By CJ Puotinen

This important story points the way to major relief for schizophrenia and all other emotional disorders. The underlying process, EFT, is an emotional version of Chinese medicine and produces its remarkable results without the use of medications. More on EFT as this article unfolds.

Schizophrenia is a severe and chronic disease causing mental disturbances that disrupt normal thought, speech, and behavior. Its victims, who may respond to instructions they receive from voices only they can hear, often feel lonely, anxious, confused, and disconnected from others.

According to the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), approximately 2.2 million American adults, or slightly more than 1 percent of those 18 and older, have schizophrenia.

The word schizophrenia literally means "split mind," but this condition should not be confused with multiple personality disorders. Schizophrenia does not involve "split" personalities; it is a psychosis, a type of illness that interferes with mental and emotional responses.

While some schizophrenia patients experience only a single occurrence and remain symptom-free for the rest of their lives, others suffer recurring episodes that cause increasing impairment.

Most researchers agree that while no one knows what causes schizophrenia, one key factor involves the malfunction of brain chemicals called neurotransmitters. Prenatal difficulties, traumatic life experiences, genetics, stress, diet, and other conditions may also play a role.

In psychiatric circles, talk therapy for schizophrenia has been replaced by drug cocktails, which are combinations of prescription drugs that address the illness' symptoms. Physicians call this approach "polypharmacy," and they use it for heart disease, cancer, and HIV infections as well as mental illness.

"Unfortunately," says Andrew C. Furman, MD, director of clinical services for psychiatry at Atlanta's Grady Memorial Hospital and associate professor of psychiatry at Emory University, "in the majority of cases doctors are just throwing everything they possibly can at a mental illness in hopes that something will get better."

In addition to having an uncertain outcome, polypharmacy is expensive, and its multiple drugs increase the risk of adverse side effects and harmful drug interactions.

An Impressive Case: Dr. Novinsky Uses EFT for "Jacqueline"

At first "Jacqueline," whose name has been changed for privacy purposes, seemed a typical patient. A Brazilian woman in her 40s, her schizophrenia involved auditory hallucinations, depression, an inability to function in social environments, and anorexia.

At her initial session with therapist Dr. Sonia Novinsky in Sao Paulo, she announced, "This is my last chance, and all I can pay is $10 per session. For nine years now, since my daughter was born, I have been taking Haldol, Prozac, and other medications."

Her problems began, she said, when she fell into post-partum depression. "I started listening to the Virgin Mary's voice, and I had some inappropriate behaviors."

In the first of these, she undressed completely at a soccer stadium full of people. She was also hospitalized for anorexia. "I heard about your energy work and I want to try it," she said. "I believe that this could help me get rid of medication and my disease. The only reason I haven't killed myself today is because my religion forbids it."

The energy work to which Jacqueline referred is the Emotional Freedom Techniques, or EFT, a procedure in which you tap with fingertips on key acupuncture points while thinking about specific symptoms or problems. In many cases -- up to 80 percent, according to those who document the procedure's effectiveness -- the result is lasting relief from those symptoms and problems.

But most of EFT's success stories involve conditions that are far less complicated than schizophrenia, and at first Novinsky, who is an accomplished EFT practitioner, wondered whether she should use this method for a psychotic client.

"The despair I saw in her eyes touched me and I decided to try," she reports. "Jacqueline said she would do anything to be free from Haldol. She refused to take drugs because of the negative effects they caused, and she made it a requirement that I work with her on that condition."

Novinsky met with Jacqueline almost every day for a year, as she explains in a detailed report posted at the official EFT Web site. "We did EFT hundreds of times," she explains, "starting with the most apparent sensations she was having at the moment she arrived, then working toward the underlying core issues."

As Novinsky makes clear, this was a demanding project, one that required all of her skills as a therapist as well as the determination and perseverance of her client. No one is recommending that mental patients throw their prescriptions away and just tap on their heads expecting symptoms to disappear.

But with skill, practice, resolve, and EFT, a number of schizophrenic patients have been able to stop taking psychoactive drugs and resume their normal lives. For further evidence of this enter the word Schizophrenia in the EFT Search Engine.

Novinsky reports that she and Jacqueline still have work to do but that Jacqueline no longer hears voices that tell her what to do. Instead, while remaining drug-free, she has resumed her career, works as a volunteer in a hospital, and was recently elected to her club's board of directors.

"I feel ready to take care of myself and to take care of my children," Jacqueline wrote in a letter describing her unconventional treatment. "I am living each day, not anticipating the worst like I used to. The pressure I felt in my heart is gone. Even though I may need more therapy for some time, I feel as healthy as anyone in this life."

In addition to helping people overcome illnesses such as schizophrenia, EFT has been a consistently effective healing tool for hundreds of other physical, mental and emotional ailments. For more information, explore the EFT Web site and its numerous success stories regarding fears, phobias, emotional traumas, and physical ailments.

While a complete description of EFT is beyond the scope of this article, you can learn the basics from the free EFT Get Started Package on the EFT Web site. This includes a free download of the 79-page EFT Manual. Those wishing to save time and dive right in can get the affordable five-star training DVDs.

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