The Aspects Model in EFT – Old & New by Silvia Hartmann In Classic EFT, students were taught the old aspects model. For example, if a client had a spider phobia, and they had tapped on this and it was getting better but the client wasn't able yet to say they felt it had completely gone, they were questioned on more “aspects of the spider problem.” A diagram illustrates this:
Each thing the client didn't like about the spider was “an aspect” of the problem. Energy EFT works conceptually differently. The energy body goes through many different states as time moves on. For example, a person sitting as a client here today is not the “same person” they were when “they” were three years old. In Energy EFT, one person is infinite aspects through time, like this:
In Energy EFT, we use the term “aspect” to refer to any occurrence of a person in the past or in the future that isn't that person here and now.
So a 65 year old man would not say, “I wet my pants,” first person associated, but instead, they would say (and tap on) “My three year old aspect wet his pants.” Instead of saying, “I thought I was going to die when the bomb went off,” we say, “The aspect thought he was going to die when the bomb went off.” This does many things all at the same time. 1. First of all, it is far more correct to identify these aspects from the past (or the future) which are NOT THE PERSON HERE, RIGHT NOW. 2. The person, right here and now, gains the correct “perspective” on the aspects. 3. When that happens, it is much easier to become aware of what was happening, and also to find good set up statements for EFT treatments. 4. The person, here and now, can RELATE to the aspect back then and create a powerful and uplifting energetic relationship with that aspect. The aspects model provides additional information, and it is much safer for the client to talk about and engage with past trauma by considering their aspects, rather than using the global “I” of identity. In precise energy work, that sort of confusion is unhelpful. In Energy EFT, we call any aspect of ourselves which isn't here, right now, an aspect. We treat the aspect, and we do this in an orderly fashion by using time to sort out what happens, in a simple, logical, linear fashion. If we were treating the same spider phobia with a client and using the new aspects model, we would ask the client to consider a time when a past aspect had become very distressed by a spider. How old was the aspect? Where did this happen? What was the environment?* * This does not necessarily have to be the first event, or genesis event. ANY echo event will do (ie any occurrence of any past aspect getting frightened by spiders. Now, we get a STORY unfolding through time, step by step. What happened first? The aspect went into the shed in the grandparent's garden to fetch a watering can. This makes a whole lot more sense than to say, “I went into the shed,” for the person who is sitting here with the therapist is NOT the same person who went into the shed that day. They are far away in time from the event, and a totally different person in mind, body and spirit. If the client gets stressed at this time, we tap on the aspect who went into the shed until the client is calm, breathes easily, and feels ready to go on to “what happened next.” This is the question we ask as we unfold a timeline of events.
“And what happened next?” 1. The aspect bent down to pick up the green watering can. 2. The aspect saw something in the corner of his eye. 3. The aspect felt a bolt of fear going through them. 4. The aspect felt frozen with fear. 5. The aspect saw a big black spider swinging down from a thread. 6. The aspect saw it had horrible hairy legs. 7. The aspect saw that it had weird eyes. 8. The aspect saw the spider skittering away under the shelf. 9. The aspect ran away screaming. This is a straight unfoldment of events through time, and each step is treated with EFT as the aspect experiences one thing after the other. Even though such events happen very fast, they happen in a temporal order and sequence; and when this is resolved in the same temporal order and sequence, one step at a time, there will be a healing event at the end, and a resolution as the aspect is comforted by the grandparents. Now we can move to the person in the here and now and ask them how they feel now about spiders, and those events in general. We can also test now with a picture of a spider, or a real spider, and once again there will be a sequence of events that unfolds step by step through time we can be in control of. We can stop and treat until the person, here and now, is ready to go onto the next step. This is extremely logical and easy; and it is important because it brings back order, logic and sanity into what seemed to be such a confusing and “crazy” situation and behaviour.
The new aspects model is extremely powerful on many different levels and makes working with past, present and future direct, achievable, and very controllable. Once a person has learned to think of “past and future selves” as aspects of themselves, they can also do many things which seemed so impossible before. • •
• • •
You can love an aspect – it is easy. You can understand why an aspect did what they did – it makes sense, given the history and environment, whereas the question, “Why would I do such a thing?!” can never be answered (because it wasn't YOU it was a totally different aspect from a different time!). You can forgive an aspect, when it is structurally impossible to “forgive yourself” (that's like trying to jump over your own shadow). You can ask what future aspects might need to help them in a difficult situation. You can heal past aspects, learn from past aspects, have compassion for past aspects and all of that improves the energy flow through the energy body significantly.
The new aspects model is extremely powerful and used exclusively in modern energy work. It was developed for Events Psychology (2008) by Silvia Hartmann and languages energy events past, present and future logically and correctly. The aspects model is one of the new patterns from the Energy EFT Master Practitioner training, available exclusively from TheAMT (Guild of Energists). For further information, live trainings and distance learning options please see: http://theamt.com/courses/eft_master_practitioner.htm
www.TheAMT.com The Home Of Modern Energists