Is Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) scientific proven?

[ChristophML]

Hello, everyone

what do you think about the Emotional Freedom Technique which is developed by Gary Craig. He said that you can reduce a lot of psychological symptoms (trauma, depression, anxiety, anger and so on) by tipping on special meridian points (Acupuncture) of the body. There are some studies (Clond, 2016; Kalla et al. 2017; Gaesser & Karan, 2017; Gueguen et al., 2015; Rancour, 2016) which say that there is an effect but is the concept plausible?   

Kind regards, 

Christoph 

[Manticore]

As acupuncture has been pretty thoroughly debunked, then I can't see any possibly of this being any more than yet another crackpot idea.

Edited August 9, 2017 by Manticore
Too many fingers on keyboard error.

[ChristophML]

Thanks for your answer. 

[DrP]

The effect they are recording is probably the placebo effect at work.  Some people insist that that if a drug or a procedure works as well as a placebo then the object, drug, procedure or prayer works...   They are missing the point...  we know that the placebo effect is real  -  we also know that you have to beat it significantly to lay any claim to your drug/procedure/prayer/magic works.

With this guy's claim (sorry - didn't have time to read the lot) - he is claiming a lot of psychological symptoms can be cured...  this is not unexpected as the placebo effect seems to work better for psychological symptoms such as pain and depression anyway.  I did not read the paper  -  did they compare the effect against the placebo?  (sorry - of course they did or they wouldn't be taken seriously at all - did it significantly out perform the placebo?)