Rich's Story:

Despite seventeen years of psychotherapy for symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) tracing back to the Vietnam war, Rich's insomnia was so disabling that he had checked himself in two months earlier for yet another round of inpatient treatment at the Veterans' Administration Hospital in Los Angeles. When he tried to sleep, any of more than a hundred haunting war memories might intrude into his awareness. He felt trapped in these overwhelming images, and every night was dreaded and interminably long. Every day was clouded with exhaustion and further anxiety. He could not function effectively. He also suffered from a severe height phobia that had developed over the course of some fifty parachute jumps he had made during the war.

Rich was one of twenty patients treated by Gary Craig and his associate, Adrienne Fowlie, during a weeklong visit after a hospital administrator had invited them to demonstrate the effects of energy-oriented therapy on emotional trauma. Rich's treatment first focused on his height phobia. He was asked to think about a situation involving heights. His fear level shot up immediately. He was wearing short pants, and he pointed out that the hair on his legs was literally standing up. At the same time, as he brought to mind the terror of facing a height, he was directed to stimulate a series electromagnetically sensitive points on his skin by tapping them with his fingertips. Within fifteen minutes of using this procedure, Rich reported no fear reaction when imagining situations involving heights. To test this, Gary had him walk out onto the fire escape of the third floor of the building and look down. Rich expressed amazement when he had no fear response whatsoever.

Gary then focused on several of Rich's most intense war memories, using the same tapping procedure. They, too, were similarly "neutralized" within an hour. He still remembered them, of course, but they had lost their debilitating emotional charge. Gary taught Rich a technique for stimulating energy points that he could apply to his remaining memories outside the treatment setting. He complied with this homework assignment, focusing on several of the more intense memories. Eventually, there was a generalization effect in that, after a number of the traumatic memories had been neutralized, the others lost their overwhelming emotional charge. Haunting memories simply stopped intruding into Rich's awareness, even at night. Within a few days his insomnia had cleared, and he discontinued his medication. He checked himself out of the hospital shortly after that. At a two-month telephone follow-up, he was still free of the height phobia, the insomnia, and the intrusion of disturbing war memories.

Most of the twenty V.A. Hospital patients that Gary and Adrienne worked with enjoyed near-immediate, readily observable results for PTSD symptoms that had in many instances resisted years of psychotherapy.

Click here for a video showing successful treatment of a height phobia by the author of this story, David Feinstein, PhD, a clinical psychologist and former lecturer at John Hopkins Medical School.

Click here to see other stories of healing using Energy Psychology.