One of the most frustrating things about being an energy psychology practitioner is seeing the contrast between how quickly energy psychology can become the mainstay of your therapy practice versus how slowly it’s being accepted by mainstream healthcare. I’ve seen signs of progress through my work in the pain program of a Harvard Medical School teaching hospital, as my colleagues and I have been fortunate enough to have our work featured in medical journals and even on PBS (1). ACEP has of course been in the forefront of this movement to increase energy psychology's acceptance, and mainstream media – Forbes, Readers Digest and Katie Couric – is finally beginning to highlight stories about energy psychology (2-4).

A little magic

But sometimes it takes a little magic to get to that next stage, the phase beyond research and data, and that’s what happened to me recently. It all began when a new couch that my wife and I had ordered from a local furniture store here in Western MA was delivered a year late (don’t ask!), in October of 2022. The fellow who unloaded it commented on my wife's British accent and mentioned that he'd gone to school in London - the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA). Not the usual furniture delivery guy story! I soon learned that he went on to become an LA-based actor, and he was staying in Western MA to help his mother-in-law's furniture store while scouting out the area for an upcoming film.
 

EFT tapping advisor for a film about veterans

As we chatted, he told me that the film – which he wrote and would direct and star in - would be about veterans returning from combat ("Oh, I used to work at the VA.") and would feature some new treatments for PTSD ("Oh, I have some experience with tapping."). We quickly realized that this was not your run-of-the-mill synchronicity, and he asked if I could be an advisor on the film. I told him to let me know the details, and I'd be glad to help. But I never heard back from him, and figured that was that - until this February, 4 months later. He and his crew had just begun filming in a converted mill complex near me, so I arranged to come by for a few days and help out (one advantage to being retired is the flexible schedule!).

One of my main tasks as the on-set Psych Advisor (a title we invented) was to teach the actress who played the veteran's therapist how to do EFT tapping properly, at least in an abbreviated adapted format. The therapist was played by Virginia Madsen (Sideways, Prairie Home Companion, etc.), a down-to-earth woman who defused my stereotype of the Hollywood diva, and who was genuinely interested in tapping and in helping vets.

I was able to get a reasonable facsimile of tapping built into the therapy scene, although that wasn’t the case with the EMDR segment (the flashing lights went a bit over-the-top – the director's call, not mine!). It was interesting to watch how the director, Steven Grayhm, sought to balance clinical accuracy with dramatic impact. While I didn’t always agree with his choices (too much therapist self-disclosure, for example), I could see how his higher purpose was always to present PTSD and therapy in a way that the audience could relate to.