By Dawson Church,
Sometimes seemingly minor issues carry high SUD scores. This is usually an indication that major long-term issues lie beneath the surface. My session with “Daisy” illustrates this.
It began by asking her to identify a recent emotionally triggering event. She described an incident involving a faulty automatic cat food dispenser. She and her husband had left for the weekend, relying on the dispenser to feed their cat while they were away. When they returned, they discovered that no food had been dispensed.
Although the event seemed minor on the surface, it clearly carried significant emotional charge for Daisy. She said her cat Mocha experiences food anxiety, and it was clear to me that Daisy’s anxiety was elevated too. When asked for an initial Subjective Units of Distress (SUD) rating, Daisy reported a level of 5.
To assess the somatic component of her distress, I asked where she felt the emotion in her body. She identified pressure behind her eyes and tension in her jaw. These physical sensations became important indicators throughout the session, helping us track progress as the emotional intensity shifted.
I chose to use the Silent Movie Technique, in which the client mentally reviews the event, scene by scene. We first identified an emotionally neutral starting point. She selected the moment before the trip, when she and her husband were packing and feeling excited to leave. Beginning from this calm reference point, she told the story.
The first moment of emotional intensity occurred around her husband setting up the feeder before they left. She was worried about the cat, felt distrust of her partner, and was uncertain about whether the device would function properly. Her SUD for this aspect was 5.
As she reflected further, she recognized that she had chosen the feeder herself after researching it online and reading positive reviews. She wanted to trust both the company and her partner, yet she had felt that something would go wrong. This uncertainty increased the distress to a SUD of 6 as she recalled looking at the screen with the reviews.
We tapped on this emotional peak and incorporated the 9 Gamut Procedure, after which Daisy’s distress dropped from a 6 to a 1.
I had her tell the story from the neutral point again, and a new emotionally charged moment came up: leaving the house while fearing the cat would be upset or distressed. This memory carried a SUD of 8. When asked again about her bodily sensations, Daisy described feeling “angry, hurt, and a sinking feeling in my jaw,” with the physical sensation rated at a SUD of 6.
As we tapped and again used the 9 Gamut Procedure, her jaw distress reduced to a 1, and the fear associated with leaving the house dropped to 0.
Because testing is an essential part of Clinical EFT, I then asked her to retell the story from beginning to end without interruption. As she reviewed the entire sequence, no part of the narrative rose above a SUD of 1, indicating that the major emotional charge for each of the parts of the event had been successfully cleared.
Her closing statement captured the cognitive and emotional shift that had taken place: “Mocha the cat has two loving parents. He’s going to be alright.”
This was her first EFT session and our time was limited. We focused on resolving the immediate presenting issue gave Daisy confidence in the tapping process. By the end of the session, Daisy not only experienced relief regarding the cat feeder incident, but also gained confidence in EFT as an effective tool.
It was clear to me that this even was connected to broader themes of fear and betrayal in other areas of Daisy’s life. There wasn’t time to explore them in this brief session, but they would be the focus of long-term work.