Chronic pain can have many different causes. The cause can either be physical, mental, emotional or spiritual or a combination of these four categories.

Physical causes of pain can be from actual damage to the tissue, dehydration from lack of water, nutrient deficiencies, allergies to food or substances in your environment, subluxation in the spine, etc.

Mental, emotional and spiritual causes of pain are caused by how we react to situations that occur in our life. How we interact with the people in our lives has a big impact on our health and happiness. Emotional imbalances in the body cause imbalances in the energy system of our body. I will describe below a simple technique that you can use to release emotional issues on a regular basis that might be causing your pain.

The idea that diseases in the body can be treated by balancing the energy pathways in our body originated with Chinese acupuncture thousands of years ago. Acupuncture treats 12 primary energy pathways in the body called meridians. The acupuncture practitioner uses needles at key points along the meridians to balance the meridians to treat disease including chronic pain. In the mid 1960s Dr. George Goodheart, a chiropractor, developed a technique called Applied Kinesiology which allowed the practitioner to muscle test various points on the body to find the source of imbalance in the body among other things. Dr. Goodheart is credited with developing the technique to treat the acupuncture points on the meridians with pressure or tapping instead of with needles.

In the 1970s, building on Dr. Goodheart’s work, Dr. John Diamond, M.D. (a psychiatrist) developed a technique called Behavioral Kinesiology. Behavioral Kinesiology was the first technique to use tapping on key acupuncture points while stating positive affirmations to balance emotional problems. In the 1980s, Dr. Roger Callahan (a psychologist) standardized the process of tapping key acupuncture points while repeating affirmations to release (balance) emotional issues. The Callahan technique was the first of many “Energy Psychology” techniques that have been developed to this day.

The Callahan technique uses muscle testing to find the source of the problem and the tapping on key points to release the emotions. Muscle testing is a skill that not all people can master and usually requires the skill of a practitioner. This limits the availability of this technique to the average person who would like to use this technique on a regular basis at home.

In the mid 1990’s a number of simplified Energy Psychology techniques where developed to bypass the need for muscle testing and go straight to the treatment. It takes much less time to treat all the points by tapping on them then to muscle test each one and determine which point needs tapping. The most popular of these techniques is called Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT). The EFT website offers a free manual on how to learn the technique and a regular newsletter that keeps you up to date on the growing number of applications for this technique. I will write more about this technique later. The EFT website link is listed below.

Emotional Freedom Technique Information

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