left alone in the
super in the in the department store, like with Elizabeth, uh,
you know, or whatever it is. You want to work
on that one exactly. And that's the the thing that
(19:58):
some people don't get is when there's a really big
thing here and things like well that kind of makes
sense whatever meaning they make out of that. Like Tony Robbins,
I saw him do this. I don't know if you've
seen this video of him working on nine to eleven,
right at the day after nine eleven. You know, he
makes this comment. You know, if you have nine to
eleven and you're a fearful person, you're afraid. If you're
(20:20):
an angry person, you'll be angry. If you're a guilty person,
you'll think, what did I do wrong?
Speaker 2 (20:24):
You know.
Speaker 4 (20:25):
So it's that earlier thing that frames how you relate
to whatever's going on now exactly.
Speaker 3 (20:33):
It could be an early framing from very young particularly
that gets carried forward into the meaning making of later events.
At a woman I worked with really quickly that her
earliest self, what we call self meaning that came from
other very early difficult experiences was I'm bad. She was
raped later in life, and she came to the understanding
(20:56):
that I was raped because I'm bad. Of course we
could get at that table top of the I'm bad.
Then all of the legs underneath that held you know
that we're made of that meaning also gets.
Speaker 4 (21:08):
Dismantled, right right, Yeah, no, that's exactly right, exactly we overlap, yeah, totally.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
Well, I was gonna say, but we got a couple
of minutes. I want to just do a couple of
things before we close. One, why the points that you tap?
Why are those ones significant?
Speaker 4 (21:26):
And Two?
Speaker 5 (21:27):
How long is treatment typically taking for patients to go
through that? I know there's probably no hard and fast rule,
but just in.
Speaker 4 (21:33):
General, why those points that's an interesting question. They cover
a bunch of the different meridians there are, you know,
and then their acts there they're kind of front they're accessible,
uh to therapists. So I mean, I mean, I was
just reminded that Callahan Callahan, who was Roger Callahan, who
(21:56):
was the originator of any tapping with TFT here Actually
it was using points on the feet. But you know,
if you're doing psychotherapy, take off your.
Speaker 6 (22:05):
Shoes doesn't quite cut it, you know what I'm saying. Well,
that's that's you know, that's part of it. And there
are some other points that people can use. There are
different techniques, there are other things around energy psychology. There's chakras,
but this is the one that has the most research
and and there's there's over two hundred studies on tapping
(22:26):
approaches mostly and then how long it takes it so varies.
So I mentioned in the last episode, those women had.
Speaker 4 (22:35):
A you know, she was at the Borderline Bar and grill.
It was really a session, maybe a session and a half,
and now she'd had a bunch of therapy and and
I think she did some other therapy just for for whatever.
But it can be very very brief with somebody with
complex trauma. That's just not reasonable because you have to
have a relationship, you know. So I kind of think
(22:57):
of it with people with you know, really complex trauma.
I'm doing psychotherapy with them trauma in form of psychotherapy,
with a lot of interspersal of these approaches, right, and
it could you know it it you know, uh, it
could be once, it could be years depending on the
(23:19):
person and just you know where they are in their
life and how how ready they are and what their
resources are. And I mean there are a lot of variables,
but the important point is it's it's a lot quicker
than talk therapy, that's for sure. And people I would
say to people you should feel something relatively soon. I
(23:39):
mean you should know, oh this is different. I I
I definitely have people say to me, you know this
is I've had other therapy and man, this is different. Yeah,
and so it's so similar. Yes, you know, we know that.
Speaker 3 (23:53):
You also speak about the role of the therapist, particularly
in you know, in providing certain contextual holding, all kinds
of things that are as meaningful, right as especially with
those with complex trauma.
Speaker 4 (24:06):
Right, you need that relationship. As you said, it's so
spot on as well. Yeah, I've never ceased to be
amazed of some of the stories I hear about what
people have for therapy. Yeah, I mean you have to
take it with a grain of salt, but still, yes,
they they tend to say certain things that where people
(24:28):
aren't really present and caring and feeling too.
Speaker 3 (24:32):
Right, we know this for a fact, we know.
Speaker 5 (24:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (24:36):
So well, Bob, thank you so much again for being
with us today. We want to thank you the listeners
for dropping in and joining us today. It's been so
great yet again.
Speaker 4 (24:48):
To have you with us. Thanks for having me. These
guys are doing great work. I appreciate it.
Speaker 5 (24:54):
It's been a lot of fun.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
I agree with Laurie as we let our listeners know
that regarding our episode today, I want to remind you
that it and its resources and all of guys other
episodes can be found on the Trauma Therapist Project's web page.
Thanks again for being with us today and we'll look
forward to seeing you back next time.
Welcome to the special guest host series of The Trauma
Therapist podcast, where I'm going to be handing over the
mic to some incredible guest hosts. In each episode, you'll
hear fresh perspectives and unique insights to inform and inspire you,
all the while keeping the heart of this podcast alive.
So sit back and enjoy.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Welcome to the Trauma Therapist Project. I'm doctor Graham Taylor
and this is my colleague, doctor Lori Ignacio. Doctor Guy
McPherson has kindly invited us to guest host on his
awesome and very well respected podcast platform, and we're so
grateful to him for this opportunity, as well as you
as a listening audience joining us today.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
We're so excited to have us have us have doctor
Bob Schwartz return to our podcast as a guest.
Speaker 4 (00:46):
Welcome again, Bob.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
Bob is over thirty five years of experience as a
licensed psychologist, specializing in an approach that's holistic in combining
the best aspects of traditional approaches with complimentary approaches to treatment,
including energy, psychology, hypnosis, imagery, mindfulness, and even nutrition.
Speaker 4 (01:05):
Bob is the.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
Former executive director of the Association for comprehensive energy psychology
and the author and co author of three professional books. Bob,
in our first show together, you gave us a really
nice overview of your work within energy psychology. Today, we'd
like to take a deeper dive into your work, allowing
(01:26):
our audience to better understand a more practical, hands on
understanding of the various therapeutic technique, strategies and constructs that
are part of the work you do. Would you mind
down for us if you would, and describe your mind
body approach that focuses on removing the traumatic energy and
(01:46):
emotions attached to traumatic events in order to regulate what
comes with trauma, emotional hyper arousal and things like that
to facilitate insight and as we talked about in our
first pot cast, post traumatic growth. Take it away.
Speaker 4 (02:05):
Sure, thanks for having me so, I mean, so there
are a number of things that you know, I have
learned over the years and can do, but let me
just focus I think on e f T. There are
other tapping approaches like TFT. Each have their own advantages,
but you know, people can get lost if you start
to say too much. So even with e f T
(02:28):
there's a lot going on. So For instance, if you
were to go online and look up YouTube, you just
find tapping approaches all over the place, and some of
them are on you are better than others, and you
have to think about how you're using it. So in
terms of trauma, there are two main ways that I
think about it. One is this idea of self regulation,
(02:51):
that what happens for a lot of folks is that
they cannot regulate their bodies, their anxiety, their trauma, their
their bodies you know, feel horrible, you know, in one
way or another, and they can't control it. And so
one of the first ways that if somebody is anxious
(03:12):
or upset in some way and they want it to change.
And I have to emphasize that because a lot of
people sort of get this idea if you're going to,
you know, get rid of it, like we're going to
get rid of the truck, We're going to tap it out.
That's not and people actually say, let's tap it out,
but that's not really the way to think about it.
It's really more about let's tap and let things become
(03:35):
freer and see what happens. So we're not trying to
kill the problem, because whenever you do that, it tends
to stay stuck. So one of the things we would
do with ef T is there's something called a setup phrase.
So somebody might say, let's just say something simple like
I'm anxious, right, So you would we could say, with okay,
(03:56):
let's focus on the anxiety, and we would probably I
would ask someone to tell me a little more because
I want to know not just the word, but how
somebody feels. So like, you know, my mouth is dry,
my stomach's turning, my heart's pounding, and I'm thinking, oh
my god, you know the sky's going to fall. Let's
just say that's what it is. So then I would
(04:17):
have some they would tap their hands. There are a
few different ways, but there's an energy point right here
I have. These people have taped their hands like this,
so this is the body activation part. And then we
say this you know phrase, which always is in the
form of even though I fill in the blank, I
deeply and completely accept myself. That's the basic version. There
(04:38):
are some variations. So I might have someone say even
though I feel anxious and my heart is pounding, and
my mouth is dry, and my stomach is turning, and
I'm thinking to myself, oh my god, the sky is
going to fall. I deeply and completely accept myself. And
we would say that two or three times, and that
(04:59):
would be the first part. Uh, And then I would
have the person just focus on their sense feeling, and
then they go through a series of points. The first
is here, I'd say, just focus on it, okay, So
I might have might say what's a reminder phrase? Okay,
my stomach is I'm anxious, And then there's the point
here my stomach is churning. I'm thinking, oh my god,
the sky's falling. My mouth is dry, right, And we
(05:24):
would just be focusing on these things, and this is
how we would tap and I would tap along with
the person, and then we and that this is the
basic thing. We would stop here, and then I'd say
take any breadth, Oh, I forgot to say. I usually
have someone say, well, how strong is on a scale
of zero to ten, how much does it bother you?
So maybe they'd say seven, and then I'd say, okay,
well what's up now? And oftentimes I'll say, well, it's
(05:47):
down to a five or four or you know, something
like that, And then I would ask, okay, is it
the same feeling or just less or has it shifted
is you know, And a person might say, yeah, you know,
I my heart isn't pounding anymore, but now I feel
this tightness in my throat. That's what's making it a four. Yes,
(06:12):
that's what's making it a four. The rest of it's gone. Okay,
then we'll even though, and then we were I have
this four of anxiety and there's this tightness in my throat,
I deeply completely accept myself. And then we would go
through the thing again while they're focusing on the tightness,
and you know, depending what happens, it might go to zero,
(06:32):
it might not, and we would repeat that as long
as we need until it goes down. So that is
just but I'm just focusing on the symptom. It could
be a craving for chocolate, it could be anything. It
could be, and it's just sort of helping the person.
It's like taking an aspirin, you take a rye, you
(06:53):
take an advil. You know, thirty minutes later, you know
you're a muscle soreness is gone. That would be what
I would call a self a self regulation approach, which
is what you will see a lot on like YouTube
or whatever. And there's nothing wrong with that's great. It's
really helpful to have that, and people can learn to
(07:15):
do that, I think in many ways for a sec
and then we can talk about the more trauma stuff.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Well, we'll speak to that first. I want to get
into the trauma stuff. Like glory is kind of nudging
us here, but the fact that sometimes people are so
aroused sometimes that this is such an essential start, isn't it.
Speaker 4 (07:34):
Yeah. Yeah, that's phase one of trauma treatment. Like you
you know, it's like when you go to the emergency room,
the first thing you do is stop the bleeding. Yes, right,
So if something's all freaked out, you're not gonna and
there they're not regulated, you're not going to have them.
You don't want them to start thinking about all, you know,
the trauma and because that'll just disregulate them even more.
(07:55):
As a rule, I mean, there are, like anything else,
there are exceptions, but.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
Yeah, yeah, it's always a calm that allows right then
to go into this.
Speaker 4 (08:05):
Mixt right and right, which helps people feel, oh, okay,
I'm relief, I've got and I can learn this. Yes,
So that's kind of part one. Then if we were
to go deeper into it, and assuming the person wasn't
it the trauma wasn't. I don't want to over complicate things,
but there are steps that we take to make sure
people aren't overwhelmed. It's really important not to be overwhelmed
(08:29):
by it. I would have someone tell me about a
specific event. It's usually kind of has a beginning and
an end, and the important thing is I'll tell them. Look,
I want you to tell me what happens, but as
soon as you start to feel upset, we're going to
stop and we're going to tap. So we're not going
to go through the whole story. We're going to go
only till the first part where the there's like it's
(08:53):
called a crescendo, where you're starting to feel bad right
and often. And I'll also ask permission advice. If it
looks like you're having you're getting upset, may I stop you?
And usually people want to barrow ahead. So I don't
know whatever the traumatic event is someone starts to think about.
It could be like a car. Okay, like someone has
a car, you know, a car crash, right, and so, okay,
(09:16):
So I'm driving along in my car and I see
there's a person all of a sudden coming into my
lane and they start Okay, what's what what's what's how
much does it bother you? Now? Oh, it's already a four. Okay.
So even though I see the car company and i'd
ask them about even though I see the car coming
in my lane and I'm thinking myself, oh, this is
(09:38):
gonna be bad, and my heart's pounding and I don't
know what to do. I deep think bability except myself.
And then once again, we go through that event a bunch,
that piece of the event until it's sort of down
to zero or very near zero. We don't even go
for That's one of the big differences. And then we
go the next step. Okay, now what happens, Well, you
(09:59):
know the car, you know, there's an impact on my car,
and I'm just I don't even I can't even speak.
If the car is spinning, and I'm thinking that's it.
I'm buying the I'm gonna die. Okay. So even though
I feel the impact and I'm my head's all discombobulated
(10:24):
and I'm thinking, oh my god, this is that I'm
going to die. I deep thing that really accept myself,
and then we're going to go there. We go through
that tapping on these points, all right, until we might,
and then as as you tap, certain things might begin
to come up. And that's what's interesting. We're not in
a rush. We do not rush to zero. We don't
(10:44):
care about zero. We eventually would like to get there,
but no attachment to that. Because this happens, and you know,
whatever things start to happen, they people recall, oh, there
was this, there was that. And we go through the
whole thing until finally it's down to zero or almost zero,
(11:05):
and then we do some things to make sure it's
we've got it all, but we take it slowly, bit
by bit, and if it's a really long thing, we
break it into chunks. It's kind of like, you know,
like you don't take an entire t bone steak and
throw it in your mouth and try to check it.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Right.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
There's such a wisdom too, right that you're sharing about here.
We find tun in our work that we really are
being led by the person in front of us. That's
that we're basically sort of just told in hands and
going in, you know, and they're leading, and we follow,
and we just provide a strategy for navigating the minds
(11:45):
and then healing them. I guess I'm curious you know,
we find in our work, presumably in yours too, that
there are simpler processes and then more complex one, particularly
complex trauma.
Speaker 4 (11:58):
I guess.
Speaker 3 (11:59):
Curious about what you found in your work using the
kinds of interventions you do in the cases of you know,
complex trauma trauma yea years of trauma.
Speaker 4 (12:10):
Yeah, what your experience might be around that. Hm, Well,
so with complex trauma. Uh, it's kind of interesting because
the way I sort of tend to do it is
that even with it, I mean, complex trauma is basically
(12:32):
a lots of traumas put together with a lot of
like neglect and all kinds of things, right, And so
oftentimes it's the actual tapping part. You're going to pick
something that's meaningful or maybe it's about uh, maybe somebody's
(12:53):
got a certain belief in this complex like I'm no good. Yeah, okay,
I shouldn't. And so you'd say, okay, can you give
We would find out three to five, Actually, what are
some things that happen in your life that lead you
to believe or support the belief that I'm no good?
And which is a part of what's called the personal peace.
(13:15):
It's a it's a variation of the personal peace procedure,
which is we're going to find all the things in
a category and we're going to systematically tap on each
one of them. So an e f T. It's called
the tabletop is called or schema for your cognitive therapists
out there, I'm no good and then the individual legs
(13:37):
are the specific events and we're going to tap on
each of those specific events and which basically makes helps
the table to collapse. And we may take time. We don't,
you don't, you've gotta. We might depending on how you
know what's up with the person and their ego resources.
(13:59):
We might do quickly, we might do it slowly. We
might take a break because other things happen. But you
want to kind of stay on this idea of Okay,
let's work on this idea that I'm no good. And
then what happens is the person starts to think, you know,
it loosens it up because all those specific events no
(14:19):
longer inform the person.
Speaker 3 (14:21):
Yeah, yeah, we find something similar that if we can
get at that table top, you know, and then the
legs essentially collapse.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
So yeah, we have a similar It's a powerful thing,
isn't it When you know the event itself is significant
to the point of hyper arousal.
Speaker 5 (14:43):
But the meaning that we hold the takeaway part of it.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
In our prior podcast, whether you talked about this woman
who had an intruder in her home and how upon
working with you, she realized that she had done much
more and this victimhood stance she has that was.
Speaker 5 (15:00):
In fact not true.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
She was quite the heroine in her own story, and
to watch and see what she did. But the assignment
of how I'm feeling about it, what I believe.
Speaker 5 (15:14):
About it, is such a powerful.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
Shaper of what we hold in that trauma that keeps
people stuck in the process, It keeps them re traumatized
over and over, doesn't that.
Speaker 4 (15:24):
Yeah, well, I know you guys focus on the meaning making,
which I think is great, and you know my kind
of I mean play with it would be I would
find the meaning and then I would say, okay, well
what you know what informs you? And then that might
be the thing. Might we might just talk too, Oh
(15:45):
you might just tap. And sometimes, depending on style, some
people will include more active sort of reframing as part
of a part of mapping. And sometimes that's a good idea,
that's a good choice. Sometimes you don't and just wait
until somebody changes it themselves, and then I want to
kind of you know, reinforce that. So you know, there's
(16:07):
some very there's some variant, you know, variability there, and
how you apply the.
Speaker 5 (16:10):
Work, Bob, do you find it as you're doing the work.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
Sometimes they're going down one path, but then they'll start
to kind of go to you know, this brings up
another memory for me that has a similar theme, and
another memory with a similar thing where they're tied together
thematically in some ways.
Speaker 5 (16:25):
What do you notice about that?
Speaker 4 (16:28):
Well, that's a really good interesting point. Now, if you
did E M. D R the way at least when
I was trained, maybe it's changed because back when the
dinosaur's wronged anyway, you would follow that. In EFT we don't.
It's actually considered a problem because what happens is, well
it's called daisy change. We call it's called daisy chaining.
(16:49):
And so what happens is you end up kind of
going away and you never solved, you never finished this thing.
What we would do is make a mental note. Someone says, oh,
that reminds me of X, Y and Z. Okay, let
me write that down. We're going to come back to it,
and you're going to finish what you're working on, and
you keep them separate, No, because you finish because you
(17:13):
want each piece done to help break up the the
chain of associations. You're taking out a link and then
the next one. Yeah, or in this case it might
be maybe the metaphor is more like a link, because
a sociated link, right, So if I get but it's
(17:33):
just a metaphor, so but you know that that's what
you would probably do, but you would definitely want to
make mental note of it and then come back. And
sometimes if you fix this one, you say, now let's
go back to them. Does it still feel the same,
And sometimes they say yes. Sometimes you know, it's funny,
I actually it doesn't feel quite the same anymore, because
(17:55):
especially if the other one was an earlier one, like
if the thing I work on at seven and the
one they have an association too is at say thirteen,
seven almost always trumps thirteen, because that's where the early
earlier the memory, the more it tends to already filter,
you know, color, what you how you think about something.
(18:16):
And that's for everybody. I mean, it's not like no
one's doing anything wrong. That's just how it works, you know,
like yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:25):
Well we were just I was just reflecting on again,
so much of the overlap the earlier. We also find
that the earlier the more comprehensive. Right, it's those meanings
or those experiences. The younger we are tend to have
a lot of grit to them, and they they have
us hijacked, you know, more red than more recent stuff.
Speaker 4 (18:49):
Yeah. Like so if you're a therap for the therapist,
so sometimes you get like common like relatively like okay,
COVID right, or some there's this really bad thing happened,
or the fires. Right, there's something bad happening right now,
and it's perfectly fine to work on that. However, when
they when they say, oh, you know, I feel that
(19:11):
or which means of course, it's not that if I
say that, it means that, but I believe I feel
that this event, and you know I always feel so
it makes me when they did that, that made me
feel so alone. Yes, okay, so it's this story right
of I'm alone and you instead of focusing on this thing,
now you can say tell me, you know, uh, you know,
(19:34):
tell me Graham, when was the first time you felt alone?
I bet that right, and then I go goes, well, well,
well there was that time when my you know, I
was you know whatever, I was left alone in the
super in the in the department store, like with Elizabeth, uh,
you know, or whatever it is. You want to work
on that one exactly. And that's the the thing that
(19:58):
some people don't get is when there's a really big
thing here and things like well that kind of makes
sense whatever meaning they make out of that. Like Tony Robbins,
I saw him do this. I don't know if you've
seen this video of him working on nine to eleven,
right at the day after nine eleven. You know, he
makes this comment. You know, if you have nine to
eleven and you're a fearful person, you're afraid. If you're
(20:20):
an angry person, you'll be angry. If you're a guilty person,
you'll think, what did I do wrong?
Speaker 2 (20:24):
You know.
Speaker 4 (20:25):
So it's that earlier thing that frames how you relate
to whatever's going on now exactly.
Speaker 3 (20:33):
It could be an early framing from very young particularly
that gets carried forward into the meaning making of later events.
At a woman I worked with really quickly that her
earliest self, what we call self meaning that came from
other very early difficult experiences was I'm bad. She was
raped later in life, and she came to the understanding
(20:56):
that I was raped because I'm bad. Of course we
could get at that table top of the I'm bad.
Then all of the legs underneath that held you know
that we're made of that meaning also gets.
Speaker 4 (21:08):
Dismantled, right right, Yeah, no, that's exactly right, exactly we overlap, yeah, totally.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
Well, I was gonna say, but we got a couple
of minutes. I want to just do a couple of
things before we close. One, why the points that you tap?
Why are those ones significant?
Speaker 4 (21:26):
And Two?
Speaker 5 (21:27):
How long is treatment typically taking for patients to go
through that? I know there's probably no hard and fast rule,
but just in.
Speaker 4 (21:33):
General, why those points that's an interesting question. They cover
a bunch of the different meridians there are, you know,
and then their acts there they're kind of front they're accessible,
uh to therapists. So I mean, I mean, I was
just reminded that Callahan Callahan, who was Roger Callahan, who
(21:56):
was the originator of any tapping with TFT here Actually
it was using points on the feet. But you know,
if you're doing psychotherapy, take off your.
Speaker 6 (22:05):
Shoes doesn't quite cut it, you know what I'm saying. Well,
that's that's you know, that's part of it. And there
are some other points that people can use. There are
different techniques, there are other things around energy psychology. There's chakras,
but this is the one that has the most research
and and there's there's over two hundred studies on tapping
(22:26):
approaches mostly and then how long it takes it so varies.
So I mentioned in the last episode, those women had.
Speaker 4 (22:35):
A you know, she was at the Borderline Bar and grill.
It was really a session, maybe a session and a half,
and now she'd had a bunch of therapy and and
I think she did some other therapy just for for whatever.
But it can be very very brief with somebody with
complex trauma. That's just not reasonable because you have to
have a relationship, you know. So I kind of think
(22:57):
of it with people with you know, really complex trauma.
I'm doing psychotherapy with them trauma in form of psychotherapy,
with a lot of interspersal of these approaches, right, and
it could you know it it you know, uh, it
could be once, it could be years depending on the
(23:19):
person and just you know where they are in their
life and how how ready they are and what their
resources are. And I mean there are a lot of variables,
but the important point is it's it's a lot quicker
than talk therapy, that's for sure. And people I would
say to people you should feel something relatively soon. I
(23:39):
mean you should know, oh this is different. I I
I definitely have people say to me, you know this
is I've had other therapy and man, this is different. Yeah,
and so it's so similar. Yes, you know, we know that.
Speaker 3 (23:53):
You also speak about the role of the therapist, particularly
in you know, in providing certain contextual holding, all kinds
of things that are as meaningful, right as especially with
those with complex trauma.
Speaker 4 (24:06):
Right, you need that relationship. As you said, it's so
spot on as well. Yeah, I've never ceased to be
amazed of some of the stories I hear about what
people have for therapy. Yeah, I mean you have to
take it with a grain of salt, but still, yes,
they they tend to say certain things that where people
(24:28):
aren't really present and caring and feeling too.
Speaker 3 (24:32):
Right, we know this for a fact, we know.
Speaker 5 (24:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (24:36):
So well, Bob, thank you so much again for being
with us today. We want to thank you the listeners
for dropping in and joining us today. It's been so
great yet again.
Speaker 4 (24:48):
To have you with us. Thanks for having me. These
guys are doing great work. I appreciate it.
Speaker 5 (24:54):
It's been a lot of fun.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
I agree with Laurie as we let our listeners know
that regarding our episode today, I want to remind you
that it and its resources and all of guys other
episodes can be found on the Trauma Therapist Project's web page.
Thanks again for being with us today and we'll look
forward to seeing you back next time.
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