How to enrich Hypnosis with tapping

Claudia Reinicke: Psicóloga y psicoterapeuta.

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How to enrich Hypnosis with tapping to increase resilience in different overwhelming situations as an example of a recent Ericksonian approach

In psychotherapeutic training and also in many continuing education courses, we as therapists are taught methodological approaches and are often encouraged to use them in a pure form. What is self-evident in research, because otherwise it would not be possible to differentiate between effective factors, does not always seem to be the ideal approach in everyday practice.

Many therapists, regardless of their training, often wonder why techniques from completely different areas should not be used to reduce the identified disadvantages of a method. Depending on the teacher, the integrative approach to other methods is either encouraged or even strictly prohibited. Last but not least, the chapter on indications for the individual method is often not discussed in sufficient depth, which could give the impression that it must be suitable for all indications. In continuing education seminars with practicing therapists, there is a recurring need to discuss cases in which the previous approaches have not achieved the desired results. Ultimately, it is often the clients with their complex problems who open therapists’ eyes to other methodological approaches.

However, where we therapists and counsellors have learned in a therapeutic context that pattern interruptions and perspective shifts can bring about significant changes in deadlocked situations, the last few years have seen an increasing tolerance for ambiguity in the therapeutic field. All guideline procedures seem to be opening up and integrating other procedures as additional techniques.

Here, I would like to present shortly an approach that integrates different techniques as well as the various systems surrounding a client, regardless of the theoretical orientation of the therapist to come then to the specific idea, to combine parts of hypnotherapy with an embodiment technique: the tapping.

KIKOS®—a compass for integrating complex systems—is an approach that constantly changes with the user, the client, and time.

In practical terms, experience shows that therapeutic work is much more effective, less energy-intensive, and easier when parents and educational environment are involved in child and adolescent psychotherapy, or when a child’s efforts to change their behaviour are futile if these environments or systems are not on board. And this applies not only to the child, but to everyone in their environment who is interested in change. An inner attitude that enables secure connections with other people is necessary for development to take place. In adult psychotherapy, too, faster, easier and more lasting effects were often seen when the client’s environment was involved.

First, I would like to give an overview of the entire approach before discussing the interaction between hypnosis and tapping techniques.

 

1.KIKOS® Compass for the integration of complex systems –an Ericksonian approach including different environments and different techniques

1.1 The clients system

In the system of a client, there are usually many more people interacting than those who are involved in psychotherapy using classical systemic approaches. For many children, cooperation with their family environment is not only essential, but there are often people in their school environment, leisure activities, etc. whose resources hold enormous potential for change, which often gives the therapy process an unexpected ease and effectiveness. It’s often the same for adult clients –including partners, colleagues, medical doctors, or other people of the environment can be as useful, like in children clients. They can have an enormously helpful influence in certain situations. And in such a system, lasting change can only occur if there is at least a small movement in all areas. In this approach, therapists and counsellors can certainly take on the role of initiating this movement.

1.2. The KIKOS® Compass

The KIKOS® Compass is a model created by the therapist or user themselves, based on their own basic training, personality, and experiences. The model shows the complex interaction between the therapist, the client, and their immediate and more distant environment, which are represented as flexible drops. The three systems are symbolized by the following abbreviations and combined as needed in the application.

Client – C

Direct environment – DE

Wider environment – WE

The techniques available to a therapist are represented as colored dots on the compass and are selected with the compass needle in the form of a diamond after it has been decided which people in the situation should be worked with and which technique should be used.

There are three basic principles in KIKOS:

1. Basic assumption of acceptance:

Everyone does the best they can! They cannot do any better at that moment!

In other words, every person, even if they are not behaving in a team-oriented manner or are “completely off track” is treated with an inner attitude of respect, presence, and attentive care and is treated with appreciation.

2. Basic assumption of resources in the system:

There are so many resources in the environment surrounding the person concerned that it is helpful to involve not only the immediate environment but also the extended environment!

3. Basic assumption of individual personalities:

The therapist/teacher/doctor “waits tables” for each client/student/patient, creating a “cuvée” of different techniques tailored to their individual sensitivities and experiences.

The techniques are not only adapted to the topic, the client, and their situation, but are also essentially determined by the experiences, preferences, and inclinations of the therapist. This is emphasized here because both teachers and therapists sometimes still seem to believe that they have to be able to “get along well” with everyone from a professional distance. This expectation often seems to have fatal consequences, both for the client and for the counselor.

In other words, when working with KIKOS®, you accept people as they are, reflect this back to them, assume that the necessary resources are available within the person or their environment, and support desired changes with a colorful bouquet of techniques that are appropriate for the client and the therapist, symbolized by the individual points —making it highly flexible. Therapists are encouraged to use techniques, mix them with complementary techniques as appropriate to the situation, or even discard the original plan and use something more promising.

Behind the colorful dots are the individual techniques that you focus on, but only to integrate other techniques if necessary. So, you use the compass needle to select a technique that seems appropriate and focus on it –symbolized by the magnifying glass. If necessary, however, you can also use the compass needle to select another technique to complement it.

T – stands for trance and all hypnotherapeutic elements

R – stands for resource orientation

I – stands for impact techniques

P – stands for PEP (process and embodiment-focused psychology)

L – stands for solution-focused

E – stands for embodiment

…– stands for all other techniques that a therapist, teacher, counselor, or anyone else brings to the table

Read clockwise, the letters spell out the word TRIPLE, symbolizing the triple success that results from the interaction of the three systems.

KIKOS® can be used flexibly and can be applied in many therapy and counseling formats, regardless of specific therapeutic and professional orientations.

It would, of course, go beyond the scope of this document to present all the techniques contained in the compass in detail. However, a brief description of the individual techniques will be provided here to give an idea of why and where they are used.

1.3. T, R, I, P, L, E—the techniques

T, as in trance

Stands in this approach for all techniques with hypnotherapeutic elements, especially the methods developed by Milton Erickson (2016). The classic elements of hypnosis, such as seeding, pacing, linking, and leading, are constantly mixed together so that the waking state and the trance state constantly merge into one another. Accordingly, unconscious, trans derivational search processes or suggestions are often given quite casually in a normal conversation, so that people glide back and forth between awake and trance states. This variant is particularly suitable for use with children. These are therefore easy-to-learn techniques from the field of hypnosis that can be used repeatedly in systemic work, such as:

– the fairy’s three wishes – to focus the client’s attention on desirable events in the future.

– the beaver story, which is very helpful when it is necessary to leave old paths but is difficult to do.

– the Chinese chest – when patients urgently need relief from issues or experiences that they may not be able or willing to talk about, or when they do not know how to get rid of their bounders.

– body journeys to better understand inner, involuntary processes and discover your own strategies for changing them, regardless of whether they are physical or mental challenges.

– The lion story, to activate resources where current failure suggests hopelessness and it would be helpful to rediscover old resources, integrate them, and look to the future with retrospective amazement and satisfaction.

– Working with ego states to find access to different inner parts that often view and influence the issue controversially, and inviting each of them to contribute in the future according to their resources and in the right place.

– Therapeutic stories, metaphors that have an effect on the entire system, and many others that can be used in the therapeutic change process alone or in combination with another technique, such as tapping from PEP®.

The combination of a hypnosis technique and tapping will be described later.

In addition, in this approach, it is very important to make people in the various systems (K, DE, WE) aware of the negative effects of unintentionally given suggestions in order to reduce the frequency of spreading persistently stressful formulations in their environment and remaining in problem trances in the future.

Furthermore, utilization (meaning to use everything the client brings with them, including the problem) and reframing (changing perspective to see the problem in a new light) are essential for an inner attitude that every therapist and counsellor should have. The Ericksonian assumption is that:

The client has the solution within them, they just don’t know it yet.

This forms the basis for the attitude that everyone does the best they can; they cannot do any better at the moment.

Such techniques are always used when the client does not (yet) have any solutions to the issue and an externally proposed solution is unlikely to be promising.

R, as in resource orientation

Without resource orientation, there is no hypnosis and no KIKOS®!

Emphasizing the resources and potential of clients is a fundamental prerequisite for all techniques used here. Resources are means to achieve goals; they are present in the client or, as Revensdorf (2001) describes, “can be actualized in interaction with the environment”. Without focusing on the skills, abilities, and resources of the other person, it is virtually impossible to strengthen self-efficacy and resilience. Since it is the task of therapists and counselors to accompany and support people in overcoming their challenges in their own way, a certain resource orientation should be a natural part of the program.

I, like impact techniques

Refers to multisensory, motivating, and promotional work to accelerate processes toward a solution, according to Ed Jacobs. Based on a good rapport, more attention is paid to nonverbal cues without too much narrative. Through light trance, behavioral changes are unconsciously triggered via visual and kinesthetic impressions. Danie Beaulieu (2013), as the founder of impact techniques, refers to the synergy between Erickson, solution orientation, and NLP. The technique is primarily experience- and action-oriented and is ideal for circumventing resistance through playful actions on a non-cognitive level. Techniques involving objects, everyday items, and movement are used creatively.

These include, for example:

• Giving objects to take home that act as post-hypnotic suggestions, such as a resource jar in which the client collects different strengths that they have drawn or written down.
• Cups that the client fills with water to different levels to illustrate how much energy they use for which tasks (a very nice unconscious variation that can be used, not only but for example, to show parents sitting nearby without words what their child’s energy is being used for and what it is not enough for).
• Or a crumpled banknote, which conveys that abusive behaviour does not diminish the value of the victim.
• Or marshmallows and spaghetti, which can be used to tangibly experience the relationship network of a child with estranged parents who no longer have contact with each other.
• And many more.

These techniques are all stand-alone, very powerful and effective, and can also be extremely helpful as pattern interrupters in other more cognitive processes.

P, as PEP (Process-Oriented Embodiment-Focused Psychology)

According to Michael Bohne (2013), PEP can be classified as bifocal-multisensory intervention techniques (such as Brainspotting, EMDR, etc.), which were developed from tapping techniques (such as EFT, TFT, EDxTM) in a process-oriented manner. It is a method that activates self-efficacy, using a combination of psychodynamic, systemic behavioural therapy, and hypnotherapeutic strategies, and can be integrated very well into psychotherapy, coaching, psychosomatic primary care, and trauma therapy.

With this intervention, it is possible to:

• treat current stressful, distressing feelings by tapping various points on the head, face, and upper body,
• as well as dysfunctional relationship patterns and beliefs by speaking self-empowering statements in combination with a physical exercise called “cranking” (rubbing a point below the collarbone above the heart). By reactivating memories, correcting mismatches through strengthening self-affirmations, and providing an emotional counter-experience through tapping and exposure, this technique fulfils the requirements for a memory update, as described by Antonia Pfeiffer (2022), in order to soften pathological fixations and initiate a reorganization and helpful integration of the experience.
• In addition, the exercises on the “Big Five” can be used to resolve solution blockages such as self-blame or blame of others, expectations, regressions, and dysfunctional loyalties. With the cognitive congruence test and self-esteem training, patterns that clients feel have been with them “forever” can be changed in a short period of time.

PEP® can be used very effectively with children and adolescents and all adults of all ages (Reinicke& Bohne, 2019). It is an integral, cross-system component of the KIKOS® approach. Once the method has been introduced in the context of the client and perhaps their family, it is also a helpful door opener for involving the wider environment in the therapeutic context. The school environment and leisure educators are usually very helpful in generalizing the method and benefit from it themselves. When the technique is demonstrated and modeled in the clients environment, it calms the clients mind and usually makes them realize, without reproach, how much their own stress level contributes to escalations.

L, as in solution-focused

Includes any form of helpful communication and cooperative approaches that can be useful in inviting previously uninvolved parties to come on board without reproach or implicit blame, in order to support the client together and ultimately benefit themselves. Ben Furman’s (2014) model of solution-focused cooperation is impressive because his Twinstar model clearly illustrates what is needed to get others to cooperate effectively. At this point, therapeutic colleagues often express concerns that they find it difficult or impossible to get teachers, for example, to cooperate. This is usually based on a prejudice that teachers know everything better, are resistant to advice and therefore not open to cooperation, for which there are unfortunately also confirming examples– 30 years of experience have brought me many open-minded educators who also have their own trigger issues and have not explicitly learned many helpful tools for behavior and self-control in their training—they do the best they can! The communication in this approach, which always focuses on the goal and not on the problem, makes it very important to value the other person, show genuine interest in their issues, and look forward to successes together. If, in addition, different perspectives are taken into account when criticism is conveyed and, in the event of setbacks and failures, everyone is offered the opportunity to take their share of responsibility, even seemingly hopeless collaborations often turn into fruitful cooperation based on mutual understanding, and the entire system develops greater tolerance for ambiguity.

E, such as embodiment

Is an area that has been significantly neglected in psychotherapeutic approaches for many years. Fortunately, embodiment approaches have been gaining importance in recent years. This seems inevitable when one considers the available studies and finds that, for example, patients with PTSD were treated with conventional psychotherapy for years without any change in their physical symptoms. In contrast, after six sessions of Embodiment Techniques (EFT), 90% of the control group no longer met the criteria for PTSD, as reported in the study by Church et al. (2013). In many recent therapeutic approaches, the body plays an important role as the stage for emotions, such as in PEP or Brainspotting (see Andreas Kollar, 2024), or in the triad work according to Gabriela von Witzleben (2021), in which the abdomen, heart, and head are symbolized as essential emotional centres in the form of ground anchors, allowing patients to become more aware of their feelings. This is an extremely helpful technique in an overly intellectual world where problems are solved exclusively through logic.

Here, too, KIKOS® uses small exercises from these techniques that can be incorporated into therapeutic work without years of training.

To name just a few, we think of:

• An exercise with floor anchors that is helpful when making a pro-con decision: Two floor anchors (e.g., in the form of two pieces of paper) are placed in the room by the client, each symbolizing one of the two positions. Without the need for cognitive arguments, the person in the room can feel which of the two positions they feel more comfortable with. A stark reaction can often be elicited by having the person hold the two symbols directly over their heart one after the other.
• Something similar can be achieved by having people switch between different chairs that symbolize the attitudes or states of mind of different people. Most people are amazed that they actually feel something different just because they are sitting on a different chair.

Even people with no experience of psychotherapy can very easily be brought into a positive state of mind when they stand on different floor anchors in a timeline exercise that represent positive experiences of competence from their own past in chronological order. What initially looks like a simple memory exercise usually generates, to their surprise, a great sense of competence and resources that can be used in the long term and added to again and again.

… (the unnamed point)

Stands for all other techniques that the therapist, teacher, counselor, or whoever else brings to the table.

1.4 Procedure

When working with the KIKOS® Compass, the first step is to get to know the client’s concerns and then work with them to consider who would be the most appropriate person to work with in this situation.

Only when it is clear what the first goal is, when a task has been assigned or created, and when it has been determined who is best suited to work on it, can a decision be made about which technique will be helpful, because this ultimately depends not only on the issue at hand, but also on the people who will be involved.

On the other hand, it is the therapist who decides —with clarity about whom to work with first— which technique will be applied. Naturally, this depends on the methods the therapist is trained in, but most importantly, it depends on what suits the client and their specific issue at that moment.

In such situations, the KIKOS approach suggests that if a technique meets resistance from the client, a different technique should be used —or techniques can be combined.

This is why the following section aims to describe how hypnosis interventions can be made easier and more accessible for both the client and the therapist through the integration of tapping techniques.

 

Hypnosis and tapping technique

The decision between hypnosis and PEP often depends on the client’s activity level and their pre-treatment need for comprehensible self-efficacy —people who want to remain in control themselves are sometimes more receptive to PEP than to hypnosis techniques with trance induction, which of course depends primarily on how it is presented to them. In addition, the proportion of speech in the therapeutic intervention is a decisive criterion. If the client does not want to say much but understands the language well, hypnosis techniques or PEP techniques that work covertly are helpful. If the person does not understand the language at all, tapping is definitely the method of choice.

Where attempts are made to solve an emotional problem in a head-driven way, impact and embodiment techniques are recommended because they also require few words and encourage emotional rather than cognitive responses.

Here I especially want to show how hypnosis techniques could be successfully combined with the tapping technique of PEP. All the other resources of the PEP approach shall not be explained here in further detail.

When memories of past situations are activated in psychotherapy, this can lead to strong neural activation in the hippocampus area. This can impair cognitive processing or even make it impossible to restructure memories, because these neurons connect with areas of the frontal cortex and reduce their activity. But these areas are important for a successful problem solving. However, strong emotional reactions can also disrupt the course of a hypnotherapeutic intervention. I would even go further: if a strong emotion is triggered by an intervention, this can of course be very helpful even if it’s stressful. However, it can also be easier for the client! If a strong, possibly aversive feeling is triggered, both stabilization and processing of the past experience can be facilitated if the perceived feeling can be experienced by the client as “controllable.” The PEP tapping technique can be extremely helpful in this regard.

If the client starts in the stressful situation with tapping, it could produce a facilitative feeling of self-efficacy.

In my 32 years as a psychotherapist, I have honestly never encountered another method that can resolve emotional chaos in the mind as quickly, effectively, and self-efficiently as in Michael Bohne’s tapping technique, which is part of his approach called PEP (Process and Embodiment Focused Psychology).

This technique involves tapping 16 different points on the hands, face, and upper body when you find yourself in an emotionally uncomfortable situation or are thinking about one. Before tapping, it is best to estimate how stressful the situation is for you on a scale of zero to ten. Zero would be no stress at all and ten would be absolute emotional chaos —it couldn’t be worse!

It is perfectly clear that when there is great turmoil in the deeper brain structures, shown here in dark gray, i.e., when fear, anger, and despair have taken hold, neural signals are sent to the surface of the brain (cortex). This is where our problem-solving behavior takes place, i.e., where we consider how best to deal with a crisis. It is therefore clear to everyone that no one can form clear problem-solving thoughts when the deeper brain structure (hippocampus area with amygdala), which always has priority, signals extreme danger. However, it is precisely this process that can be influenced by tapping, as many years of experience by PEP experts showed and has also been proven in different published studies, like for example in:

• Dina Wittfoth, Antonia Pfeiffer, Michael Bohne, Heinrich Lanfermann & Matthias Wittfoth (2020); Emotion regulation through bifocal processing of fear and disgust inducing stimuli; in BMC Neuroscience, vol. 21, Art.no. 47 (2020).
• Church et al 2013; The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 201(2): p153-160, February 2013

You will find more of the tapping studies in Pfeiffer, A. (2022) emotionale Erinnerung – Klopfen als Schlüssel für Lösungen; Heidelberg: Carl Auer Verlag.

So you focus on the negative feeling and sense where it is in your body and how big it is (between 0-10). Then start tapping the first point on the back of your hand between 5 and 10 times with the middle three fingers of your dominant hand and move on to the next point. For the tapping points on the nail beds of your fingertips, it is best to use only your index finger for tapping. At some points, you may feel a stronger reaction, sometimes even a slight pain. With practice, you will decide which points are your favorite ones that provide the most relief. After each tapping session, assess again how strong the stressful feeling is now. Breathe in and out deeply after each tapping session –as loudly as a snorting horse, if you like. Be curious to see what happens to the stressful feeling after several sessions. Is it still in the same place or has it shifted? Has it stayed the same or has it spread? Has it perhaps receded into the background or is it now easier to view the situation from a distance?

It feels so good to realize that you can influence the emotional chaos in your own head with this simple technique. My clients are often completely surprised that they can untangle the confusion in their heads themselves and influence the unpleasant feelings anytime, anywhere, completely independently. This lays the foundation for discovering new perspectives when faced with a challenge, viewing the situation from a new point of view, considering new solutions, and thus taking the first step toward discovering opportunities in the crisis.

At this point, you may be wondering why tapping should help.

There are several hypotheses, of which I will briefly list the most important ones here:

• The reward system in the brain is activated by haptic stimulation and the experience of self-efficacy, increasing the feeling of autonomy.
• Haptic stimulation increases cortical blood flow, allowing the cerebral cortex to function better again.
• Skin stimulation releases serotonin, endorphins, and endocannabinoids.
• In addition, the process is a form of self-care, which promotes positive expectations.

It is therefore a form of affect regulation through haptic stimulation.

In this process-oriented approach we pay attention to body sensations and see the body as the stage for feelings and interpret body signs as the expression of unconscious aspects, which we take signals seriously.

Now the question is why one would combine such a technique with hypnosis.

Sometimes situations arise in which a client is initially skeptical about hypnotherapeutic techniques and, despite being well informed, initially feels that it is ‘not for them’ or fears that they will not be able to engage with it properly. In such cases, it is very helpful and creates a sense of self-efficacy if the person first uses a technique that they literally have in their own hands. A few rounds of tapping give patients more confidence and trust, allowing them to engage with the other techniques.

On the other hand, various techniques often involve processes that clients initially find stressful, which can be important in order to trigger unconscious solution strategies. However, if the person finds this very unpleasant, it can be useful to incorporate tapping at this point in the intervention. There are countless examples. I would like to mention just a few here:

• when we work with inner parts and one or more of them feels so unpleasant that the client would prefer not to come into contact with them at all.
• when we use the beaver technique, and the client begins to cry because he finds no «other way»
• when we use an impact technique and the client is overwhelmed by the solution that presents itself
• when we use body journeys and the client gets stuck at a certain point but would like to move forward without outside help.

I would like to present a useful combination of interventions in more detail here.

The Chinese chest technique from B. Trenkle and Prof. Liu (Peking)

Is a technique I like to use when patients urgently need relief from issues or experiences that they want to let go. Even if they are not able or willing to talk about.

Sometimes the need to apply this technique arises naturally during the PEP process, and other times it comes directly from the client’s concern or issue.

To begin with the technique, I always start —especially with clients who have little experience with hypnosis— by inviting them to imagine a safe, pleasant place. This place is then imagined vividly with all senses involved.

If the client experiences any discomfort or irritation during this phase, I use a hypnotherapeutic induction, suggesting: “Whatever comes is right, everything is allowed to be.”

If that alone isn’t sufficient, we do a round of tapping. Of course, the tapping technique has already been introduced and practiced with the client beforehand.

Only once the client feels comfortable in this imagined space do I begin the Chinese Chest

Technique for example like this:

You can imagine a nice chest or a box 1 meter away. And I don’t know. Is it made of wood? Is it made of metal? Is it decorated and you can open this box and put old things in it, all the things that weigh you down that annoy/burden you and close the box? And then you look for a lock. It can be a really nice old lock with a big key. It can also be a high-tech lock with a sophisticated key. Or a combination. And if you lock it all carefully and then you look at this chest.

And then it can suddenly stand 3 m away. And then it can stand 5 m away and then it can go back to three, from there to five, from there to ten, maybe to 30 and then the chest looks different again. To bring it back to ten, to five, and then suddenly it’s back to 30 and to 50, to 100, and it looks quite different, quite different, and then you bring it back to 50, to 30, and if you want, you can put it back to 50 and then bring it back to ten.

To five, to 30, to five, to three, to 1 m and then you can open the lock again, open the chest and then look inside to see what it looks like. Curious, only to close it again, put the lock back on and look at the chest as it is locked, and there it is, right in front of you, yes, and then suddenly it’s back at 5 m, at 3 m, at ten, at 30, 303, at 1000, can be taken back to 50 before it’s at 500 m again. Maybe you can still see it when it’s big enough. Then you can still sense it, get it back to 100 m, to 500, to 100 m, and then simply put it ten kilometers away. Somewhere out there, standing in a magical space where transformations can happen. You know it’s there somewhere and you can be here. Moments like that, without desires, without interests, without needs, just being there. In a deep, calm relaxation, deeper and deeper, more and more relaxed and without noticeably regenerating the body’s own defenses. Gather your strength. So casually, you don’t have to do anything, you just go into a deep, deep state of rest –like a standby button on your body.

In one-on-one sessions using this method, I have often experienced situations where the client feels uncomfortable with the idea of the chest returning, or perhaps doesn’t even want to open it once it has returned. In such cases, I invite the client to simultaneously apply the tapping technique that was introduced earlier. This helps to reduce the unpleasant feelings to a degree that allows the client to refocus on the hypnosis process.

Sometimes, the tapping intervention during a hypnosis technique brings an important emotion to the surface, which can then be further integrated. In this example, such an emotion could be placed into the chest when it is opened again. Alternatively, the chest could be brought back once more to release the newly surfaced feeling.

This becomes especially interesting when the technique is guided in a group trance setting, while staying in interactive communication with one individual.

When such irritations —as described above in the demo client— arise, participants from the group often report afterward that they experienced something similar. They say that they followed the instructions given to the demo client and, for example, made use of the tapping intervention at certain points to transform their own unpleasant feelings.

This doesn’t mean that the hypnosis intervention wouldn’t have worked without the tapping technique, but for individuals who find certain parts of the process unsettling, the tapping brings an added sense of ease and lightness.

The same applies to the use of all kinds of other (hypnosis) techniques. If the process is disrupted or disturbed by unpleasant emotions for the client, tapping can be a helpful intervention.

I’ve had this experience many times over the past 18 years since I began practicing PEP: when a client struggles with a technique or when negative emotions interfere with the process. It is very useful and creates a meaningful pattern interruption in the therapeutic setting when clients are able to use a highly self-effective technique. This empowers them to develop a sense of autonomy and self-agency —even in the midst of the therapeutic process.

Maybe we also should empower and enable psychotherapists to use methodological approaches more creative and playful overlaying techniques to meet the situative necessity within the therapeutic session to sometimes gain effortlessness.

 

References

• Erickson, M.H., Rossi, E.L.(2016); Hypnotherapie; Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta Verlag
• Revensdorf, D.,Peter, B.(2001); Hypnose in Psychotherapie, Psychosomatik und Medizin, S.75 ff.; Berlin: Springer.
• Beaulieu, D. (2013, 6.Aufl.) Impacttechniken für die Psychotherapie; Heidelberg: Carl Auer Verlag
• Furman, B., Ahola, T. (2014, 4.Aufl.), Twin Star- Lösungen von einem anderen Stern: Heidelberg: Carl Auer Verlag.
• Bohne, M. (2013) Bitte Klopfen! Heidelberg: Carl-Auer Verlag
• Pfeiffer, A.(2022) emotionale Erinnerung – Klopfen als Schlüssel für Lösungen; Heidelberg: Carl Auer Verlag.
• Reinicke, C.A., Bohne, M. (2019); Klopfen mit Kindern; Heidelberg: Carl-Auer Verlag
• Church, D. et al (2013) The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 201(2): p153-160, February 2013
• Kollar, A. (2024); Einführung in Brainspotting; Heidelberg: Carl-Auer Verlag
• Witzleben, G. v. (2021); Das triadische Prinzip; Heidelberg: Carl-Auer Verlag
• Trenkle, B., Liu, T. (2021); Die chinesische Truhe; Heidelberg: Carl-Auer Verlag