Talk:Emotional Freedom Techniques/Archive 3

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Per BRD, need to discuss large changes

I have reverted a very large (+8,030 bytes) change by X-mass and would like to hear their reasoning here. I am neither agreeing or disagreeing with the content of the change by doing so, but seeking to ensure that a consensus version is preserved (or arrived at). -- Brangifer (talk) 23:07, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

Yes, the additions appear to contain a lot of original research, this goes against WP:MEDRS, WP:OR. It's also WP:FRINGE and WP:UNDUE. It's not up to us to critize papers with original research as X-mass did. IRWolfie- (talk) 10:13, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

lets take the origonal opening paragraph

"Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) is a psychotherapeutic alternative medicine tool based on a theory that negative emotions are caused by disturbances in the body's energy field and that tapping on the meridians while thinking of a negative emotion alters the body's energy field, restoring it to "balance." There are two studies which appear to show positive outcomes from use of the techniques, with other studies emerging. Critics have described the theory behind EFT as pseudoscientific and have suggested that any utility stems from its more traditional cognitive components, such as distraction from negative thoughts, rather than from manipulation of "energy meridians"."

so it says that there are both postive and negtive studies about the field, it cites reseach into the field and also cites the challehges to those idea

the current opening paragraph says this

"Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) is a form of counseling intervention that draws on various theories of alternative medicine including acupuncture, neuro-linguistic programming and Thought Field Therapy. During an EFT session, the client will focus on a specific issue while tapping on so-called "end points of the body's energy meridians".[1]

There is no plausible mechanism to explain how EFT could work and the specifics of EFT have been described as unfalsifiable and therefore pseudoscientific.[3] There is no evidence that acupuncture points, meridians or other concepts involved in traditional Chinese medicine exist.[4] A controlled study of EFT suggested that its benefits were due to placebo effects, desensitization and distraction rather than the mechanisms proposed by its practitioners.[5]"

so despit ther being two studies that suggest their may be a plausable explanation this has been ignored and replaced with a unilateral and single voiced attack on the subject with the line "There is no plausible mechanism to explain how EFT could work" the whole article is shaped in that vein.

Further one there is the ongoing attack which says that all of this can be put down to the palcebo effect, despite the fact that if you actually look at the research on placebo effect the chocrane meat-analysis shows that the placebo effect is highly variable and simply does not exist in a wide area of cases. YET the singular attack on alternative therapies is that they can be explained by the placebo effect. Their is a claim that it is untestable, which actually is highly testable take a hundred and fifty give fifty of them CBT, give fifty of them of them CBT with random prods in the arm and fifty of them with CBT plus EFT - compare the results after 10 sessions. If you want to blind the process thats doable, double blind pretty much impossible.

My issue is with balance of the article the origonal piece recognised that their were many schood of thought and avarierty of hypothesis, te currrent artical projects one very sided view and claims itself to be the truth based on references from its school of thought. I would like see balance not partiality in wikipedia X-mass (talk) 18:50, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

We aren't going to start sticking in whole sections on primary papers (especially a paper which only had 35 test subjects, that's absolutely tiny), that's why we refer to the review, see WP:MEDRS, especially where you have included your own criticisms and comments of the papers. Your original research has absolutely no place on wikipedia; see WP:OR. Also be aware that on wikipedia we give WP:DUE weight, not some sort of 50/50 balance of positions. IRWolfie- (talk) 19:02, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

I agree with Brangifer and IRWolfie. Famousdog (talk) 11:20, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

Revert

I reverted this edit because it was sourced to Review of General Psychology. While published by the APA, they claim on their site "Manuscripts are of particular interest to Review of General Psychology when they provide a provocative challenge to customary or prevailing views; intellectual risk-taking is encouraged." Based on that I find the source lacking as WP isn't supposed to be on the cutting edge, but rather is supposed to represent mainstream views. Further, the author himself David Feinstein PhD seems to be heavily involved with so-called "energy medicine," a WP:FRINGE theory. The source itself may not have actually been published yet, as it mentions prepublication on the eftuniverse.com site (which will almost always be unreliable, btw). Lastly, the journal has a low impact factor of only 1.417. SÆdon^talk 00:57, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Note that I searched for David Feinstein in the journal and only found one article and it's on a different topic, so I'm guessing that this has not actually been published. SÆdon^talk 01:03, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

It does appear that the article, while available from the author, has not yet been published in Review of General Psychology. Perhaps that's reason enough to exclude the article for now. However, when/if published, I would find the rationale for exclusion unreasonable, insofar as the article in question (a 2012 review of 50 research studies) seems to have a scope that renders it far more significant than the one research article (a single 2003 study) currently being cited in the WP article. Rhwentworth (talk) 01:35, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

The author of the article in question David Feinstein is the husband of energy medicine practitioner Donna Eden (whose WP article was recently deleted for unproven notability). Feinstein has authored and co-authored several books on various energy medicine topics and runs the Innersource website devoted to preaching the word of energy medicine. For that reason, I would argue, he must be treated as a suspect source even if that article ends up actually being published!

On an unrelated note, an impact factor of 1.417 is not low at all. I would say that 80% of scientific journals fall in the range 1 - 2. There is a very long tail to the distribution because of a handful of incredibly high-impact journals like Science (31) and Nature (36). Famousdog (talk) 07:42, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Wait, this journal will never be suitable, it states Manuscripts are of particular interest to Review of General Psychology when they provide a provocative challenge to customary or prevailing views; intellectual risk-taking is encouraged. The journal expressly encourages non-mainstream views. The views of the papers within this journal can not be deemed to reflect the scientific consensus and should be used with extreme caution. IRWolfie- (talk) 09:10, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

The journal also states, "The journal contains articles that advance theory, evaluate and integrate research literatures, provide a new historical analysis, or discuss new methodological developments in psychology as a whole. Review of General Psychology is especially interested in articles that bridge gaps between subdisciplines in psychology as well as related fields or that focus on topics that transcend traditional subdisciplinary boundaries. Authors are encouraged to write their manuscripts from the perspective of more than one subdiscipline and to review literature that spans at least two subdisciplines." These are entirely reputable goals. The text you cite is one criterion, not the full set of criteria. A given paper may be provocative, or it may simply not fall into a standard disciplinary category. It seems unreasonable to rule out all content published in a peer-reviewed journal of a body like the American Psychological Association as being inherently unsuitable for WP. Rhwentworth (talk) 18:01, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

We need to look at the entirety of the situation with regards to reliability; in this case, there are a number of red flags (the COI of the author, the author's previous review in Psychotherapy being thoroughly rebuked by McCaslin (cited in this our article) - showing a poor reputation for work in this area, in addition to the concerning "goal" of the editorial staff of this particular journal, and of course WP:REDFLAG) - we should wary of using this source at face value. If it garners positive reviews in the more mainstream psychology literature, I would consider using it, but not before. Yobol (talk) 21:00, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Article structure and NPOV

It strikes me that the NPOV of this article could be improved:

First, it needs more on what EFT is and what the (alleged) benefits are. At present it launches into criticisms and evidence against so quickly, then anybody seeking information about what it actually is doesn't find that info.

Second, the NPOV would suggest that it includes both evidence for an evidence against. At present most of the evidence in the article is evidence against, and even where it mentions a favourable study, the study is instantly dismissed.

How about adopting a structure similar to the NLP page? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuro-linguistic_programming) So something along these lines?

    1) History and founding
    2) Techniques and practices
    3) Applications
    4) Scientific evaluation
         4.1) Empirical validity
         4.2) Scientific criticism

A structure like this would allow readers to understand what EFT is all about before getting into the arguments about evidence. It also gives space for both sides of the argument?

IanH2 (talk) 11:11, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

Let me attempt to deflect your criticisms and explain why the article is the way it is. NLP has been going for a lot longer than EFT and has attracted a lot more research and attention, therefore there are more RSs to draw on (even though most now conclude that it's hokum founded by a fraudster). EFT has been around for a few years and attracted virtually no attention outside of its own walled garden. Almost all the RSs that mention EFT are negative ... That's why. Famous_dog (c) 19:39, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

Forcing all scientific criticism of the topic into a single section is against WP:NPOV and undesirable. IRWolfie- (talk) 20:15, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

Thank-you, your explanations are helpful. Reading WP:NPOV, it seems the key bit is this

"Generally considered pseudoscience: Theories which have a following, such as astrology, but which are generally considered pseudoscience by the scientific community may properly contain that information and may be categorized as pseudoscience.

Questionable science: Theories which have a substantial following, such as psychoanalysis, but which some critics allege to be pseudoscience, may contain information to that effect, but generally should not be so characterized."

... and the key question is whether EFT fits into the "generally considered pseudoscience" category or the "questionable science" category? The EFT article at the moment dismisses EFT so emphatically that this would be appropriate only if it fell into the first category not the second.

I agree that research studies are the best way to resolve this - and it looks like there's been a lot of talk on these pages already about this. You state "Almost all the RSs that mention EFT are negative", which is not my understanding. A couple of questions:

- One, what about this study: http://www.energypsych.org/displaycommon.cfm?an=1&subarticlenbr=203? The website says it was published in the Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease. The measured biochemical change would imply there's a bit more going on than pure suggestion and the placebo effect.

- Second, you say "almost all the RSs that mention EFT are negative". In your view, which are the most significant negative studies?

IanH2 (talk) 22:30, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

EFT is neither, because it isn't notable enough to have a "substantial following" or to be "generally considered pseudoscience (most scientists won't have heard about it). In fact, this whole article should probably be merged with the TFT one since the crucial guideline here should be WP:NOTABLE not WP:NPOV. Papers that are in press should not be used as RSs here and even if this paper is eventually published, I'm afraid I wouldn't trust anything written by a renowned quack and neither would a lot of people. Church has as big a conflict-of-interest in this debate as David Feinstein. This leaves us with only a few independent, verifiable sources: the Waite & Holder study and the McCaslin review, the Skeptical Enquirer article and op-ed pieces like Burkeman's. All of which are disparaging of EFT (and associated techniques like TFT, TAT and BLT ;-). Famous_dog (c) 06:36, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

It clearly falls into the first category. a13ean (talk) 14:19, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

Revert of edits

I notice that User:Famousdog has reverted my edits that added more information on existing meta-reviews, including the Feinstein review as well as another critique of the Feinstein review. Famousdog's edit summary says "Sorry, Feinstein has a COI and this has been demonstrated in RSs. There is little point citing his work. It is clearly biased." In fact, my edits clearly stated Feinstein's conflict of interest, and added a reference for an additional critical review by Thyer and Pignotti.

Famousdog says that Feinstein's work "is clearly biased." While Feinstein's conflict of interest is a matter of record (already noted in the article), whether or not this biases his results is a matter of judgment that I think is beyond the scope of Wikipedia editors. I read through the conflict of interest (medicine) page on Wikipedia, and it doesn't mention the conflict of interest of sources, only that of editors. The MEDRS page has guidelines, but these guidelines refer to the journal where the paper was published, and the type of study (whether it's a primary study or a meta-study).

Feinstein's paper was published in the same APA journal as the critical reviews, and so was his response. To me, it seems that this journal meets the criteria of MEDRS. Further, both the original paper and the reviews were meta-studies of controlled trials of EFT. Thus, I submit that as far as Wikipedia is concerned, the guidelines indicate a similar treatment of Feinstein's meta-review and McCaslin's critique. If one is includable, so is the other.

Moreover, I think that McCaslin's critical review doesn't make sense outside of the context of mentioning Feinstein's original review, because it's primarily structured as a critique of Feinstein's review, not as a stand-alone assessment of EFT.

In light of this, I intend to revert the edits back assuming no further objections are raised in the next few days. Vipul (talk) 16:10, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

On second thoughts, I'm reverting right away. Famousdog doesn't appear to have discussed the issues on the talk page prior to the original revert, so I don't think it's necessary to wait for his response right now. I'd welcome more discussion on the talk page to address Famousdog's concerns. Vipul (talk) 16:33, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

We should be using independent sources here, not those with clear COI issues. Yobol (talk) 16:38, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

Hello Yobol, I don't think it is really up to Wikipedia editors to judge the independence of sources -- I'm looking at the Wikipedia guidelines for reliable sources and conflict of interest, as explained above, and I don't see a good reason to exclude Feinstein's review if McCaslin's is included. I've explained my reasoning above. I'd be glad to get a response to the reasoning. Whether a particular review seems biased to you or me seems pretty tangential to the issue. Vipul (talk) 16:44, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

The requirement for independent sources can be found here. WP:REDFLAG also applies here; saying this technique works requires very high quality evidence, which cannot be gathered from a source that has a clear COI. Yobol (talk) 16:49, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

Hello Yobol. (1) I still don't see anything here that says the "source" should be treated as the "author" rather than the publisher. Yes, for self-published material, the conflict of interest of the author is paramount. But for material published in peer reviewed journals, it seems (again, per MEDRS) that it's the status of the journal that should be paramount. (2) The edits that were reverted don't say that EFT works, they simply say what different studies have claimed. Here is the original. You'll notice that the section spends about twice as much time on the criticisms of Feinstein's study as on Feinstein's original study. But even mentioning the criticisms doesn't make sense, in my view, without a reference to the original review that is being critiqued:

A 2008 review by Feinstein suggested that existing research on EFT sufficed to qualify it as a "probably efficacious" treatment based on the standards of the American Psychological Association.[7] A 2009 review by McCaslin critiqued Feinstein's review and found "methodological flaws" in the studies cited by Feinstein that reported successes for EFT and the related Tapas Acupressure Technique. The review also criticized Feinstein for omitting the Waite and Holder study. The review concluded that positive results may be "attributable to well-known cognitive and behavioral techniques that are included with the energy manipulation."[8] Another review by Thyer and Pignotti was similarly critical of Feinstein's review.[9] Feinstein, who has practiced and written books about EFT, was also criticised by the reviewers for not disclosing his conflict of interest. Feinstein responded to both critiques in the same journal issue.[10]

Vipul (talk) 16:56, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

Of course assessing the independence of a source you look at the author. It boggles my mind to see someone suggest evaluating the independence of a particular source does not involve looking at who wrote it. Yobol (talk) 17:02, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

I'm not convinced about this. May be you could point me to other places where this issue has come up in editing Wikipedia articles (for instance, is research sponsored by drug companies into the effectiveness of their drugs considered less reliable than research sponsored by government agencies, if the research is published in the same journals?) Again, I'm not talking about criteria that individuals would use when assessing evidence, I'm talking about the guidelines that Wikipedia has developed and that can be applied consistently across its articles.Vipul (talk) 17:13, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

WP:FRINGE is applied to all fringe articles, including this one. We can wait for further input from other editors, but it is clear to me the author has a serious COI and therefore fails as an independent source. Note that we use all guidelines and policies in concert; a source may meet WP:RS but fail WP:FRINGE. Yobol (talk) 17:39, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

Skeptic links

Half of the references are to non-peer-reviewed skeptical articles or mainstream press articles, write-ups and editorial pieces including a piece in The Skeptical Inquirer, Skeptic's Dictionary, and The Guardian. The Skeptical Inquirer piece is also mentioned in the research section even though I think it doesn't meet MEDRS criteria. I think this is a very high percentage for a topic where references should ostensibly be to reliable medical sources or to sources that describe or demonstrate a broad professional or popular consensus. I'm not arguing for removal of the links, but I think that they should be removed from the introduction and the "Research" section and may be put in a separate section on "Skeptic's responses."Vipul (talk) 17:21, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

WP:PARITY is the appropriate section here. Yobol (talk) 17:34, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

That sources conclude that EFT should be treated with skepticism, or are from publications that urge that we be more skeptical about frankly bizarre claims has no bearing on their reliability or independence or whether they are acceptable sources. There is also no requirement for peer-review of sources. The Skeptical Enquirer doesn't need to meet MEDRS because it isn't making medical claims. Feinstein and Church, on the other hand, are. This issue is overshadowed by the fact that Feinstein's credibility has been called into question (in peer-reviewed publications, if that's what floats your boat) and he has clear conflicts of interest in the field of energy medicine and cannot be considered an independent and disinterested "researcher". Famous_dog (c) 20:01, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

POV/NPOV

For what little it's worth: I don't know anything about EFT and have no thoughts or feelings about it one way or another. I've only seen a couple videos on YT. I have also never spoken on or edited a WP article. My curiosity about EFT brought me to this article and on first read it comes off negatively biased. I agree with IanH2 that the format he suggested would be the best presentation of what little factual information there appears to be about EFT. After reading the entire talk page, it appears that would be the only fair way to present both sides of the argument of validity. In any case I thought it might be useful to hear from an outsider that the article doesn't read neutral at all. 24.22.34.98 (talk) 20:53, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

No doubt you found those random youtube videos to be highly reliable and very neutral. There is no evidence of efficacy. There is no plausible mechanism. The most reliable sources are highly critical of it. By pretending there is some validity to it, you are actually trying to push a point of view. Your point of view is that when there are two positions:

1. A position that states there is no evidence of efficiacy and no plausible mechanism which is consistent with our evidence based knowledge of the world

2. A position supported only by methodologically weak studies and someone's brain fart, which is inconsistent with what we know about the world

and we should somehow pretend 1 and 2 are equally valid. I hope you don't mind if I pass on that suggestion. It's not neutral, and it's nothing close to it. If someone believed the sun is the moon [1], we aren't being neutral if we treat that as a legitimate view. IRWolfie- (talk) 20:02, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Also this is rapidly becoming a sockfest, I'll warn the most recent one but any more this should be taken to SPI. a13ean (talk) 03:17, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

regarding review of trials - PMID 22402094

This is an edit that summarizes my complaints with this article.

The current article does not allow for the supportive evidence to be included, and instead issues a derogatory, blanket condemnation. My issue is with the article as it stands now: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotional_Freedom_Techniques

vs. the edits I attempted to make previously, which all involve high quality reviews: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Emotional_Freedom_Techniques&diff=533282956&oldid=533180950

If you look across articles like this, you will see a similar pattern, of ideologues of a persuasion against this content banding together and censoring information they don't like. I believe that pseudoskepticism has hijacked this, and related pages.

Opposition as been made that one of the people who wrote one of the reviews, which are published in the American Psychological Association's journals, is an "advocate", as if that is supposed to dismiss his publications. In the wikipedia policy covering "righting great wrongs", it is noted that one articles have been published in mainstream journals advancing a controversial position, those articles warrant inclusion. Two reviews showing efficacy have been published in mainstream journals. My sources are clearly WP:MEDRS compliant, and supersede the dismissive articles that are not in peer-reviewed journals - these articles being from Skeptical Inquirer and Skeptic magazine, in quality. Additionally, high quality reviews, like Cochrane reviews, demonstrate the efficacy of acupuncture, which the treatment is based on. To me, the failure to include them is unwarranted, and this is just another example of a group of ideologues getting together using bully tactics, engaging in censorship.Pottinger's cats (talk) 20:30, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

The article needs to be payed for, but it can be read here: innersource.net/ep/images/stories/downloads/mechanisms.pdf It mentions EFT as a modality being evaluated with relevant statements and references on pp. 4, 5, 16, 17, 19, 20, 24, 25, & 26.

The whole framework of procedures is mentioned (p. 5) as "a common though unconventional procedure that is appearing in a variety of clinical formats, with "Thought Field Therapy" (TFT), the "Tapas Acupressure Technique" (TAT), and the "Emotional Freedom Techniques" (EFT) being among the most widely practiced." Hence this review is applicable for all of those entries.Pottinger's cats (talk) 15:18, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Per WP:FRINGE, we need to use independent source. Feinberg is a promoter of these "Energy Psychology" and is not an independent arbitrator of if it works or not. Yobol (talk) 22:24, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

The review was published in a mainstream journal. To the extent that he is an "advocate", it is because he has found it works, as shown by RCTs not conducted by him. Invoking WP:Fringe is unnecessary in this case, and will block any kind of positive evidence from appearing here. If a mainstream journal vindicates a so called "fringe" idea, we can't ignore it just because it is not in accordance with our ideology. RCTs published in mainstream journals have also demonstrated efficacy of this and related modalities, like PMID 22708146, PMID 23141789, http://www.hindawi.com/journals/drt/2012/257172/, PMID 22986277, and http://tmt.sagepub.com/content/18/3/73Pottinger's cats (talk) 09:00, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

All these "energy psychology" techniques are exactly WP:FRINGE, and require us to follow these guidelines. These techniques are not widely supported by the psychology community (as evidenced by their lack of acceptance in recent surveys, and lack of approval by the APA for their use). On fringe topics, we can not portray fringe as mainstream when they are not, and using fringe promoters as evidence for the use of fringe techniques is a no-no. Yobol (talk) 17:20, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

I am disappointed by the continuing effort to dress up WP:FRINGE subjects and make them look more evidencey, which seems to have affected several articles now. bobrayner (talk) 22:27, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

Over here, under the wikipedia article, in a subsection entitled "Righting Great Wrongs", the following is noted: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Tendentious_editing#Righting_Great_Wrongs

"Wikipedia is a popular site and appears high in the search engine rankings. You might think that it is a great place to set the record straight and Right Great Wrongs, but that’s not the case. We can record the righting of great wrongs, but we can’t ride the crest of the wave because we can only report that which is verifiable from reliable secondary sources, giving appropriate weight to the balance of informed opinion: what matters is not truth but verifiability. So, if you want to

Expose a popular artist as a child molester, or

Vindicate a murder convict you believe to be innocent, or

Spread the word about a theory/hypothesis/belief/cure-all herb that has been unfairly neglected and suppressed by the scholarly community

On Wikipedia, you’ll have to wait until it’s been picked up in mainstream journals, or get that to happen first. Wikipedia is not a publisher of original thought or original research. "Wikipedia is behind the ball - that is we don't lead, we follow - let reliable sources make the novel connections and statements and find NPOV ways of presenting them if needed."[2]"

The problem is that evidence HAS been published in mainstream journals, that clearly shows evidence for this. I would like to also point out that David Fienstein was initially a skeptic, but went over to the other side as he was personally confronted with evidence: http://www.innersource.net/ep/images/stories/downloads/PN_article.pdf

The sources to "rebut" it are purely ideological, and do not confront the evidence.

This article, in order to "debunk" the basis of energy psychology, acupuncture, relies on Edzard Ernst, a person who lied about his background in order to buttress himself as a more effective "debunker": http://www.hmc21.org/#/edzard-ernst/4543212059

(and on the contentious subject being discussed, the fact is that meta analyses and RCTs in mainstream journals have shown efficacy: http://www.greenmedinfo.com/therapeutic-action/homeopathic-treatment)

(I know you will reference all the "mainstream" sources that support him, but the fact is, he lied about his career)

Independent reviews without conflict of interest have come to the conclusion that acupuncture is effective, and superior to sham techniques, like PMID 22965186 and PMID 19370583

A plethora of randomized, sham-controlled trials have shown efficacy, many of which can be read here: http://www.greenmedinfo.com/therapeutic-action/acupuncture

The fact is that the mainstream in this is fraudulent. From the following Frontline interview, we have the following: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/medicating/experts/exist.html

PBS FRONTLINE INTERVIEWER:"Skeptics say that there's no biological marker--that it is the one condition out there where there is no blood test, and that no one knows what causes it."

Dr. Russell Barkley, professor of psychiatry and neurology at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center: "That's tremendously naïve, and it shows a great deal of illiteracy about science and about the mental health professions. A disorder doesn't have to have a blood test to be valid. If that were the case, all mental disorders would be invalid--schizophrenia, manic depression, Tourette's Syndrome--all of these would be thrown out. ... There is no lab test for any mental disorder right now in our science. That doesn't make them invalid."

In an April 19, 1994, New York Times piece, “Scientist At Work,” Daniel Goleman called Dr. Allen Frances, the man who, in 1994, headed up the project to write the DSM IV, “Perhaps the most powerful psychiatrist in America at the moment…”: http://www.nytimes.com/1994/04/19/science/scientist-at-work-allen-j-frances-revamping-psychiatrists-bible.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm

In the wired article "Inside the Battle to Define Mental Illness", he noted: http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/12/ff_dsmv/

“There is no definition of a mental disorder. It’s bullshit. I mean, you just can’t define it.”

In the last page of the article, we find the following: http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/12/ff_dsmv/5/

"Diagnosis, he says, is “part of the magic,” part of the power to heal patients—and to convince them to endure the difficulties of treatment. The sun is up now, and Frances is working on his first Diet Coke of the day. “You know those medieval maps?” he says. “In the places where they didn’t know what was going on, they wrote ‘Dragons live here.’”

He went on: “We have a dragon’s world here. But you wouldn’t want to be without that map.”"

For more, see Mad in America[http://www.amazon.com/Mad-America-Medicine-Enduring-Mistreatment/dp/0465020143] and Anatomy of an Epidemic[http://www.amazon.com/Anatomy-Epidemic-Bullets-Psychiatric-Astonishing/dp/0307452425/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1358135946&sr=1-1&keywords=anatomy+of+an+epidemic] — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pottinger's cats (talk • contribs) 04:39, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

I don't know what article improvement this long post is supposed to be in support of, and absent any explanation, WP:NOTAFORUM seems relevant. Zad68 04:52, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

The purpose of that is to change this article back to this revision: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Emotional_Freedom_Techniques&diff=532708739&oldid=532703880Pottinger's cats (talk) 05:09, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification... the problem is that the sources proposed don't mention "Emotional Freedom Techniques" and so using those sources in the way proposed is WP:SYNTH, a form of disallowed original research, as the edit summary correctly stated. Zad68 05:20, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

This is the very first item I posted, which I will repost for you:

The article (PMID 22402094) needs to be payed for, but it can be read here: innersource.net/ep/images/stories/downloads/mechanisms.pdf It mentions EFT as a modality being evaluated with relevant statements and references on pp. 4, 5, 16, 17, 19, 20, 24, 25, & 26.

The whole framework of procedures is mentioned (p. 5) as "a common though unconventional procedure that is appearing in a variety of clinical formats, with "Thought Field Therapy" (TFT), the "Tapas Acupressure Technique" (TAT), and the "Emotional Freedom Techniques" (EFT) being among the most widely practiced." Hence this review is applicable for all of those entries.

Also, the article as it stands now involves an attempted debunking of acupuncture, the basis for EFT, when there are high quality reviews without conflict of interest showing the superiority of acupuncture over sham treatments.Pottinger's cats (talk) 05:27, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

I would like to add that all of my sources are WP:MEDRS compliant, and supersede the current critical sources, which, in comparison, are not. Institutional bias against this treatment has been acknowledged in my edit, but this is the only "evidence" against the therapy. I would like to also add that the therapy is highly decentralized and individualistic, and thus diminishes dependence on specialists, which is what the APA thrives on. A cogent critique of the APA's position on thought field therapy is here: http://archive.truthout.org/energy-psychology-mental-health-experts-say-its-time-end-ban64393

The reviews showing efficacy are also in the APAs own journals, like http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/gpr/16/4/364/, and http://psycnet.apa.org/index.cfm?fa=buy.optionToBuy&id=2010-20923-011, so I don't think WP:FRINGE applies as much as my opponents claim it does.Pottinger's cats (talk)

This is not a page about acupuncture

We are citing a number of sources to challenge and/or defend the existence of acupuncture points, meridians, etc. This work is much better left to the respective pages on those topics. EFT does not involve acupuncture per se. Ethan Mitchell (talk) 03:57, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

The article involves a supposed debunking of acupuncture, which has been controverted.Pottinger's cats (talk) 06:22, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

Time to slow down

I just reverted a massive change that deleted sources, apparently without concensus. The inserted source did appear to have some credibility, but it is very recent, only published last month. Wikipedia has wp:NODEADLINE. We can wait to see if it holds up to the considered evaluation of other experts. In the near term, it should at most supplement existing sources, not supplant them. LeadSongDog come howl! 14:40, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

My opponents have not responded to my arguments on the talk page, because of this, there is no way to move forward via that route. I updated the article to include both the condemnatory sources they inserted, and the supportive sources coming from meta-analyses in mainstream journals, as a compromise.Pottinger's cats (talk) 03:50, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

Your "opponents" have responded to you. You've ignored their responses and continued to push your edits both here and by edit-warring on the article. It's entirely possible that other editors are shunning you because of your uncollaborative behavior. The best way back is, as LeadSongDog suggests, to slow down and make an effort to engage other editors' concerns rather than trying to steamroll them. MastCell ^Talk 04:08, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

The only response in opposition to my edits is that the person who did an overview agrees with the practice. However, his reviews have been published in mainstream journals, and warrant inclusion, as noted above. Also, part of this article relies on a supposed debunking of acupuncture, which has been controverted. I attempted to compromise by including ALL sources, both pro and con.Pottinger's cats (talk) 06:19, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

• Hi Pottinger's. I saw your note on the Fringe Theories Noticeboard and decided to drop by and take a look. While wanting to include all sources is admirable I'm afraid that doesn't line up with wikipedia policy. PRNewswire, for example, will print anything so long as you pay them enough, so that doesn't count as a reliable source. The other sources are probably giving too much weight to a minority view. I'm happy to discuss any or all of them in greater detail if you like, but you should probably review WP:UNDUE and WP:RS first. Best, GaramondLethe 02:11, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

I understand the omission of PRnewswire. The other sources are entirely in line with wikipedia's Right Great Wrongs and WP:MEDRS policy.Pottinger's cats (talk) 02:07, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

• I've had cause to spend a lot of time reviewing WP:MEDRS recently and I'm not sure I agree, but let's go ahead and discuss it. Which citation would you like to start with? (As an aside, WP:RGW is part of the essay on WP:Tendentious editing and describes a condition that is necessary but not at all sufficient. WP:UNDUE is going to probably be the highest hurdle in this case.) GaramondLethe 02:38, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

These are the two main citations, and they fit WP:MEDRS - http://psycnet.apa.org/?&fa=main.doiLanding&doi=10.1037/a0021171, http://psycnet.apa.org/?&fa=main.doiLanding&doi=10.1037/a0028602 These are the other relevant citations, and they fit MEDRS: - http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1357513#qundefined, http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD003281.pub3/abstract;jsessionid=4AFC08F61A127C4552A1054D3B8F99FA.d01t02, http://ons.metapress.com/content/f60343t4vj1713tx/?genre=article&id=doi%3a10.1188%2f07.ONF.813-820Pottinger's cats (talk) 02:56, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

Well, let's take them one at a time. Feinstein (2010) is a review article and has been cited a moderate number of times. You're using this to support the statement "efficacy for this modality". What was the efficacy? How was it measured? What was the modality? Do you have a copy of this paper? GaramondLethe 03:21, 22 January 2013 (UTC) The papers need to be purchased, but copies of both are located here: http://innersource.net/ep/images/stories/downloads/mechanisms.pdf, http://innersource.net/ep/images/stories/downloads/Acupoint_Stimulation_Research_Review.pdfPottinger's cats (talk) 04:00, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

Have you read Feinstein (20102012)? If you haven't, go ahead and read the first couple of sections and then take a look at table 2. I'm working on two of my own papers tonight so I might not get back to this for several hours, but this is.... definitely interesting. GaramondLethe 04:37, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm looking at the Feinstein 2010 "mechanisms" paper from the link P'sC provided and I don't see any tables at all...?? Zad68 04:44, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

At the very end of the document. I particularly liked the study on shooting free-throws where the control was "An inspirational talk by a coach." n=13. I really picked the wrong profession.... Does anyone have access to this one? http://psycnet.apa.org/index.cfm?fa=buy.optionToBuy&id=2009-08897-011 GaramondLethe 04:51, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

Whoops, my bad. I'm looking at the Acupoint_Stimulation_Research_Review, not the mechanisms. That one is Feinstein (2012). But probably not a bad place to start all things considered. GaramondLethe 04:54, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

Ah, OK, I do see the table now Garamond. I really want to be laughing along with you on this joke but I'm not getting it yet... Why would a coach pep-talk be an unreasonable control for the experiment? The article itself is a review article published in a reputable journal associated with a reputable association (the APA) in the relevant field. I think it's peer-reviewed? The journal's impact factor puts it in the top quartile of journals in the field. Feinstein is indeed a practitioner but as far as I can tell we don't discount reviews of a technique done by practitioners of a technique... we wouldn't throw out reviews of heart surgery techniques written by a cardiologist, would we? I've been keeping my mouth shut because I've been waiting for those smarter and more experienced than me in evaluating stuff like this to tell me what the answer is to the question "Why isn't this article useful?" but I'm not seeing it yet... Zad68 05:08, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

Getting back to the peer-reviewed literature.... I have in hand (well, onscreen) Pignotti & Thyer's Some comments on "Energy Psychology... that lists the several negative studies Feinstein neglected to mention. I think this (rather than my long editorial below) is sufficient to prevent mentioning of Feinstein's work here (unless both are mentioned together). I'm happy to email a pdf to whomever would like a copy. I'll try adding the sham studies tomorrow, but with the paper deadlines that might get pushed back a day. GaramondLethe 09:00, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

A modest proposal

I feel like the work being done on this article is somewhat derailed by the argument over whether or not EFT "works", and various editors' needs to align themselves around that question and make edits accordingly. I suppose that has its place. But currently, we are missing some very basic elements on the page. Who uses this practice? Under what circumstances? Is it commercial or not? What is it supposed to treat? What are the basic protocols and ontologies involved? I think it is premature to start debunking and/or defending something until the article has given a decent description of what it is we're talking about. Ethan Mitchell (talk) 19:43, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

The answers are simple: used by people without medical degrees, sold to the hopeful, believed by the gullible. Welcome to WP:Fringe. History2007 (talk) 22:02, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

An overlong answer to Zad68

Zad68 asked why I rolled my eyes when I saw and EFT experiment on basketball free throws in a review article. A complete answer would take an essay (and I may work this up into essay form). Note: This section is only tangentially related to the article and will be drawn from my experience, expertise and opinion. As such none of this information is intended to be used in determining what should be in the article. For amusement purposes only.

I make my living as a scientist, which still seems a strange thing to say after ten years of grad school and a three-year postdoc. I also have a serious interest in philosophy of science and how it informs pseudoscience, pathological science and the theories of crackpots. I also have a very practical interest in the anatomy and taxonomy of just-plain-bad science, both as a peer-reviewer and as someone whose results are peer-reviewed by others.

Rather than explain my reaction to what I thought the paper would be based on the summary I'm going to jump ahead and discuss the paper itself. This is very close to the process I use when I do anonymous peer review for scientific submissions. Here is the citation:

Church, D. (2009). The effect of EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques) on athletic performance: A randomized controlled blind trial. The Open Sports Sciences Journal, 2, 94-99. doi: 10.2174/1875399X00902010094

and the url:

http://www.benthamscience.com/open/tossj/articles/V002/94TOSSJ.pdf

Let's start with the journal. The ResearchGate description does not provide an impact factor for this journal. This is a very bad sign: this tells me that nobody is citing what this journal is publishing and, as (most) scientists aren't stupid, nobody is going to publish good work here because no one will read it.

The explanation as to why this is is easy enough. This journal publishes...

...research articles and reviews in all areas of sports sciences, such as anthropology, biochemistry, biomechanics, epidemiology, growth and motor development, motor control and learning, measurement and evaluation, physiology, pedagogy, psychology, history, philosophy or sociology. The emphasis of the Journal is on the human sciences, broadly defined, and applied to physical activity, sport and exercise. Topics covered also include design of analysis systems, sports equipment, research into training, and modeling and predicting performance.

There are journals devoted to motor control and there are journals devoted to philosophy, and if you have a good piece of research in either motor control or philosophy you're not going to send it to a journal that publishes both. If you're wondering how they stay in business, publishing a paper there costs you $800. That's not out of line for open-access publishing, but note the economic hole they're in: if they aren't getting good manuscripts and they start rejecting bad manuscripts, they'll fold.

Moving on to the article proper: was this paper bad enough to deserve this journal?

The subjects are college basketball players. After warming up and shooting ten free throws they were taken individually into a room for 15 minutes and were either given EFT or "received an inspirational reading of tips and techniques from a former college basketball coach, Rick Pitino". Both groups then performed another ten free throws. The EFT group improved their accuracy by 20.8%. The control group declined by 16.6%.

I'd like you to stop a minute and think about those results and how they were obtained. Do you buy it?

Here's what comes to my mind.

1) If EFT really did improve free throw performance by even 5%, every serious basketball player in American from junior high school on up would be using it. A real 20% increase would have a Nobel prize attached.

2) Note that the initial shots that progress was measured against occurred first. Could the additional practice explain the effect? To determine this we would have to had a control group that had a similar experience to the EFT group. Instead, the control group was probably bored to tears and massively demotivated.

3) Instead, if the control group had had a highly personal, supportive conversation with an attentive, caring stranger and performed some meaningless activities, and the EFT group still did better, then maybe we might have something.

4) Alternatively, would the control group have done even worse if they hadn't been read to for 15 minutes? I doubt it.

5) Why shoot only ten free throws? Why not fifty? Why not a hundred and fifty and stagger when the treatment was given, looking at the 20 shots before and after the treatment to judge the effect?

I think we can say with confidence that the only thing we learned from this study is not to read Rick Pitino's books to your b-ball players during halftime.

Frankly, a high school student after finishing a semester of psychology class could have come up with a better experimental design. I can believe the authors were sincere and either misguided or undertrained. I have a much harder time thinking up an excuse for the (unpaid) reviewers. This paper shouldn't have been published, period.

Now let's return to the review article that cited this paper. That author put all of the reviewed papers into tiers, and the highest tier was peer-reviewed, randomized studies. This paper was in that tier. In this field, this paper is the best evidence.

A final note to Pottinger's cats: I want to make sure to tell you that you did everything right. You found a peer-reviewed article that reviewed other peer-review articles and had been cited since it had been published. If you haven't spent a significant portion of your adult life in graduate school that's all I can expect you to do.

And a final note to Zad68: Free throws are notoriously hard to study, as is any activity that combines attention, discipline, physical strength and hand-eye coordination. And at the end of that complicated process you end up with a binary variable. As experiments go it's sexy and will draw a headline, but there are just so many potential confounding variables there that you'd need a season-long study for an entire league to control for them. And so when I saw they were reporting an improvement, I just laughed.

To anyone who is still reading, thanks.

GaramondLethe 07:30, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

Well, it was one of a plethora of RCTs reviewed.Pottinger's cats (talk) 08:12, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

That's a fair point. If you'd like to suggest that I look at another one where a pdf is available I'll be happy to do so (although perhaps not immediately, and definitely in fewer words.) GaramondLethe 09:14, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

I'll just give a case history - I used EFT to cure a nasty bout of insomnia one night, and extended application greatly reduced severe social anxiety. But here are your sources: (before that though - regarding use in sports, see the following:

numbered and reformatted for review. GaramondLethe 17:06, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

1) http://golfweek.com/news/2006/mar/25/2006-golfers-tap-psychology-fyg/.

2) also, for another trial, see p. 13: http://thencp.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Fidelity-Spring-20126.pdf) see also, of greater relevance:

3) http://www.varkstaden.se/pdf_filer/EFT_article.pdf,

4) http://www.lifescriptcounseling.com/research/dinter.pdf,

5) http://tmt.sagepub.com/content/early/2011/11/12/1534765611426788.abstract,

6) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22986277,

7) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22708146,

8) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19913760,

9) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23141789,

10) (comparison with cognitive behavioral therapy: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21563510),

11) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12945061 (other, related studies not in review:

12) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20128040,

13) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17388769)

Here is another interesting study - while not meeting WP:MEDRS, it is still of interest for readers: http://eftuniverse.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2470:preliminary-report-of-the-first-large-scale-study-of-energy-psychology&catid=39:research-studies&Itemid=2073Pottinger's cats (talk) 10:24, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

An overlong response to Pottinger's cats

Regarding your personal experience: from a practical perspective, you're doing the right thing. You found something that worked for you, and rather than pester the universe with questions like "Ok, can I repeat this? And exactly how did this happen? And how do I know I'm not fooling myself?" you instead got up on and got on with your life. That's a great strategy for day-to-day living, and I use it myself. But the rules change if I want to make a statement as to why this works, or that it will work for others. (I don't have to explain my lucky penny, but if I go into the business of selling lucky pennies I'm going to have some explaining to do.) So I'm not interested in trying to convince you that your interpretation of your experience is wrong. That's none of my business. Published, ostensibly peer-reviewed studies, on the other hand....

You gave me a pile of citations instead of the one I asked for. I'm going to hazard a guess that this is because you don't (yet?) have enough graduate school under your belt to evaluate which of these are better or worse. That's fine, but you might want to take this into account when you're thinking of adding a citation to the article.

So, here's my evaluation of the links you suggested.

1.) Golf Week isn't peer reviewed (and a golf swing is even less appropriate that free throws for a small-effect phenomena).

2.) Journal for the NCP isn't peer reviewed (it's a newsletter)

3.) Brattberg 2008: I have no difficulty believing that EFT is better than doing nothing. The more interesting questions are whether it is better than a placebo and better then current best practice. Note that this study is far, far better than the basketball study because they tested against no intervention, so at least we have an idea of how big the effect is (but not why the effect exists).

4.) Church (undated): Comparison with a no-intervention control group.

5.) Church 2011: Comparison with a no-intervention control group.

6.) Church 2012: Don't have access to this.

7.) Connolly 2011: Comparison with a no-intervention control group.

8.) Benor 2009: Sample size of 5 doesn't cut it for small-effect phenomena.

9.) Irgens 2012: Comparison with a no-intervention control group.

10.) Zhang 2011: Don't have access to this.

11.) Wells 2003: Don't have access to this.

12.) This is about accupressure, not EFT. replaced

13.) This is about accupressure, not EFT. replaced

14.) This is about accupressure, not EFT.

15.) This is about accupressure, not EFT.

16.) Does not establish that EFT or accupressure has any relationship with "energy systems in the body".

17) Does not establish that EFT or accupressure has any relationship with "energy systems in the body".

There have been much better studies done and I hope to have time to point those out to you this evening. GaramondLethe 17:06, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

12-15 were tangential, but related. They were not in the review. The sports citations were just to realize that use for that purpose is not anomalous.

regarding the items you cannot access - I think they provide an example of the better studies:

6 - Church - 2012) here it is: http://pt.wkhealth.com/pt/re/lwwgateway/landingpage.htm;jsessionid=Q1nNsw2X2yCSyp2V7DZ6GfJ72l2xrMLMVXZrMnk6FCh5PcBx2VNt!1150561369!181195629!8091!-1?issn=0022-3018&volume=200&issue=10&spage=891

10 - Zhang 2011) here it is: http://pdn.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=MiamiImageURL&_cid=277238&_user=4428&_pii=S0254627211600149&_check=y&_origin=article&_zone=toolbar&_coverDate=2011--31&view=c&originContentFamily=serial&wchp=dGLbVlt-zSkWb&md5=687d181940761b183ab63659ccc61ec9&pid=1-s2.0-S0254627211600149-main.pdf

11 - Wells 2003) here it is: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jclp.10189/pdf Pottinger's cats (talk) 04:56, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Nice work tracking these down! I'm going to focus on the last one because it's a really nice paper. The authors are perfectly candid about the research question they're attempting to address and go well out their way to point out the deficiencies and limitations of their methodology. The conclusions drawn are limited, appropriate and supported by the experimental evidence.

There's one paper—the most important—that you haven't mentioned: Waite (2003). Here's the summary: The results of the present study indicate that EFT was effective in decreasing fear in a nonclinical population. However, EFT was no more effective than either a placebo or modeling control procedure. The placebo group tapped their arm instead of their "meridian points", and the modeling control group tapped a doll. This is perfectly consistent with all of the other literature you've cited. Talking to people in the manner prescribed by EFT does have an effect, and the ritual of tapping may enhance that effect, but this effect does not depend on any "energy" systems in the body. Feinstein (2010 and 2012, IIRC) completely ignores this study, possibly because he makes part of his living selling EFT paraphernalia (Pignotti 2009). (I have a copy if you don't want to pay for it.)

I really want to emphasize here that this kind of placebo study is the gold standard. If tapping your energy centers is effective but no more effective than tapping a doll, then energy centers just aren't that interesting. And with that, I think we've completed a pretty thorough literature review of this topic. GaramondLethe 23:39, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

I would like to see the copy - of Pignotti. The 3 citations I gave compare EFT to other treatments and show greater efficacy. Also, regarding your statement - "Talking to people in the manner prescribed by EFT does have an effect, and the ritual of tapping may enhance that effect, but this effect does not depend on any "energy" systems in the body." - I gave the acupressure (which EFT is based on) citations to controvert this conclusion - and gave the other reviews to likewise controvert this conclusion.Pottinger's cats (talk) 02:39, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

Feinstein made a rejoinder to Pignotti here - it may address the points you bring up: http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/pst/46/2/262/

If you have access to both the Pignotti article and the rejoinder, it would be appreciated.Pottinger's cats (talk) 02:58, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

If you email me I'll reply with a copy of the Pignotti pdf. It's not at all controversial that EFT show more of an effect than some treatments in some conditions. The problem is that EFT doesn't show more of an effect than talking and tapping your arm or talking and tapping a doll.

Second, I think you're not being quite forthright when you describe the accupressure citations as "controvert[ing] this conclusion". In fact, you removed the last two and silently changed the other two. If you want to change text that someone has already responded to, please use <ss> and <\s>, like this, so it doesn't look like you're being sneaky. This also looks like you're throwing in every citation you can find without reading or understanding them, hoping something will stick. If you recall, I asked for one pdf and we're now at numbers 16 and 17 and you're just now learning what the issues are. And, after taking a look, neither one of your new studies has anything to do with establishing the existence of "energy systems in the body".

I'm not sure what to say at this point. The most charitable interpretation I can come up with is that you're not reading what you're citing: you're either cutting and pasting from google or some other source. Alternatively you're reading all of these papers but have no understanding as to what they contain. Either way, you might want to consider editing articles that better play to your strengths.

As to Feinstein's rejoinder: it's available here. This is an excellent lesson in tapdancing:

[The studies he found] lend[] support for the efficacy of tapping while mentally attuning to an emotional difficulty. Despite the design flaws found in some of the studies, the preponderance of evidence shows energy psychology interventions to be efficacious.

The first sentence is true, but he neglects to explain why arm-tapping and doll-tapping have equal efficacy. The second sentence equates talking and tapping with "energy psychology" which has the additional baggage of energy fields that can evidently migrate to arms and dolls.

So after 18 citations what we have is the suggestion that a particular kind of talking associated with some sort of physical ritual can be more helpful than other treatments in some situations. I would be comfortable including the two Feinstein reviews if the shortcomings pointed out in Pignotti are highlighted, and I think Waite (2003) deserves a paragraph. I don't see an argument for including any of these other citations. If you want to make such an argument, please be sure to read the citation first and be able to summarize how the citation supports the point you want to make. GaramondLethe 04:04, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

You might want to see the extended discussion of Waite 2003 from Recent Changes onwards.

In short, they got the EFT protocol quite wrong. The only source I could find criticising Waite 2003 was an open letter by Gary Craig. This was deemed WP:SPS and thus not a reliable source.

I'm not aware that WP policy is to force editors to report bad research as this would be pseudoscience in itself. I therefore suspect it's up to consensus of editors. Mindjuicer (talk) 03:28, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

This obviously makes the two meta-analyses I introduced viable then.Pottinger's cats (talk) 11:25, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Arbitrary Break

Yes, I glibly engaged in a bit of argumentum verbosum. I removed the acupressure citations because they were not properly controlled. The 2 I kept were. The last is sham controlled, so it is relevant. Here are more sham controlled studies: http://www.greenmedinfo.com/search/gmi/sham%20acupressure

http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1357513#qundefined, http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD003281.pub3/abstract;jsessionid=4AFC08F61A127C4552A1054D3B8F99FA.d01t02, and http://ons.metapress.com/content/f60343t4vj1713tx/?genre=article&id=doi%3a10.1188%2f07.ONF.813-820 are also sham controlled.

Please post your email address.Pottinger's cats (talk) 04:28, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

From the rejoinder, here is Feinstein's response regarding Waite - for whatever it's worth: -

"Pignotti and Thyer (this issue) claim “selective bias” (p. 258) largely because the paper did not include two studies, both randomized controlled trials (RCTs), by Waite and Holder (2003) and by Pignotti (2005b). McCaslin (this issue) contends that the paper did “a disservice to readers” (p. 252) by not mentioning the Waite and Holder study. Both the Waite and Holder and the Pignotti studies were actually reviewed in earlier, widely circulated drafts of my paper, but later deleted for reasons discussed below. What is puzzling about the commentators’ position, however, is that the two studies, had they been included, would have actually supported the claim that tapping on the body is effective as a treatment of emotional symptoms:

...

Waite and Holder (2003) tested three tapping conditions and a no-treatment control condition on 119 college students with self-reported fear of heights. One of the tapping conditions utilized a variation of a manualized Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) protocol; one used this protocol but substituted random points on the arm for the standard EFT points; and one used this protocol while having subjects tap on a doll. Relevant background is that using the forefinger stimulates an acupuncture point (Large Intestine 1) that is sometimes used in the treatment of “mental restlessness” (Ross, 1995, p. 306) and the arm contains numerous acupuncture points, although the researchers clearly had not conceived of the doll or arm conditions as potentially activating treatment points. In any case, the three tapping conditions all resulted in significant reductions in self-reported fear (p < . 003, .001, and .001, respectively). The placebo group did not (p = .255)."

Pottinger's cats (talk) 04:54, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, I'm not looking at any more cites unless you have assured me you've read them and can explain why they support a particular change you want to make in the article. As to the quotation above, I'm reading it as: "Well, I claimed that the relevant energy centers were in the torso, but since that's been disproved I'll now say they're in the arm. Maybe." If you go to my user page there's a link on the left that will allow you to email me. I'll get your address (privately) that way and will respond with the article. GaramondLethe 05:07, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

I have read http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1357513#qundefined, http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD003281.pub3/abstract;jsessionid=4AFC08F61A127C4552A1054D3B8F99FA.d01t02, and http://ons.metapress.com/content/f60343t4vj1713tx/?genre=article&id=doi%3a10.1188%2f07.ONF.813-820 - and they support acupuncture/acupressure claims for certain conditions, disproving the statement "Evidence has not been found for the existence of acupuncture points, meridians or other concepts involved in traditional Chinese medicine.".Pottinger's cats (talk) 05:39, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm happy to take your word for that. I believe you'll find that sham acupuncture is equally as effective. Was there a change you wanted to make to this article? GaramondLethe 05:42, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

The overviews explicitly compare it to sham acupuncture, and find greater efficacy for traditional acupuncture. I wanted to use those three citations to controvert the "Evidence has not been found for the existence of acupuncture points, meridians or other concepts involved in traditional Chinese medicine." statement.Pottinger's cats (talk) 06:15, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

And....? GaramondLethe 06:17, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

I feel that my previous edit is appropriate: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Emotional_Freedom_Techniques&diff=534267114&oldid=534093398

Ernst and Singh assert that evidence has not been found for the existence of acupuncture points, meridians or other concepts involved in traditional Chinese medicine, from which EFT is derived. However, since the publication of their work, proof has emerged that traditional forms of acupuncture are more effective than placebos in the relief of certain types of pain. A Cochrane review of randomized, sham controlled trials, found that stimulation of the wrist acupuncture point P6 prevented postoperative nausea and vomiting and is not inferior to antiemetic drugs. A multicenter, longitudinal, randomized placebo controlled clinical trial throughout one cycle of chemotherapy found that acupressure at the P6 point is a value-added technique in addition to pharmaceutical management for women undergoing treatment for breast cancer to reduce the amount and intensity of delayed chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting.

Pottinger's cats (talk) 06:24, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

And...? Was there a change you wanted to make in this article? GaramondLethe 06:43, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

yes - delete the Ernst reference as it stands now - at the end of Research, include the above — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pottinger's cats (talk • contribs) 07:42, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

Ok, I think we can work out a compromise. Since this article isn't about acupuncture I think we can make the following two changes.

1.) In the article, change "Evidence has not been found for the existence of acupuncture points, meridians or other concepts..." to "Evidence has not been found for the existence of meridians or other concepts..."

2.) In the citation, remove the sentence "Acupuncture points and meridians are not a reality, but merely the product of an ancient Chinese philosophy" (p387)."

Would that work for you? GaramondLethe 08:16, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

That would be fine.Pottinger's cats (talk) 15:47, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

Done. GaramondLethe 16:25, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

This article is not about acupuncture, which has been proven efficacious in the studies mentioned. However, the Ernst reference is an obfuscation. I am removing it as a violation of Wikipedia:Coatrack.Pottinger's cats (talk) 11:22, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

This is not a coatrack situation as EFT seems to explicitly use the terms/locations of acupuncturists, which makes the Singh/Ernst source relevant. That acupuncture might work on limited number of subjective complaints does not mean that the mechanism of acupuncture is confirmed, as the mechanism of action that makes it work in those limited complaints may be something completely different than the proposed use of "meridians". Yobol (talk) 13:10, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Arbitrary Break the Second

Good morning, Pottinger. I saw you tried to remove the rest of that cite without establishing consensus first. What I'm seeing here is that when you try to remove a citation the edit doesn't stick for more than a few hours, but when you go through the process of digging up citations and convincing other editors that you have a reasonable point, the edits you want to make actually stick. So, what's your best cite for the existence of meridians? Please don't give me 17 citations. You saw what worked with removing mention of acupuncture from the article—those are the kind of cites I'm looking for. GaramondLethe 13:18, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

I feel that the following meta-analyses and large scale randomized controlled trial, are the types of citations that would count as evidence. They are relevant because they show the superiority of acupuncture points over sham acupuncture points:

http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1357513#qundefined, http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD003281.pub3/abstract;jsessionid=4AFC08F61A127C4552A1054D3B8F99FA.d01t02, and http://ons.metapress.com/content/f60343t4vj1713tx/?genre=article&id=doi%3a10.1188%2f07.ONF.813-820Pottinger's cats (talk) 12:36, 4 February 2013 (UTC) I have other individual studies here: http://www.greenmedinfo.com/therapeutic-action/acupuncture, many of which are sham controlled, but the three above are the most WP:MEDRS compliant, considering that this is a controversial subject.Pottinger's cats (talk) 12:48, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Which of these mention meridians? GaramondLethe 15:32, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

They mention acupuncture points, but some preliminary evidence exists for meridians: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/bem.20403/abstractPottinger's cats (talk) 03:53, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Probably best to wait for more definitive work. Garamond Lethet
c 07:20, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Neutral Point Of View Expected From Wikipedia

I have noticed that the bias is more towards the Skeptical Enquirer point of view and this does not strike me as a neutral point of view for Wikipedia. This is not to criticize the Skeptical Enquirer at all, as balance and common-sense is always needed. However, this article can be improved by presenting well-written material providing the other side of the argument. This way, this page will gain the neutral point of view as per Wikipedia rules. SuzanneZacharia (talk) 12:19, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Comment on 1 June 2013

This article is biased and the writer clearly has their own agenda. Perhaps it should be replaced by an article written by someone who is prepared to do the research on EFT and present the facts only, so that people can make up their own minds! 82.69.93.212 (talk) 09:55, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

Please clarify: Is this comment directed at the article as is or at the proposed change? Jt940 (talk) 04:26, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

Proposed change to the lead section

I am proposing changing one sentence in the lead section to more accurately reflect the cited reference.

The sentence currently reads: This is thought by practitioners to treat a wide variety of physical and psychological disorders, and to have the advantage of being a simple, self-administered form of therapy.[1]

The proposed sentence reads: This is thought by practitioners to treat a wide variety of physical and psychological disorders. EFT has the advantage of being both a simple self-administered personal growth tool, and that there can be improved results when utilized by an experienced EFT practitioner.[1] Petefter (talk) 22:10, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

Basically I agree with the proposed changes. They add clarity to the process and lead sections. The disagreement I have is with calling this pseudoscience as it is a pejorative term, and implies ineffectiveness. For decades it wasn't known how aspirin and some other medications worked, but they worked, and it wasn't called pseudoscience. The fact that something cannot be proven scientifically does not make it pseudo anything in my view. It simply means it cannot be tested via scientific method yet. It also seems to me that EFT research is moving into the realm of mind/body theories (EFT impacting bodily systems simultaneously with emotional changes) that are testable theories. I put this question to experienced editors: What would it take to get this page reclassified as other than pseudoscience? TWRobinson (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 03:00, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

I've reverted that change. We cannot source claims of that nature to a "manual" produced by the proponents of the technique, and certainly not in the "voice" of the encyclopedia without making it very clear that these are claims. Please see WP:MEDRS and WP:RS, also WP:SPS.

Even if reworded, there will need to be a good consensus of editors here to add that level of detail about the claims to the article lead - see WP:LEAD.

I appreciate that editors who are new, and have only recently begun editing on this subject may not be familiar with these policies, so I urge you to read the linked policies, and the decisions and restrictions listed at the top of this page. Doing so should also answer your question about the pseudoscience classification - but if, after examining that material something is still unclear, please post and ask for clarification. Thank you. Begoon ^talk 05:51, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

Okay, I understand what you are saying about including the claim of improved results in the lead. How about if the sentence were changed to read: This is thought by practitioners to treat a wide variety of physical and psychological disorders. EFT has the advantage of being both a simple self-administered personal growth tool, and a clinical tool used by experienced EFT practitioners.Petefter (talk) 06:37, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

What is your 3rd party, reliable source, compliant with WP:RS, for "EFT has the advantage of being both a simple self-administered personal growth tool, and a clinical tool used by experienced EFT practitioners." ? Begoon ^talk 06:41, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

Begoon, you've referred to "a good consensus of editors" more than once, but in approaching a month, you're the only one who has paid any attention to what is going on here, so how is this to be achieved?Jt940 (talk) 08:48, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

If you'd like other, uninvolved editors to comment, then you could start an RFC (Request for Comment). This is advertised more widely, and designed to attract comment. See WP:RFC#Request comment on articles, policies, or other non-user issues. Probably not a bad idea, as the lack of response from others here does tend to make things long-winded and difficult. Also, obviously, other opinions are always valuable. It's not a difficult procedure, but I'm happy to help if you need it. Begoon ^talk 09:01, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

The proposal changes the statement from being in the practitioners' voice to Wikipedia's voice and I don't support that change. The Lutus quote is also problematic because it is not established that he's an authoritative voice on psychology and doesn't talk about EFT, and also appears to be a WP:SYNTH problem. I agree an RFC is probably required. Zad68 15:10, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

Question

In reading the explanation of pseudoscience, I see why you are classifying it as such, based on Gary Craig's "energy theories" framework. However, there are new theories postulating changes in neural pathways based on EFT affecting brain waves and biochemistry and resulting in emotional change. My question is what would it take to get EFT re-classified out of the pseudo-science category, or is is forever deemed to this classification based on the original theory espoused by Gary Craig? TWRobinson (talk) 23:43, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

If somebody proposed a system that had similar effects but a completely different mechanism, would it still be EFT? bobrayner (talk) 01:43, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

Classification as pseudoscience is due to sources calling it such (See refs 4 and 8). When it has generally been accepted in the psychology/psychiatry community as valid, as documented by independent reliable sources, we can remove the designation then. Yobol (talk) 17:53, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

Comment 10th July 2013

I propose the above be written as follows:

Instructions for EFT are in the EFT manual pdf, described briefly in this paragraph to provide a description of the method. The basic procedure consists of the participant rating the emotional intensity of their specific issue on a Subjective Units of Distress Scale (SUDS) (a Likert scale for subjective measures of distress, calibrated 0-10), which provides a way to measure subsequent progress, then repeating a special statement called the "Setup phrase" three times while tapping the side of the hand. This is followed by tapping rounds, stimulating specific points on the body, while using a "Reminder phrase" that describes the problem being addressed. Additional "aspects" of the problem are then worked on as needed. Some practitioners of client- and/or self- EFT incorporate eye movements or other tasks. Numerous advanced techniques can also be utilized. The emotional intensity is re-scored and this process continues to be repeated with the goal of reducing and eliminating the emotional intensity of the participant's specific issue.

EFT is the most frequently used technique of the Energy Psychology (EP) methodologies. Energy Psychology combines established psychotherapy practices of exposure therapy and cognitive restructuring with the non-western healing tradition of acupressure. Explanatory mechanisms for this process are beginning to evolve, through the scientific process, substantiated by studies noting brain and neuro-chemistry changes that occur with the tapping. For example, with stimulation of acupressure points amygdala arousal is turned down; cortisol levels go down with EFT treatment of anxiety disorders. These may allow for changes in the neural pathways that had been the physiological basis of the psychological issues being addressed.

SuzanneZacharia (talk) 18:06, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

You appear to have chosen sources written by proponents, including a paper in which a conflict of interest was not disclosed: [2][3]. IRWolfie- (talk)

Proposed change to article "Process" section

I would like to propose that the following replace the existing article "Process" section in order to provide a fuller description:

Process

According to the EFT manual, the basic procedure consists of the participant rating the emotional intensity of their specific issue on a Subjective Units of Distress Scale (SUDS) (a Likert scale for subjective measures of distress, calibrated 0-10), which provides a way to measure subsequent progress, then repeating a specialized "affirmation" three times while tapping the side of the hand. This is followed by tapping rounds, stimulating specific points on the body, while using a "reminder phrase" that describes the problem being addressed. Additional "aspects" of the problem are then worked on as needed. Some practitioners incorporate eye movements or other tasks. Numerous advanced techniques can also be utilized. The emotional intensity is re-scored and this process continues to be repeated with the goal of reducing and eliminating the emotional intensity of the participant's specific issue.

EFT is the most frequently used technique of the Energy Psychology (EP) methodologies. Energy Psychology combines established psychotherapy practices of exposure therapy and cognitive restructuring with the non-western healing tradition of acupressure. Explanatory mechanisms for this process are beginning to evolve, through the scientific process, substantiated by studies noting brain and neuro-chemistry changes that occur with the tapping. For example, with stimulation of acupressure points amygdala arousal is turned down; cortisol levels go down with EFT treatment of anxiety disorders. These may allow for changes in the neural pathways that had been the physiological basis of the psychological issues being addressed.

Gary Craig states that the theory underlying this methodology is that having negative emotional issues reflects disruptions in the individual's energy system, and that the EFT process provides energetic and emotional releases. This is a not a scientifically falsifiable/testable theory, although, according to Paul Lutus, the whole field of psychology is based on foundational theories which are not falsifiable/testable and are, therefore, pseudo-science.

Jt940 (talk) 06:42, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure where to put my comment; will put it in a section below.TWRobinson (talk) 03:17, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

Revised proposed change to the Lead Section

I am proposing changing one sentence in the lead section to more accurately reflect the cited reference.

The sentence currently reads: This is thought by practitioners to treat a wide variety of physical and psychological disorders, and to have the advantage of being a simple, self-administered form of therapy.[1]

The proposed sentence reads: This is thought by practitioners to treat a wide variety of physical and psychological disorders; they say that EFT has the advantage of being both a simple self-administered personal growth tool, and a clinical tool for professional EFT practitioners.[1][2][3]

1. ^ a b Craig, G.(nd). "The EFT Manual" (PDF). Retrieved 6/22/2013. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)

2. ^ Craig, G. (2011). "The EFT Manual, 2nd ed". Energy Press.

3. ^ "Professional EFT? or Easy EFT!". Retrieved 6/22/2013. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help) Petefter (talk) 06:23, 22 June 2013 (UTC)

Seems to me to be unnecessary. The 3rd reference is a link to an EFT sales/publicity type site, with a large amount of advertising, and doesn't seem to serve any encyclopaedic purpose at all here. It certainly doesn't look like a reliable source for anything. I don't understand why a statement like this would need to link to both versions of a manual, either.

If you're concerned that the current statement only refers to it being self-administered, then consider something like: "Practitioners claim that they can use the technique to treat a wide variety of physical and psychological disorders, and that it may also be used as a form of self administered therapy."

This avoids introducing possibly WP:UNDUE new claims into the lead which are not covered in the main content, in a lead section which is already quite long for a short article. If the "2nd ed" manual is a better source, then it's fine to use that one instead of the current one, although we should avoid the commercial Amazon link, either with an online pdf similar to the existing reference, or simply a reference to the book, with ISBN. Begoon ^talk 10:03, 22 June 2013 (UTC)

You have made numerous points, and I am pondering them, and your suggested rewording. The first point I would like to raise for discussion is reference #3. You stated I needed a third party reference - was this, as I am thinking, to show noteability, i.e., that not only Craig considers it to be significant?

You characterize eftuniverse.com as sales/publicity site, with which I disagree. This site does have a resource section which sells books and DVDs. There are no "sales letters" or similar "buy this" statements. This site has a lot of free information about this methodology, including how to use it at both basic and advanced levels, a research section which inlcudes links to all research done on EFT; and a host of people's experiences using this technique with their clients or for themselves, more than 10,000, and though scientifically speaking, this is anecdotal and a low level of evidence of efficacy, given the number of these experiences, it does speak to effectiveness. It is definitely a very pro EFT site. Per WP: Identifying reliable sources "Biased or opinionated sources Wikipedia articles are required to present a neutral point of view. However, reliable sources are not required to be neutral, unbiased, or objective." Considering this, would you still say that this does not look like a reliable source for anything, and if so, please refer to the specific part of the RS rules that this does not follow, as I did not find anything. Thanks. Petefter (talk) 21:16, 22 June 2013 (UTC)

Simply put, the manual is sufficient evidence of the claim, so this source is unnecessary to support the content. It is obviously a site designed to promote and publicise EFT, with a large amount of commercial and self-serving content. Its inclusion is therefore covered by: Wikipedia:Refspam, which says "There are three types of spams on Wikipedia. These are: advertisements masquerading as articles; external link spamming; and adding references with the aim of promoting the author or the work being referenced" (my emphasis), and as per the last point at Wikipedia:Rs#Self-published_and_questionable_sources_as_sources_on_themselves- #1, does not meet the condition that "the material is neither unduly self-serving nor an exceptional claim;". Begoon ^talk 02:41, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

I think Refspam is really being stretched here, and that the much more pertinent fact is that Wikipedia is fine with a source being biased, but as there has been a change in thinking that a third party reference is not needed, this does not now need to be discussed further. I am proposing that the sentence be changed to: This is thought by professional EFT practitioners to treat a wide variety of physical and psychological disorders, and that it may also be used as a simple self-administered personal growth tool.[1]

1. ^ a b Craig, G.(nd). "The EFT Manual" (PDF). Retrieved 6/22/2013. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help) Petefter (talk) 05:32, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

I've made this edit, incorporating "simple" into the passage above.

There has been no "change in thinking". My position is, and remains, that 3rd party reliable sources are required for statements in wikipedia's voice - that's one point. The additions of claims suggested here were WP:UNDUE, however sourced - separate point. I really have spent considerable time trying to help point you in the right direction, but I'm not finding these circular discussions to be very productive, nor can they really become so unless you try to understand the linked policies rather than searching for "ways around" them.

That's not really your fault - it's often very difficult for people who are close to a subject to see it dispassionately, and it's natural for you to want to see every way to get your preferred content included. That's why we have the policies and guidelines you've been pointed to. We don't make them up on the spot - they have evolved after long experience of many, many discussions just like this, and much well-reasoned thought by many extremely qualified editors. If you follow them, everything will be fine. I doubt I'll have much more to say here, since I've genuinely offered all the help I think I can at this point. Thanks. Begoon ^talk 07:33, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

The current version, new edit, of that sentence is an improvement over the previous one. There is definitely quite a learning curve here, and I have gained, with your help, a better understanding about Wikipedia voice. Thank you. I would just like to clarify why it is that I prefer professional practitioner or experienced practitioner to practitioner. Practitioner can mean someone who practices/does something, and using professional or experienced would clearly make the distinction between those who make the claims cited; and the less experienced practitioner or the self-administered user. They are also the terms the author uses in the referenced citation. Regarding a form of self-administered therapy, the many times the author refers to self-application, it is never with the terminology of self-therapy or therapy; self-administered growth tool is accurate to the source. Petefter (talk) 07:16, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

Growth tool: It may well be what the source claims, but here's the reason I didn't include it: search link. We shouldn't be introducing vague terms/jargon into an article lead which the reader would need to delve into the sources to understand. If you can think of a more accurate term than therapy which is readily understood by the average reader, then that would be good. Therapy is maybe not the best term, but "buzz words" need to be avoided.

Professional/experienced: No - it's subjective and unnecessary, we have a balanced statement: Practitioners state <this>, studies and evidence state <this>. Qualifying the term "practitioners" serves no purpose. "Advocates" might be a better term, on consideration - would that improve it for you? Begoon ^talk 07:29, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

"Experienced" may be subjective, but one either is or is not a "professional", and a professional is presumed (though not always correctly) to have more expertise in the field in question. That there are professionals in this field is a given, and since the term is used as cited above, I think it is justified.Jt940 (talk) 18:40, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

Proposing: "Professional practitioners claim that they can use these techniques to treat a wide variety of physical and psychological disorders, and that it may also be used as a self-help method." The clarification of professional is needed as anyone who engages in utilizing EFT is a practitioner of it, even if they are only using it on themselves or friends, which is very different from those who have obtained certification and are providing professional treatment. I have also used the plural - "techniques".Petefter (talk) 05:32, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

You know, the more I think about this, the more I think that "Advocates" would be a much better term. We are not writing that sentence to make a judgement ourselves on the effectiveness of the technique, or the proficiency of the claimants, and as such "advocates" seems far less controversial and better suited to me. We must not be seen to judge the "professianalism" or "experience" of the claimants, or imply that such factors do or do not make a difference to effectiveness - we rely on reliable third party sources for information of that nature. The format of: "Advocates claim "x", whilst reliable third party evidence, studies and sources state "y" is, and needs to remain the status quo. Begoon ^talk 04:10, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

Agreed that "advocates" would be a better term. Yobol (talk) 12:14, 13 July 2013 (UTC)