Church, D., Stapleton, P., Mollon, P., Feinstein, D., Boath, E., Mackay, D. et al. · Healthcare · 2018
Drawing on more than 100 clinical trials, the paper concludes EFT's treatment effects for PTSD, anxiety, and depression exceed those of both psychopharmacology and conventional psychotherapy, with typical successful treatment in 4-10 sessions and low adverse event risk.
Drawing on more than 100 clinical trials, this paper makes one of the boldest claims in the field: that tapping's effects for PTSD, anxiety, and depression can exceed those of medication and conventional talk therapy, delivered in a handful of sessions with low risk of harm. A claim of that size, if it holds up under more rigorous head-to-head testing, would matter enormously for anyone currently choosing between years of therapy, a prescription, and a treatment they've never heard of.
Picture a war veteran on a years-long VA waitlist, a sexual-violence survivor without insurance, or a disaster-zone survivor with no functioning clinic nearby. If the pattern summarized across these 100+ trials keeps bearing out, it points toward tapping as a short-course, low-barrier option — something learnable in a handful of sessions and then used independently, without ongoing clinician time — for exactly the populations that overwhelmed or under-resourced systems struggle to reach quickly.
The claim that EFT's effects exceed psychopharmacology and conventional psychotherapy is a bold one worth testing directly, head-to-head, in a prospective multi-site trial rather than relying on a narrative synthesis of past trials — ideally with objective outcomes like cortisol, heart-rate variability, and clinician-rated (not just self-rated) PTSD measures. A formal cost-effectiveness comparison against standard PTSD care would also test whether the low session count translates into real-world savings for health systems, not just faster symptom relief.
| Design | Systematic review |
|---|---|
| Participants | 100 studies pooled |
| Population | PTSD patients across demographic groups including war veterans, sexual violence survivors, spouses of PTSD sufferers, motor accident survivors, prisoners, hospital patients, adolescents, and disaster survivors |
| Outcome measures | synthesis of clinical trial findings and practitioner survey |
| Journal | Healthcare |
| Year | 2018 |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Method | EFT / tapping |
| Publication type | Review or meta-analysis |
| Verification | ✓ Confirmed against the primary source |
Church, D., Stapleton, P., Mollon, P., Feinstein, D., Boath, E., Mackay, D., & Sims, R. (2018). Guidelines for the treatment of PTSD using clinical EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques). Healthcare. https://doi.org/10.3390/healthcare6040146
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 · Anxiety · Depression
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