EFT Case Story: Scared at Bedtime

Scared at Bedtime

This is an account of just one session I spent with a 7 year old boy and his mother.

The lad had watched a horror film and when he went to bed he was afraid the world would end and he would die. Consequently, neither child nor mother had slept properly for several nights.
In preparation for their visit I re-read Angie Muccillo's book Tapping for Kids, A Children's Guide to EFT and Alex Kent's Big Ted's Guide to Tapping and found helpful suggestions in each of them. Before the session I laid out large sheets of paper and some coloured pencils.

When they came, and had settled in a bit, I asked the boy what he felt at bed time, and how it felt in his body. He was 'scared' and it felt as though he was having a heart attack. I showed him how to draw a semi-circular scale and at one end we put Scared and at the other we agreed on Happy. He drew a pointer showing how scared he felt, something less than a quarter of the way round the scale.
At this point I mentioned how feelings get stuck and need to flow, and that the heart attack feeling was a result of the fear being stuck and not flowing away. And this is when I deviated from the advice which says if you must use a metaphor, use water. The mother is a baker and cake decorator. I asked the boy to tell me what happens when she is sieving icing sugar and he described in detail how it gets stuck in the sieve and she taps it until it flows freely through the holes, then she discards any remaining lumps!

We tapped a round on Scared – this scared feeling at bedtime – and as we all tapped I reminded them to get the icing sugar flowing through the holes. When I asked him to draw a new pointer on the scale it was half way round. We did another round and when asked if the pointer had advanced further he said no, it was the same. I thought this was great, as he was clearly doing the work, not just trying to please me or his mother. We agreed to tap on Happy and I asked him to tell me what made him feel really good. Beating his mum at games, was the answer, and I listened to tales of his exciting achievements. So focusing on that happy feeling we all tapped another round and the pointer was then drawn in over three-quarters of the way round to Happy.

I felt that we'd spent long enough and that I should wrap it up while it was still fun, so I checked that he and mum were confident about tapping on their own and explained that she could use tapping with any words or feelings, for her son and for herself.

The following day she let me know that they had tapped and that he had got to sleep, and when I checked a few days later things were still sweet. That'll be the icing on the cake, then!

 

** Further Info **

• Contact Wendy Birse via GoE Member's Page
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