What the heck is ‘borrowing benefits’ during an EFT session?
Here’s a link to a video by Dr Peta Stapleton, award winning clinical and health psychologist and world researcher in EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques):
In it, she describes the phenomenon of borrowing benefits, as well as some of the research that has been done on this aspect of tapping.
One thing is clear: the research shows that borrowing benefits works (as weird as that may seem).
First, what is it?
(spoiler alert – I go geeky here with some of the research for a wee bit 😊).
Borrowing benefits is an EFT group technique, where the practitioner invites one person from the audience to work with them onstage, whilst all the other audience participants agree to just watch and tap along.
Each person in the audience first creates an inner focus for their tapping, along with a number from 0 to 10 on the subjective level of distress scale (that is a measure of how reactive they feel about the issue).
Once identified and measured, they then set aside their focus and just tap along with the practitioner and client onstage. And even when the topic is entirely different from their own, the audience report significant reductions in their own issues!
Maybe that sounds kind crazy. Or dubious at best. How could tapping on someone else’s challenge, when it’s entirely different from your own challenge, possibly have any impact on you?
Some of the research backing up EFT Borrowing Benefits…
And yet, rigorous scientific studies that have been done about this, have shown time after time, that it actually works! For example, in the first study of this phenomenon, 103 participants completed a series of psychological tests, before, a month after, and six months after a three-day EFT workshop.
Their global distress was unchanged a month before and right before the workshop.
During the workshops, they were encouraged to tap along, for borrowing benefits. They reported significant reductions in their symptoms.
And at both one and six months, they noted the dramatic improvements had maintained over time. Pretty encouraging results from just tapping along on someone else’s problems!
And this phenomenon is available even when you just tap along with someone else too (whether a practitioner or a friend).
How does it work?
We humans are hard-wired for social connection with each other. We are meant to grow optimally within nurturing, supportive relationships, even though there are many diverse variants of that.
Poet John Donne wrote – “No man is an island, entire of itself, Every man is a piece of the continent, A part of the main.” That captures some of what’s important to understand here.
In human babies with healthy, safe and reliable relationship development:
In our brains, from the time we are newborn babies, mirror neurons are one manifestation that helps explain how this works.
What are mirror neurons? Well, you know how when a young baby gazes up into your eyes and coos, you respond by smiling in delight? And your smile makes the baby smile back and sometimes wave their arms and legs in the air? And that makes you laugh aloud in delight?
That series of social interactions occur because of mirror neurons. We each mirror each other. It’s an incredibly important ‘watch and copy’ form of learning for the infant.
Research on neonatal imitation provides some interesting information about the early mirror neuron system (MNS), on how it functions and how it’s connected to later developmental skills.
It has been positively correlated with later cognitive social and motor development in babies/young children. For example, mirror neurons have been associated with the development of both empathy and emotional recognition, the latter being foundational to developing emotional intelligence. (EQ, by the way, is far more predictive of a happy, successful life than IQ).
Mirror neurons may also, via the mimicry involved in mirroring, support language development.
What happens when mirror neuron development is less than adequate for an infant?
In fact, research has shown that when infants are deprived of these basic human connections (such as babies growing up in an orphanage), without opportunities for rich and consistent mirror neurons to develop, it can profoundly impact on the infant’s later social, motor, behavioural, environmental and cognitive development. [1]
Likewise, here’s an example of mirror neurons at work. If you’re feeling great, but a friend comes over who’s feeling really down, depressed, upset, or crying, ever notice how your mood can shift suddenly, to reflect theirs?
That’s empathy, a skill that depends on the underlying mirror neurons at work.
When mirror neurons HAVEN’T developed healthily…
In people with psychopathic traits, for example, the mirror neuron system has been shown to have developed differently. At the same time, in people with psychopathic traits, there is also less empathy evident. [2]
It has also been suggested that narcissists show evidence of having fewer mirror neurons.
Psychiatric diagnoses aside, it turns out that one thing leads to another in a kind of vicious relational cycle: the less connected a person (with fewer mirror neurons) feels to another person, the less empathy they have.The less empathy they have, the less ‘likeable’ they may seem to others, making connecting with them more challenging for others.
This results in fewer opportunities for mirror neurons to help develop healthy ways of mimicking pro-social behaviour within emotionally enriching relationships.
Thus, a ‘small’ problem with mirror neurons may develop into more significant challenges in relating to others.
These are some of the negative outcomes of when mirror neurons don’t develop or function properly in very young infants. (There’s a whole cascade of impacts that can profoundly affect that child’s capacity to have nourishing relationships).
Down the Rabbit Hole a bit further…
It goes deeper than this, too. In the morphic quantum field of unity consciousness, we are all very, very interconnected with each other (whether we recognize it or not).
Scientists call this quantum entanglement – when two particles connect together in a certain way, regardless of how far apart they are in space.
Ever think of a friend you haven’t seen in a while… and then within minutes that person calls you on the phone? That’s quantum entanglement at a distance.
And our conscious awareness of it depends in part on how functional our mirror neuron network is. In one study, it was proposed that “two fundamental phenomena: quantum entanglement in physics and mirror neurons in biopsychology, can be described by using the same mathematical [protocol].” [3]
OK, that may be way more than you wanted to know, lol.
But the basic premise is that mirror neurons help us, from birth onward, to connect with others, and to feel safe in social relationships.
Some scientists have informally called mirror neurons the “monkey-see, monkey-do” brain cells.
How do mirror neurons work with EFT ‘borrowing benefits,’ in groups tapping together?
So in group tapping situations, all this suggests that it may matter less what you are tapping on (i.e. with words), than that you are all tapping together. Group tapping seems to create social connections in the morphic field.
Those empathic connections, built from mirror neurons, may then create the perfect set of circumstances – where empathy and feeling safe in connecting with others are both present. This allows the human subconscious to feel safe allowing old limitations – whatever they are – to dissolve.
Does it really work?
Research has shown that “in a one-day EFT seminar with a group of business owners, the participants demonstrated a large immediate reduction in indicators of psychological distress. Pain, the intensity of emotional memories, and cravings also diminished significantly.” [4] Studies to see if these results could be replicated have also been done.
Subjects in one study by Dawson Church and Audrey Brooks, PhD, were attendees who attended a one-day EFT workshop, in a series of 5 professional conferences offered. Reports measured significant improvement in mental health for the participants at all 5 conferences.
And follow up measurements found that they retained most of their gains over time.
A third study to see if borrowing benefits results could be replicated, found similar results – illustrating that borrowing benefits with EFT is effective, regardless of which EFT expert offers the workshop. [5]
My own simple experiments with EFT borrowing benefits…
When I began tapping again during a time of stress and duress, after a time of tapping dormancy, I used many videos on YouTube. I found them extremely helpful in reducing many of the symptoms with which I was struggling. I was tapping on a daily basis.
Eventually, I came to a time when I wanted more individualized tapping resourcing, to allow my tapping to go deeper.
Then I reached out and found a couple of skilled EFT and Hacking Reality practitioners. They could see aspects that were invisible to me. And using mirror neurons, we were able to tap into deeper levels, to clear my stress.
But I have also tapped in group settings. In fact, one of my most amazing tapping sessions happened when I was first learning to tap, in 2008. Two women came into my workplace for emergency resourcing.
After just 40 minutes of me tapping with one while the other tapped along, their level of distress went from a 9 or 10 down to a 0 – 1. The woman who ‘just’ tapped along got just as many benefits. You can read more about that tapping adventure here.
Developing tapping as a self-care process is always a good place to begin – it’s amazing!
But if you want to try borrowing benefits from the comfort of your own home, it’s easy.
Just go to YouTube, or www.eftuniverse.com to find a video about an issue you’d like to work on…
Or not, since borrowing benefits doesn’t depend on the same topic being tapped on. Tap along and see what shifts in you. Repeat as often as you like. (It feels good!)
Remember, the scientific studies that have been done on borrowing benefits. They show that you can tap along with anyone on anything. Even if the topic they’re tapping on is different, most people find they get significant results.
And even working one-on-one with a tapping practitioner creates a small borrowing benefits opportunity, that both will benefit from! How great is that?
Resources
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4006187/
- https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36151909/#:~:text=Differences%20were%20observed%20for%20all,processing%3B%20facial%20expressions%3B%20psychopathy
- https://inis.iaea.org/search/search.aspx?orig_q=RN:39005773
- https://www.scirp.org/journal/paperinformation?paperid=92996#:~:text=This%20study%20examined%20the%20psychological,and%20cravings%20also%20diminished%20significantly.
- https://eftuniverse.com/tutorial/borrowing-benefits/
