Failed Tinnitus Case

by Mary Llewellyn, BSc(Hons),FHRS(UK),FRSA

In 2002 Guy was referred to me by a chest consultant for stress management following severe chest pains, panic attacks, high blood pressure and tinnitus. We used EFT effectively with some of the underlying causes of his blood pressure and gained improvements in this and his stress levels. He was sleeping better at night but we still made little lasting headway with his tinnitus.

After attending the Dallas EFT conference where Gary Craig was working for three days with serious diseases it occurred to me that there were other doors to be opened here. Before the Dallas workshop whenever we tried to work on the various tinnitus sounds and the head pressure, his headaches became too unpleasant for us to continue. Since returning to the UK and work I have made contact with this client over the phone and we have begun to open another door a little by tiptoeing around this problem.

I initially needed to gain Guy's trust to begin work again. I asked him to just guess at his level of intensity about doing some EFT without even thinking about any work we may do. With just guessing at his intensity levels he said he found the fear in his head went to a 6.

We used EFT to help his understandable fears with this set up statement " Even though I'm reluctant to use EFT to ever treat myself again I deeply and completely accept and love myself" whilst he was tapping we randomly used these phrases. Natural fears, head worries, don't want to even think of it, not sure I can trust EFT again and so on. After doing a round on this he said, thinking about doing EFT didn't really worry him at all now. He realised that most days he has a headache anyway which was part of his life and he felt doing more work could help him to get past that.

Guy was now happy to arranged another EFT session. Our next appointment to continue our work was arranged for the 24th of February 2005 during this session we used some set ups like:

Even though I don't know what these sounds are all about, I honour my body for giving me these messages.

Even though my brain appears to be enmeshed in this familiar sound loop and I don't know why I complete respect myself anyway.

My mind has a positive intention in giving me messages and I'm open to the possibility to learn from them.

I accept and forgive myself for ignoring my bodies stress responses over all these years.

At the end of this session Guy left feeling calmer and more confident about doing the EFT as a daily routine whenever he noticed he felt emotional intensity or tension.

I saw Guy again at the end of March on that date he reported that his headaches were much more infrequent and that he often became completely unaware of the tinnitus sounds. He said "I know they are still there but they cease to bother me now"

A month later on Tuesday the 26th of April Guy came again. He reported that he was sleeping much better and he realised that this improvement occurred a couple of days after personally doing some EFT on a traumatic memory. This memory was from during the time he was working in a saw mill as a teenager. This was familiar Saturday work for him but the memory which surfaced was of someone being involved in an accident with one of the circular saws.

When this memory popped into his mind he tapped on the fear, the sick feeling and the nightmares which followed after this event. He said he was surprised at how intense his emotions were for his mate who had damaged his hand. Following this memory surfacing and the EFT work which he did he noticed that the tinnitus sounds had been reseeding and at time were often imperceptible. Guy said that the sounds no longer haunted him because he felt he had worked on this early sound trauma experience which he had entirely forgotten.

At our last appointment Guy said he was very happy to continue to use the self hypnosis and EFT that I have taught him for improving his day to day well being. Before he left we discussed possible choices statements which Guy could use to give more positive messages for his mind. This process of reframing or changing from a stuck point of view to the opposite condition enhances the continuing healing.