There are phobias so severe that they can prevent you from leading a normal life. For example, not going outside because you are afraid of cats, not being able to walk in crowds or having a fear of water are phobias that can make life very difficult, simple though they may seem.

Then there are things that cause pain, that are a result of past experiences and affect the future, like the trauma caused by losing someone or the heartache caused by a break-up. What if we were to tell you that these types of fears and emotional pains could be effaced in just one to two hours?

With EFT or Emotional Freedom Techniques this is possible. What is more, it does not require that you go inside a machine out of a science fiction film that erases all the data in your brain. By tapping important points on your body your fears or past are addressed and these fears and memories are wiped out.

EFT, which was introduced in Turkey just seven years ago, is a method that was developed by American engineer and NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) expert Gary Craig, based on American clinical psychologist Roger Callahan’s ‘Thought Field Therapy’.

Roger Callahan’s story goes like this:
“For many years, Callahan researches Eastern philosophies and techniques in addition to conventional psychotherapy. When a patient he is treating with a water phobia tells him, ‘Just the thought of water makes me feel sick to the stomach!’ he comes up with the idea of tapping the meridian that is linked directly with the stomach. Tapping this meridian, located just beneath the eye, immediately rids the patient of his nausea. What is more surprising is that the patient’s water phobia, for which he has been receiving treatment for one and a half years without much success, disappears miraculously. Unable to believe this, Callahan proposes that his patient go to the nearest swimming pool. The patient, who was previously unable to go anywhere near water, excitedly splashes his face with the water from the pool. Thus Callahan develops this method. Gary Craig, for his part, simplifies it and looks for a solution whereby a single technique can be used to cure all problems.

I first applied the method to myself

We spoke to İpek Cihan Bilgin, one of the first people to apply the technique in Turkey, about EFT.

She told us how she became acquainted with EFT:
“I first discovered the technique in a book. Then I tried the method on myself and I saw that it yielded miraculous results. You use it against negative feelings and all your anger is lost instantly. I decided to get training for the method and help people with it. Reiki was known at that time but people did not know EFT. Gary Craig trained me in technique.”

When you learn this technique, can you apply it to yourself?

After you receive training, you can apply what you have learned wherever you want for the rest of your life. All you need in order to do this are your fingers. You can learn the technique in just one day. The human being is an entity that consists of energy; it is made up of atoms and molecules. Everything is connected. Negative emotions get trapped in this field of energy. EFT is about releasing this. The thing we call anger is actually trapped energy. EFT allows it to escape and turn into light. There are certain meridian points in the body and EFT uses 14 of these. These points are found on the fingers and face. Every topic has a specific sentence that goes with it. The sentence needs to be formed according to the emotion you want to rid yourself of.

Is EFT certain to succeed?

The success rate is very high, from 80-90 percent. The individual’s willingness is extremely important in this technique.

In which areas can EFT be employed? Its uses are wide-ranging. It is particularly effective on phobias. You can use it against any type of negative emotion. You can rid yourself of phobias towards cats, dogs. Flying or heights with EFT. It is also useful in separations. For example, someone who is suffering because of a separation from their spouse or partner can rid themselves of emotional pain using this method. People who lose someone close may experience traumatic bereavement.

The method is also effective against this type of trauma. With EFT you can get rid of everything from anger or guilt to feelings of missing someone. It is also effective on additions like chocolate, cigarettes or alcohol. It is possible to be rid of these within a matter of minutes, or a maximum of one or two hours. It is also used against school-related stress. It is very effective at dealing with negative situations related to a child’s approach to school, such as a phobia towards mathematics or anxiety about exams.

It is different from other techniques

EFT is a very quick technique. It can rid an individual of their issues within minutes, without the need for years of therapy. Of course the length of the process depends on what the person has been through and what they want to achieve. Another difference is that one is not dependent on another person; one can perform the technique on oneself. The other advantages are that it does not have any side effects and that the emotions it renders positive are of a permanent nature.

What is it good for?

For example, people suffering from a cat phobia generally cannot go out to eat. This leaves a major void in their lives. After using this method, some people are even able to touch cats. The psychological aspect of alcoholism can also be cured. It is necessary to see a doctor about the physical harm it causes, but the reasons behind the addiction can be cleared away. There are even people who are addicted to ice cream who use the technique. They may eat up to two tubs of ice cream a day. The feeling of loneliness is usually what lies beneath this problem. This feeling can be made to disappear. EFT is also recommended as a complimentary treatment for people who suffer from panic attacks.

Concerning the past…

Techniques besides EFT are used to clean the life space. For different reasons, energy fields can contract. While it is possible with EFT to get rid of fears, addictions and anger stemming from life experiences, another technique, called ‘Spreading Light into the Life Space’. Is used for ‘bad’ habits that run in the family genetically. So the excuse “What can I do. I was raised this way’ leaves our lives for good. What is the purpose of the technique? We live in a time where everything happens so quickly that it is incredibly difficult to keep up. There is a great need for healing. The first step is to be aware of these things. It is absolutely crucial that people are aware of themselves and their emotions. These methods help people find solutions to their problems. If people are self-aware, they can achieve a more comfortable life without great difficulty. The goal is to establish a more peaceful and pleasurable life. The techniques are just a means to achieve that goal.

Katie Cox recalls sitting in a geology class freshman year when she was suddenly overwhelmed with sadness. She started crying, and couldn’t stop, which was embarrassing for Cox, a St. Louis sophomore.

A few weeks before, Cox’s good friend from high school had committed suicide. Because she was from out-of-state and didn’t have close friends here and her boyfriend was at a different school, her adjustment from high school to college had been difficult. Her friend’s death was the tipping point.

Cox wasn’t motivated to do anything, didn’t feel like socializing, ate and slept poorly and cried so frequently she began wearing sunglasses to class to hide her tears.

Cox had joined an increasing number of college students who suffer from depression so severe that they can’t manage everyday tasks. According to the American College Health Association (ACHA), the percentage of college students diagnosed with depression has increased 56 percent in the last six years. That depression is often triggered by leaving a structured home life, high school friends and relationships for a college life where students have to make their own decisions. Psychological problems such as depression often first surface during early adulthood and late adolescence. In addition, the college social scene is centered on the powerful depressant alcohol, which can make these feelings even worse.

Depression can manifest itself in different ways. Students may feel like they never want to get out of bed or don’t want to shower, and they begin to isolate themselves from friends. However, students like Cox can reach out to get the help they need, whether it’s therapy, anti-depressant drugs or natural mood-boosters, and the University of Kansas has made these options available for students.

Defining depression
Students often feel sad and homesick when they leave for college freshman year, but depression goes beyond these feelings, Stephen Ilardi, associate professor of psychology at the University, said. He said there was more public misunderstanding of depression than of any other illness.

“Everyone has sadness,” Ilardi said. “Depression is not just moodiness and sadness. It profoundly impairs your ability to function, ability to stay asleep, quality of sleep, robs you of energy and the ability to concentrate.”

Melissa Farr, Leavenworth senior, has suffered from depression periodically since freshman year. Farr had a tough time settling in with roommates, broke up with her boyfriend of three years and was experiencing hormone problems. She began to withdraw from friends, and her grades plummetted. She turned to alcohol for to escape it all, not realizing it was a depressant that would only worsen her condition.

“For the longest time I was just kind of naïve and sugarcoating everything and not wanting to say ‘Look, cut the crap; there’s something wrong,’” Farr said.

Farr had to force herself to care about school or even shower. She didn’t care whether she ate, and she lived for weekend nights. Instead of attending class, Farr spent her time lying alone in bed, in the darkness and silence of her dorm room, while her roommate was in class or socializing.

“If I was asleep all the time, that was less time awake to experience reality and having to deal with things,” Farr said. “My bed was a safe place to be.”

Hara Morano, editor at large of Psychology Today, has extensively studied depression in college students and said a lack of engagement was the main cause of depression.

“That’s how you define it. Kids who are not engaged intellectually have no flow, no real deep meaningful exchange. They think about themselves all the time. When you are engaged with something on the outside, you grow and are forced to reflect on that experience,” Morano said.

Ilardi called depression a neurological runaway stress response in the brain with a set of physical reactions to it, similar to the flu.

“They have no energy, feel like they just want to crawl in a hole and don’t want any interaction,” Ilardi said.

Ilardi said depression could negatively impact memory and appetite and make those who suffer from it lethargic. Depression stimulates the parts of the brain that register physical pain, and some people say depression can hurt worse than natural childbirth or a kidney stone, he said.

Marcia Epstein, director of Headquarters Counseling Center in Lawrence, said depression could look like anger and aggression, not just like tears and withdrawal. She said feelings of depression didn’t necessarily diminish over time regardless of support and self-care. She said that if people could just decide to feel better, they would, but that “it’s just not that easy.”

This often causes depressed students to drop out of school, and those who don’t drop out have to force themselves to keep at it.

Morano said, “They can perform sort of like robots, going through the motions of current and extracurricular life, but there’s no soul there. It is really hard to study if your mind has been hijacked by stress or anxiety.”

Farr said she struggled to carry on.

“It was almost like I was forcing myself. There was a part of me that knew I had to get up and shower and eat and stuff like that, but I didn’t care,” she said.

Cox said she didn’t feel like herself.

“I was just kind of flat,” Cox said. “I felt like I was alone trying to handle this by myself. A lot hit me all at once.”

Extent of the problem
According to an ACHA survey of 23,863 students from 34 colleges, including the University, 35 percent said they felt so depressed it was difficult to function one to 10 times in the past year. If that percentage held true for the 28,000 KU students, almost 10,000 of them would have felt depressed in the past year.

Ilardi called depression on college campuses an “epidemic.” He estimated that around one in five of the 600 students in his classes were currently depressed or had taken antidepressants. Ilardi said that because he taught classes such as abnormal psychology, the percentage of depressed students in his classes may be higher than the total number at the University because students who suffered from psychological problems were more interested in the subject.

“The proportion of students who have told me directly about their own experience with depression is really pretty staggering,” Ilardi said.

Morano, a Psychology Today editor, said the increasing rates of depression were “astronomically high on college campuses these days, no matter what sources you look at.”

Morano said depression was common in young people because of the stress that college can cause, their lack of coping skills to effectively deal with internal pain and because their parents hovered over them and prevented them from developing a healthy sense of self.

Before students went off to college, they had structure in their homes, Morano said. They wake up at the same time each day, go to school and have parents who make them meals and tell them what to do.

“Then you get to college on your own and have to decide when you go to sleep, when to get up and when to study. There’s more room to not be self-organized and fall apart,” Morano said.

Alcohol and Depression
The college atmosphere can be detrimental to someone dealing with depression because social life revolves around “keggers”, parties and going to bars. Because alcohol is a depressant, it only deepens the depression and hides its symptoms.

When Farr first became depressed, she spent her weekends drinking. That’s all she would think about. When Sunday evenings came around and the weekend was over, it would depress her even more.

“When I was out getting drunk, it was the best thing there was,” Farr said. “I thought if I can still go out and have a good time, then I can’t be depressed.”

However, it only masked her problems and worsened them. She used alcohol to cover up against suspicions her friends had about her depression.

According to a study done in 2003 by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, alcohol-dependent individuals are almost 4 times more likely to have a major depressive disorder than those who are not dependent. The study also found that alcohol abuse was more common among students who had been diagnosed with depression than among those who had not.

Ilardi said that alcohol could seem desirable for those who are depressed, because of the substance’s anti-anxiety effect.

“Ultimately, though, it is a disastrous choice for someone fighting depression, as it tends to make depressive symptoms worse,” he said.

Farr said that only after she had stopped drinking and isolated herself from her friends was she able to understand her depression and seek help.

“The alcohol was masking everything all along, and once I stopped partying and stopped drinking, it was a huge slap in the face, that wow there is a problem,” Farr said. “You definitely can’t drink and be depressed. I’ve learned that now.”

Treatment of depression
In March of Farr’s freshman year, after an extremely difficult start for her, Farr realized she was close to rock bottom. She was sitting in her dorm room looking out her window that overlooked campus, which had always been a source of strength for her. It was a beautiful Sunday, and Farr finally picked up the phone and called her mom to ask for help.

“I can’t do this on my own anymore,” Farr told her. “It was definitely a huge weight off my chest; I could finally take a deep breath,” she said of the phone call.

Farr began seeing a therapist and started taking Lexapro, an antidepressant. Her depression began to lift. Unlike others who take antidepressants, she suffered no side effects, and slowly built herself back up. She was eventually able to stop taking the drugs and going to therapy.

Over the summer before her senior year, she began to relapse. She was irritated frequently and again withdrawn from others. She started to give up on school. She went back on Lexapro, but this time suffered side effects such as insomnia and headaches.

“If anything, I felt worse,” Farr said. “I wish I wouldn’t have even gotten back on the medication, because it was terrible, but now I’m over that hurdle and don’t really have any of the side effects.”

Medication is a controversial treatment for depression among younger people. Not all psychologists and psychiatrists agree that antidepressants are effective or the best answer for college-age patients. Some studies suggested younger depression patients who took drugs were more likely to consider suicide.

Also, medications such as Xanax, Lexapro and Effexor that psychiatrists commonly prescribe for depression, can cause sleep problems, nausea, fatigue and decreased libido.

“There’s a bizarre irony for antidepressants,” said Ilardi, the associate professor of psychology. He said that the use of such drugs “has increased exponentially over the last couple of decades and despite this, the rate of depression just keeps going up and up and up. It’s not like we have a widely effective treatment.”

Morano said she didn’t think antidepressants alone were the answer.

“You don’t learn the coping skills, and I personally don’t think it is all that effective,” Morano said.

Cox treated her depression with Lexapro, and she said she felt better within two weeks. After about four months she stopped taking the medication.

John Wade, outreach coordinator of KU Clinical and Psychological Services (CAPS), said that at times medicine was very helpful, but that treatment had to be decided on a student-by-student basis. He said working with a therapist always helped people make progress more quickly.

“It’s like trying to become a better tennis player without a coach,” Wade said about taking antidepressants without seeing a therapist.

Epstein, of Headquarters Counseling Center, said that whatever the treatment, it was most important for people to seek it.

“We need to feel just as comfortable getting help for a mental health problem as we do for physical health problems,” Epstein said.

Ilardi said depression left untreated could lead to brain damage and shrinkage of key areas in the brain.

Other than drugs and therapy, treatments for depression include exercise, sunlight and Omega-3 supplements. Avoiding caffeine, alcohol and nicotine helps, and Epstein said that expressing yourself through art, journals or simple conversation with others could ease the pain of depression.

Psychology Today’s Morano said, “Just doing things that are pleasurable helps. Working out, sex, being with other people, doing something for other people are all mood boosters and take pressure off of yourself and are all important.”

Morano said universities needed to take a larger role in helping students deal with such a common problem.

“Even if the universities didn’t cause the problem, I think they have a job to help solve it, because they’re part of the business, and part of the job is making people whole socially, emotionally and cognitively,” Morano said.

CAPS, Watkins Memorial Health Center and the Headquarters Counseling Center all offer therapy and other services for students with depression. CAPS offers individual counseling and group therapy and has a psychiatrist to prescribe medications. They also have a free online screening for depression, anxiety and alcohol use that students can use to determine whether they need help and how severe their problems are.

Cox is grateful she received help for her depression. She said she thought about how her friend who committed suicide not have done so had he gotten help. Farr still battles depression and worries she will suffer relapses for the rest of her life. She is currently in a two-year-long relationship and rarely drinks anymore, but said her medication made her emotionally numb.

“I definitely have my good days and bad days,” Farr said. “I mean you just have to carry on. You have to find it somewhere in you, no matter how bad you are, to just carry on.”

Those are the surprising findings from a worldwide study of two million people from 80 countries. The researchers, economists Andrew Oswald from the University of Warwick in England and David Blanchflower from Dartmouth College in the United States, found that happiness levels followed a U-shaped curve, with happiness higher towards the start and end of our lives. Across cultures, they found, depression and unhappiness typically strike people in midlife.

The findings are important because other studies have suggested that psychological well-being stays relatively flat and consistent as people age, the researchers said. The latest report, to be published in Social Science & Medicine, analyzed information from several sources. Data was collected from 500,000 randomly sampled Americans and West Europeans from large surveys. The authors also analyzed data on the mental health levels of 16,000 Europeans, the depression and anxiety levels among a large sample of British citizens, and data from “The World Values Survey,” which provides samples of people in 80 countries.

The researchers found that for both British men and women, the probability of depression peaks around 44 years of age. In the United States, unhappiness peaks at around age 40 for women and 50 for men. They found the same U-shape in happiness levels and life satisfaction by age for people living in 72 countries. (The full list of countries can be found here.)

The authors noted that signs of midlife depression are found in all kinds of people and not just those affected by divorce or changes in jobs or income.

“Some people suffer more than others, but in our data the average effect is large,” said Dr. Oswald. “It happens to men and women, to single and married people, to rich and poor, and to those with and without children. Nobody knows why we see this consistency.”

Despair in midlife comes on slowly, but the good news is that it doesn’t last.

“It looks from the data like something happens deep inside humans,” Dr. Oswald said. “Only in their 50s do most people emerge from the low period. But encouragingly, by the time you are 70, if you are still physically fit, then on average you are as happy and mentally healthy as a 20-year-old. Perhaps realizing that such feelings are completely normal in midlife might even help individuals survive this phase better.”