Tap, Tap, Tap

 I teach students with disabilities, and so our class is a little bit of an alphabet soup. We have all sorts of conditions catalogued in the DSM-5: ED, OCD, CD, ODD, ADHD, SLD, PTSD, OHI, SCD, DMDD - you name it - we've got it. For this reason, I am always researching and looking for new strategies for my students to try when they are dysregulated. The more strategies I have in my arsenal and ideas to modify them, the better. 

Recently I stumbled upon an article about EFT (yes - more letters), Emotional Freedom Technique which involves tapping specific points on your body, mainly your head and face while focusing on an emotion or issue you want to release. It's usually accompanied with phrase to help you regulate. Sounds silly, right? But it is evidenced-based, and it's used for anxiety, depression, intrusive thoughts, OCD, PTSD and phobias. 

I have a couple of students that I thought would benefit from trying this strategy. The therapist for my program agreed to introduce it to one of my students today. We were hoping it would help him calm down when he was having intrusive thoughts and feeling anxiety. When I checked in with her after her session, she told me she had mixed results. The technique did calm him down, but he wasn't able to be serious  about it throughout the trial; making funny faces, rolling his eyes and using a weird voice. She did a really good impression of him making fun of the exercise.

We decided to try again with me in the short session especially because I may have to guide him into using the technique if it works for him. 

"Let's tell Ms. Neunder what strategy we tried today." the therapist encouraged him.

When he turned to me to tell me about the strategy, I immediately thought of the funny faces he was making and the absurdity of tapping his face to help him calm down and I started laughing.

"Geez, I'm sorry" I said trying to pull myself together, "I was thinking about something else and having trouble focusing." I admitted.

"I know, right?" he pounced, "It's really hard to concentrate sometimes."

"Okay, I'm ready." I said putting my game face on. We were both going to do it to practice.

He told me where he was supposed to tap and what his phrase was: "Even though I am feeling anxiety, I accept myself and it's going to be ok"

We started tapping and speaking together. It was really good ... for about 4 minutes, until we got to tapping under the mouth. He lost it and started giggling. But he was much calmer.

"Okay, let's stop and do it again tomorrow." I instructed while trying to suppress my own giggle.

It was a good start, it was nice to laugh with him today. Who knows? Maybe it will work tomorrow.