By Christine Wheeler, MA

Urologist Dr. Eric Robins, MD has had a longtime interest in the way emotions affect health. When he could find "no good reason" for his patient's inability to urinate, he asked her about possible emotional contributors. Because of this question and after 10 minutes of EFT, her need for surgery was averted.

Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) has provided compelling evidence that using EFT can help patients avert unnecessary surgery. This is because EFT aims at unresolved emotional issues as important causes of illnesses and physical conditions ... including those requiring surgery. 

EFT is a form of emotional acupuncture that is gaining attention from medical professionals and laypersons worldwide. It offers a do-it-yourself tool (acupuncture without needles) to help you take charge of your own emotional and physical health. Once the emotional issues are resolved, troubling physical symptoms have been shown to subside ... sometimes quickly and often permanently. 

The popularity of Emotional Freedom Techniques is gaining momentum, fueled by its simple, gentle and effective approach. The process was developed to put a useful healing tool into the hands of the layperson, so EFT isn't limited to professionals in the healing field. The basics of EFT can be learned by anyone and can be self-applied (usually in minutes).

Following is a synopsis of an actual case from the EFT Web site where Eric Robins, MD used EFT to help a patient avoid painful surgery. 

How EFT Resolved an Emotional Issue
and Averted Unnecessary Surgery

"Kate," a 53-year-old patient, developed urinary retention (inability to urinate on her own) while recovering in a hospital from knee surgery. She required a catheter, which she used for three months and, during that time, she was never able to urinate on her own.

Kate's urologist, Eric Robins, MD performed the necessary tests and scopes to rule out tumors, scarring or stones. He found no apparent physical problem, no illnesses or diseases causing urinary retention. In short ... "she had no good reason to not be able to void."

Dr. Robins' next step was to consider surgically inserting a tube directly into Kate's bladder.  Despite there being no clear reason why, the fact remained that Kate was unable to urinate on her own and something had to be done. The catheter was beginning to erode the urethra. But before scheduling her surgery, Dr. Robins asked her whether she could think of any emotional reasons why she couldn't urinate on her own.

When he asked this question, Kate had an immediate severe pain in her abdomen. Her answer was, "It's stress from when my husband was in the hospital back in October 2004, and he almost died." Dr. Robins did some EFT with Kate about her intense reaction to her husband's near death, and some of her distress subsided, but Kate was still harboring an enormous sense of guilt regarding her husband's hospitalization.

Kate related that she had stayed at her husband's bedside 24 hours a day during his hospitalization. However, on one occasion during that stay, she left the room for 10 minutes to speak with family members. During that time, her husband's physician came into the room and told him that he "was not going to make it." Kate started crying as she discussed this ... she was still feeling intense guilt at being absent when her husband received this horrible news.

Dr. Robins recognized the deep emotional impact that her guilt had made. They performed more EFT with the guilt in mind. After a total of about 10 minutes of EFT, he reports that Kate had "a major psychological shift" ... she realized that she was beating herself up all this time for something she had no control over. 

After EFT, Kate had her catheter removed, and she voided on her own with no problem. Five days later she returned reporting that she had been urinating just fine, emptying her bladder completely every time. Dr. Robins said, "It's difficult to say whether her problem was in her mind, or in her body, or both; or perhaps we cannot separate the two at all, ever."

Please note that, in addition to helping patients avoid unnecessary surgery, EFT has been a consistently effective healing tool for hundreds of other physical, mental and emotional ailments. For more information, you can explore the EFT Web site and read through numerous clinical cases regarding people who have effectively used EFT to eliminate their fears, phobias, emotional traumas and physical ailments.

Please consult qualified health professionals before putting EFT into practice for yourself or others.