Sitting across from a stranger who is holding your hand, tapping the underside of it with her finger and telling you to repeat after her “Although I am worried about (whatever is worrying you), I completely and totally accept myself” is not something you’ll experience every day.

But that’s what a growing number of people who have discovered the benefits of EFT – Emotional Freedom Technique, otherwise known as Tapping – choose to do. While remaining fully clothed, you can expect to have various points on your hands, face, neck and side of the body tapped in this treatment, which uses acupressure points to release energy that’s trapped in the body, helping to tackle both physical and emotional problems.

Sounds weird? Maybe, but it’s used for a whole host of ailments from phobias to panic attacks to post traumatic stress disorder, as well as issues such as addiction and weight.

Salthill-based Margot Diskin who has been practising EFT for nearly seven years and also runs training courses for those who want to practice, is convinced of its worth. And she points out that EFT is a skill anybody can master and use for themselves.

“Your two hands and an open mind is all that’s required and that’s so refreshing, the idea of self healing and self help.”

There are a couple of explanations as to how it works. One is that by tapping on the meridian or energy points of the body, as discovered 7,000 years ago by the Chinese, you perform an emotional form of acupuncture, one that doesn’t use needles.

Another theory is that when you think about something and you tap, the brain switches from right to left and back again, stimulating the opposite side, until the energy settles in the middle.

Whatever the reason, the bottom line for its growing number of followers is that it balances your energies, letting you resolve physical and emotional problems.

EFT was developed by American engineer and church minister Gary Craig in 1997 and was a progression from a therapy he had studied called Thought Field Therapy, which worked on the body’s meridian lines to help tackle phobias and anxiety problems.

From this Craig created EFT, a universal tapping sequence along acupressure points on face, collarbone, side of the body and hands. The person taps on these points while speaking out loud.

For more, read this week's Galway City Tribune.