Preliminary report of the first large-scale study of energy psychology

Controlled trial👥 5000 participants⚖️ vs. standard protocol (cognitive behavior therapy with anti-anxiety medication as needed)Preliminary✓ Source-checked📍 Argentina/Uruguay

In plain English. Across 11 clinics in Argentina and Uruguay, 5,000 anxiety patients over five and a half years were randomly given either standard cognitive behavioral therapy with medication, or acupoint tapping without medication, with raters blind to which treatment each patient got. Nine in ten tapping patients improved, versus about six in ten in the CBT group, and tapping patients also needed far fewer sessions on average (three versus fifteen) to get there. This is the largest sample size in the entire EFT literature, but the authors themselves are candid that it was an informal, in-house clinic tracking exercise never submitted for peer review, with looser record-keeping than a formal trial - so its size should be weighed against that limitation.

What they found

5000

people took part

Improvement was found in 90% of the acupoint tapping group versus 63% of the CBT group, with complete symptom relief in 76% of the tapping group versus 51% of the CBT group; one-year follow-up projected 78% sustained benefit for tapping versus 69% for CBT.

How the study worked

Who took partanxiety patients across 11 allied clinics in Argentina and Uruguay, tracked over 5.5 years (n=5000)

What they didIn a controlled trial, a tapping group was compared against a separate comparison group.

Compared withstandard protocol (cognitive behavior therapy with anti-anxiety medication as needed)

Measured withrater-assessed clinical improvement and complete symptom relief

💡 Where this could help

If findings like these hold up in larger trials, the promise is simple: a low-cost, self-administered tool that could reach people struggling with anxiety who can't easily access traditional care — at home, between appointments, or where there aren't enough clinicians to go around.

🔬 What to study next

The natural next step: longer-term follow-up to see how durable the benefit is, and an active ('sham tapping') control to isolate what's doing the work.

The full record

Design	Controlled trial
Participants	5000 people
Population	anxiety patients across 11 allied clinics in Argentina and Uruguay, tracked over 5.5 years
Comparison group	standard protocol (cognitive behavior therapy with anti-anxiety medication as needed)
Outcome measures	rater-assessed clinical improvement and complete symptom relief
Journal	Energy Psychology Interactive: Rapid Interventions for Lasting Change (Innersource)
Year	2004
Country	Argentina/Uruguay
Language	English
Method	Thought Field Therapy (related tapping method)
Publication type	Study / trial
Verification	✓ Confirmed against the primary source

Read the original study →

Cite this study

APA

Andrade, J., & Feinstein, D. (2004). Preliminary report of the first large-scale study of energy psychology. Energy Psychology Interactive: Rapid Interventions for Lasting Change (Innersource).

This record is part of the Tapping Evidence Base — an openly-sourced, fully-referenced directory of the research on EFT/tapping. Explore more studies on Anxiety