British researchers have determined that children with skin disorders are really suffering from the “heartbreak of psoriasis.” Accordingly, children with skin conditions like acne, eczema, and psoriasis rate their quality of life as poor, i.e. comparable to children with illnesses like diabetes, epilepsy, and kidney disease. The study determined that children with skin conditions were targeted by bullies, teased and embarrassed, and developed poor self esteem. Pain and itching associated with the skin conditions also contributed to the children’s low quality of life scores.
While the study points to the emotional burdens placed on children with skin conditions, researchers are merely hopeful that increased awareness of the emotional impact of skin diseases will heighten public sensitivity. However, researchers offered no solutions to help children cope with this physical and emotional issue.
Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT), a unique form of acupressure, gives physical relief to patients with skin conditions while lessening their emotional impact.
EFT delivers a distinctive, drug fee approach to treating skin conditions as well as their emotional components. It involves fingertip tapping on select acupressure points while focusing on the physical or emotional symptom in question. Parents and children can easily learn to apply EFT, by downloading the free EFT Manual.
The tag line of the Children's Skin Disease Foundation website reads, “Beauty may be skin deep, but the physical and emotional harm caused by skin disease affects a child for life.”
“This need not be the case,” says Gary Craig, the Stanford-trained engineer who developed EFT. He says, “For more than a decade, people have been using EFT to help them deal with the emotional and physical aspects of illness and disease. If children have the benefit of using EFT to resolve the emotional issues associated with their skin condition, they are unlikely, in my opinion, to take the trauma with them into adulthood. And given EFT’s positive track record, about 80% of them are likely to eliminate the physical symptoms.”
This gentle, do-it-yourself form of acupressure neutralizes negative, disruptive feelings, emotions and stress and balances the energy meridians (Chi or Qi). When balance is achieved in the meridians, physical and emotional symptoms associated with skin conditions dissipate.
The National Psoriasis Foundation website addresses teens who are coping with the skin condition; “It's not uncommon to experience a sense of shock, confusion, exasperation and anger about what's happening to your skin. These feelings may give way to profound sadness or depression. Accepting your skin's condition is possible, but it takes time, sometimes a long time, to achieve.”
EFT has a decade-long track record in helping people successfully resolve all of these complex emotional issues. “What consistently happens when people clear emotional debris is that their physical symptoms diminish, even disappear – and typically they don’t return,” says Craig. “Children tend to embrace their ability to apply EFT on themselves.”
EFT treatment gives children physical relief and a better perspective on their skin conditions.
EFT Master, Mair Llewellyn, has worked with children with skin conditions in her Clinic in the United Kingdom. In general, Llewellyn’s young clients were embarrassed and self-conscious. They didn’t want to mix with their peers, or even be seen. Often they were angry with themselves and with their life; even hating themselves.
Following EFT treatment, the children tended to have a better perspective on their skin condition, saying, “I can go out now and my skin doesn’t worry me … I realize that my friends have blemishes too.”
EFT Practitioner, Ela Corcoran, reported that her 14-year-old client cleared his own acne by doing EFT several times over a period of three days. An interesting byproduct of his EFT work was that his color-blindness, a condition he’d had since birth, also cleared … although he never addressed it directly.
Craig says, “Most experts say there is no medical cure for eczema, psoriasis and other skin conditions. Nonetheless, EFT often provides impressive results for skin disorders of all kinds. EFT often works when nothing else will and provides lasting relief about 80 percent of the time ... that's pretty good odds when you're dealing with presumably incurable conditions.”
Although most Americans have yet to hear of it, EFT may be the world’s fastest-growing self-help technique because people are getting results where nothing else has worked for them. Over 350,000 have downloaded Craig’s free training manual and another 10,000 download it each month. The official EFT Manual has been translated by volunteer practitioners into nine languages.
While a complete description of EFT is beyond the scope of this article, you can learn all the basics from the free EFT Get Started Package on the EFT website. This includes a free download of the 79 page EFT Manual. Those wishing to save time and dive right in can get the attractively priced Five Star Training DVDs.
Please consult qualified health professionals before putting EFT into practice for yourself or others.
Please note that in addition to addressing the emotional and physical aspects of skin conditions, 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 website and its numerous success stories regarding fears, phobias, emotional traumas and physical ailments.
Christine Wheeler is an EFT Practitioner, and freelance natural health writer. Christine and Dr. Carolyn Dean co-authored IBS for Dummies (Wiley Publishing) where they present EFT as one of the natural treatments options for people with Irritable Bowel Syndrome.