Church, D., Piña, O., Reategui, C., Brooks, A. · Traumatology · 2011
No improvement occurred in the wait list; posttest scores for all experimental group subjects improved to non-clinical on the total IES score (pre=36 SD±4.74, post=3 SD±2.60, p<0.001), as well as intrusive and avoidant symptom subscales and SUD.
Picture a teenage boy in a court-ordered facility, carrying the intensity of abuse-related memories with no easy path to individual trauma therapy. If a single tapping session continues to reliably calm this intensity as it did for every treated participant here, it could offer institutions serving abused or at-risk youth a fast, low-cost intervention that doesn't require weeks of specialized therapist availability — something taught once and then usable by the teen himself whenever the memories resurface, without needing to request another therapy session.
Given every treated participant here moved into the non-clinical range after a single session, a compelling next step is adding cortisol or heart rate variability measurement around that one session, to see whether such a fast drop in traumatic memory intensity is accompanied by a measurable calming of the stress-hormone response in abused adolescents. A larger trial across more institutions serving at-risk youth, with longer follow-up, would also clarify whether this single-session relief holds up over months and years of continued development.
| Design | Randomized trial |
|---|---|
| Participants | 16 people |
| Population | 16 males, aged 12-17, sent to an institution by court order due to physical or psychological abuse at home |
| Comparison group | wait-list control group vs single-session EFT |
| Outcome measures | Subjective Units of Distress (SUD), Impact of Events Scale (IES) |
| Journal | Traumatology |
| Year | 2011 |
| Language | English |
| Method | EFT / tapping |
| Publication type | Study / trial |
| Verification | ✓ Confirmed against the primary source |
Church, D., Piña, O., Reategui, C., & Brooks, A. (2011). Single session reduction of the intensity of traumatic memories in abused adolescents after EFT: A randomized controlled pilot study. Traumatology. https://doi.org/10.1177/1534765611426788
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 PTSD & Trauma · Other Physical Conditions
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