Key Initiatives

Individuals - Communities - Healthcare Systems

Reducing Stress and Trauma

Increasing Resilience and Peace

Reducing PTSD in veterans

Current standards of care for veterans with PTSD are inadequate; with poor success rates, long wait times for treatment, and continued high suicide rates.

Research shows that energy psychology is very effective. Our veterans deserve the best treatment. Learn more.

ACEP initiatives include lobbying U.S. Congress to :

Add energy psychology as integrative treatment for veterans

Add energy psychology to telehealth treatment for veterans

Encourage NIH to conduct research on integrative methods that address PTSD for veterans

Integrating energy psychology into healthcare systems

Here's a few milestones achieved by the work of many organizations and individuals, including ACEP.

United Kingdom: ACEP collaborated with EFT International, EFT Universe and AHEFT to respond to a NICE (National Institute for Health & Care Excellence in the UK) review of PTSD treatment guidelines. The result?

○ Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) and Thought Field Therapy (TFT) have been acknowledged as a combined somatic and cognitive therapy (CSACTs) in the considered psychological interventions for the treatment of PTSD in adults.

○ In NICE economic modeling, energy psychology approaches were the cheapest and second most cost effective.

Australia: The Blue Knot Foundation included a section on using energy psychology in its updated (2019) guidelines for treating complex PTSD. ACEP executive director, Robert Schwarz, was widely quoted. First published in 2012, these nationally and internationally acclaimed guidelines were a global first in setting the standards for clinical and organizational practice.

France: Clinical EFT is now being taught at the Faculty of Medicine Lyon-Est. For the first time in France, clinical EFT is being taught at a University of Medicine as part of a university degree in "Therapies Breves," (short therapies).

South Korea: Emotional Freedom Techniques is approved for use within the South Korean medical system. The Center for New Health Technology Assessment evaluated and recognized the effectiveness and safety of EFT.

USA: The National Registry of Evidence-Based Programs and Practices (NREPP) in the U.S. recognized Thought Field Therapy (TFT) as an effective, evidence-based modality for the treatment of trauma and other disorders. The Registry was managed by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, an agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Unfortunately, the Registry was closed due to funding constraints.

USA: The Veterans Administration has listed EFT as a “generally safe” treatment for PTSD.

Helping children manage stress in and outside the classroom

Stress and anxiety among young people have grown to alarming proportions. Energy psychology programs can easily be integrated into classroom learning so that: 1) students are more ready to learn and 2) these approaches become a whole person resource that can be used throughout the lifecycle.

Stress and mental health challenges among children and adolescents have increased to alarming proportions. Energy psychology (EP) can be easily learned by children of any age and can be integrated into any child-centered environment.

These techniques have a multitude of benefits, including:

Enhancing attention, concentration and focus

Reducing or eliminating overwhelm

Building tolerance and resilience

Enhancing performance

Calming the nervous system, resulting in improved logic and reasoning

Actions

Our Humanitarian Committee Schools Subcommittee has developed free training for teachers, community leaders and others who want to help children reduce stress in classrooms and other settings - From Stress to Well-Being: Simple Self-Help Tools for Children. Sign up here.

ACEP is developing a grant to create a stress-reduction, resilience building program for teachers and children.

Committee members are training teachers, counselors and social workers, including a group of Native American teachers and a children's leadership and development foundation in NYC (Jondi Whitis, MTOT) and a curriculum that integrates energy psychology (EP) methods in child-centered environments (Suzanne Velasquez-Sheahy EdD).

Committee members are introducing energy psychology methods into classes in various cities across the U.S. and providing energy psychology techniques to individuals with IEPs and/or developmental disabilities (Gail Gillespie, PhD, Suzanne Velasquez-Sheahy, EdD, Cindy Baker, MA).

Aiding communities facing natural and manmade disasters

Traumatic events like mass shootings, war, and natural disasters can create lasting scars and impaired lives, sometimes for generations. But it doesn’t have to be this way.

Energy psychology has an array of simple tools that can help ease stress and trauma, enabling people to live with greater calm and make better choices, regardless of their circumstance. It has helped survivors of massive fires, hurricanes, shootings, genocide and more to get on with their lives.

Created Resources for Resilience online program that offers free self-help videos to the general public. Since its inception in 2019 views have grown to over 40,000 per year.

Building on Resources for Resilience videos, developed free, online Emotional First Aid training that trains community leaders and others to share effective, self-help methods. Over 350 people have been trained.
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Raised over $85,000 dollars for humanitarian efforts, including treating trauma in Syrian refugees, U.S. veterans and Rwandan genocide survivors.

ACEP professionals have provided Resources for Resilience training and mentoring in a wide range of settings, including:

○ People affected by office and bar shootings in various US locations (Susan Warren, LPC; Ange Finn, Betsy Muller, CEHP; Suzan Thompson, PhD)

○ Recovery efforts after the California fires (Kristin Miller, PhD)

○ Human services providers working with refugees and immigrants and displaced persons coming out of post war crisis in Cameroon (Gunilla Hamne, Ulf Sandstrom)

○ Professionals working with domestic violence incidents in India (Prabha Nagaraja)

○ Mental health and social service professionals in the US (Rachel Michaelsen, LCSW; Reginald Wesley, CEHP; Lorna Mineweiser, PhD)

Increasing the professionalism and credibility of our field

Integrating energy psychology methods into mainstream healthcare requires a sustained effort to increase the professionalism and credibility of our field. ACEP works to accomplish this goal in many ways, including:

Training professionals in these methods.

○ We've trained over 16,000 professionals.

○ Our International Energy Psychology Conference is the premiere conference for the field. It is held annually with 500+ from around the world attend.

○ We offer two certification programs: Emotional Freedom Techniques, Comprehensive Energy Psychology. /site/d7d8897f/get-certified
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○ We offer an array of online and in person trainings. /site/d7d8897f/course-catalogue
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Working with gatekeepers and other resources to make energy psychology more visible to the public, including: persuading Psychology Today and Good Therapy to include energy psychology as a modality for which patients can search.

Being the only energy psychology organization accepted by the American Psychological Association as an approved continuing education provider for psychologists.

Working with other organizations in the U.S. to influence the direction of state licensure for energy healing practitioners, including energy psychology (also known as cognitive somatic energy practices).

Increasing research funding for energy psychology

There is already a robust body of research showing energy psychology to be effective treatment for a wide range of issues. However, more research is needed. Increasing the research is a key to getting these powerful methods more fully integrated in healthcare systems.

 Provided $70,000 to fund 13 research studies on energy psychology, including the first fMRI study of EFT and food cravings, using Trauma Tapping Technique with child soldiers in the Congo and using EFT for anxiety among college students

Initiated a research project to assess the effectiveness of different energy psychology approaches to reduce the body’s reactivity across different types of disorders, such as PTSD, depression and anxiety.