Talk:Emotional Freedom Techniques

2022 review article by Church
Someone has recently attempted to use a 2022 review article by Church to claim that EFT is now 'evidence based'. We cannot use this source on Wikipedia - the conflict of interest held by Church has been well documented in the talk page archives. This review was also published in 'Frontiers in Psychology' -  Frontiers is a predatory publisher, and this journal is not indexed in MEDLINE. Per WP:MEDRS we cannot use it for medical claims. This series of edits also conflated APA sources about Emotionally focused therapy with Emotional Freedom Techniques - despite the similarity of acronym these are not the same thing. MrOllie (talk) 13:57, 29 November 2022 (UTC)


 * The acticle appears in a PubMed search - I asume that is the same as being indexed on MEDLINE. The authors interest is declared in the publication. Is it policy for editors to make judgements as to whether conflicts of interest should determine eligibility? Nigeln42 (talk) 15:08, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
 * You assume incorrectly. MrOllie (talk) 15:15, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Thank you for putting me right. I am still curious about the answer to my second question (albeit it is not relevant this instance). Nigeln42 (talk) 14:23, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

Claims of disproof
I made simple edits to improve the scientific accuracy of the article, and they were reverted with the unhelpful explanation of "better before." I would re-revert, but do not want to war; so please explain what your edit means, @Bon courage.

My edits were to change "EFT has no benefit as a therapy" to "EFT has not been shown to have any benefit as a therapy". The former makes an unscientific over-claim of certainty that there is no benefit. No such scientific certainty exists. Is not my edit more accurate? — Epastore (talk) 13:39, 25 March 2023 (UTC)


 * Adding weasel words to water down statements of fact is the opposite of improving the scientific accuracy of the article. MrOllie (talk) 13:43, 25 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Yup, it's not "disproof" which is a weird concept in medicine. Not working is just the default assumption. Bon courage (talk) 13:47, 25 March 2023 (UTC)
 * The burden of proof is on the proponents to show that the therapy has benefit beyond the well-known common factors of psychotherapy, as the sentence says. Biogeographist (talk) 13:54, 25 March 2023 (UTC)
 * By whom? It would be patently false to claim there is no life on other planets, just like it would be false to claim that there is. It is always best to be clear and accurate: we have not found proof of life on other planets. How is this case different? — Epastore (talk) 14:02, 25 March 2023 (UTC)
 * This isn't a case where we have no evidence either way. As the sources state, the only controlled studies have been disconﬁrmatory. MrOllie (talk) 14:07, 25 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Weasel words make things unclear; I was attempting to make it more clear. I am in no way trying to make this technique sound more valid; I am just trying to make the article less inaccurate. Epastore (talk) 14:02, 25 March 2023 (UTC)
 * I do assume that you were trying to make it more clear. But what you actually did was the opposite. MrOllie (talk) 14:07, 25 March 2023 (UTC)
 * I understand what you are claiming, but you give no explanation for your claims. How did I somehow make it more unclear by more accurately describing the state of the current evidence? I changed a claim of truth about efficacy (which is not scientifically valid) into a claim about the truth of the evidence (which is entirely valid). — Epastore (talk) 16:42, 30 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Your whole view of the matter is wrong. Medicine does not operate by "disproof". Bon courage (talk) 16:45, 30 March 2023 (UTC)
 * I am unclear on medical convention; but both Wikipedia and science work on dispassionately describing what is known without overclaiming any privileged knowledge of "Truth." I changed "EFT has no useful effect as a therapy" (a statement claiming to know the truth about efficacy) into "EFT has not been shown to have useful effect" (a statement about the state of the evidence). Explain how my "view" is wrong?
 * (For the record, I think the subject of the topic is not a worthwhile therapy. I am only looking to improve the encyclopedic tone of Wikipedia here.) — Epastore (talk) 16:51, 30 March 2023 (UTC)
 * So would you say "prayer has not been shown to cure cancer" or "prayer does not cure cancer". The former is just ignorant, wordy and bad. Bon courage (talk) 17:08, 30 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Yes I would say that if I was trying to use unbiased, encyclopedic, descriptive, scientifically-accurate language. You claim that this sort of language is "ignorant, wordy and bad," but give no justification for that seemingly-subjective claim. I claim that it is good because it presents facts more clearly with less bias and with minimal additional text (44 characters). — Epastore (talk) 20:40, 30 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Making a statement vague without any legitimate reason is not more accurate - it is less accurate, by definition. It would be like writing that World War II started sometime between 1900 and 2000. MrOllie (talk) 21:08, 30 March 2023 (UTC)
 * No, the current wording would be like writing that World War II was started by Hitler. That statement would be incorrectly over-specific. — Epastore (talk) 15:35, 18 May 2023 (UTC)

Now that we've gone full WP:GODWIN I suggest somebody closes this. Bon courage (talk) 15:38, 18 May 2023 (UTC)


 * Except I'm not comparing anyone to Hitler, only using his name as an easily-recognizable WWII culprit. I could substitute Churchill (who first declared war, after-all) and have the same effect. Please do not trivialize my concern in this discussion due to a simple trigger-word. — Epastore (talk) 15:46, 18 May 2023 (UTC)
 * We don't need to pretend that untestable pseudoscience might be true, just as we don't pretend that there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit. MrOllie (talk) 16:04, 18 May 2023 (UTC)

It is really rough to see Epastore battling this point out while being obviously right. Like, burden of proof is a really important concept, but its place on one side or the other doesnt actually make claims a priori true or false. Thats.... not really how empirical stuff works. 78.148.194.54 (talk) 22:10, 9 February 2024 (UTC) Like even if you specified *what* EFT doesn't benefit, that could be supported by the literature but otherwise "no benefit as a therapy" is such an over-reach that it implies it doesnt even perform on par with placebo (it does). (Obligatory disclaimer than im not some pseudoscience person and dont think EFT is real, just that we should be careful with our language here) 78.148.194.54 (talk) 22:14, 9 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Moved this from the Hitler part of the discussion to the bottom.
 * Nobody said anything was "a prori true or false". EFT is an implausible claim, and there is no good evidence for it and good evidence against it. So we say "EFT has no benefit as a therapy" because that is what the evidence says. All this nitpicking to replace the meaning of what scientists say by the misleading wording of what scientists say does not help the article. Scientists are not necesssarily good at conveying information to a lay audience, and the obsession with wordy precision instead of clarity is one reason. --Hob Gadling (talk) 07:28, 10 February 2024 (UTC)
 * "...has no benefit" is a claim of truth. It very clearly implies that there is absolutely no benefit whatsoever to this practice. There is no way any scientific study can ever prove that; so it is a weasly way of over-claiming what is actually known. The argument that being accurate somehow makes the language less clear makes no sense. Nobody is going to misinterpret my revision to mean that EFT has any benefit. My wording simply lets them know why we believe there is no benefit: because none has been demonstrated. That is very clear. Your arguments against it seem more like arguments for scientism than for science. — Epastore (talk) 20:20, 11 May 2024 (UTC)
 * As explained above, your wording was both less clear and less accurate. MrOllie (talk) 20:30, 11 May 2024 (UTC)

There are some scientific papers done regarding eft and there are scientific evidence for i
There has been scientific papers studying EFT and the results show that it is effective for anxiety, ptsd and psychological stress

Disappointed with this Wikipedia article saying that EFT is pseudoscience and placebo. 197.252.213.253 (talk) 16:32, 30 March 2023 (UTC)


 * Like? Bon courage (talk) 16:38, 30 March 2023 (UTC)
 * If you have citations to provide, then don't just complain that the article is inadequate. Please edit the article and include references to peer-reviewed studies. That is how Wikipedia improves. — Epastore (talk) 20:50, 30 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Specifically studies that meet WP:MEDRS, which is more stringent than just 'peer-reviewed'. MrOllie (talk) 21:06, 30 March 2023 (UTC)
 * 2 of many reputable research studies made on this subject: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6381429/
 * https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.951451/full
 * There is no evidence good enough for people who are stuck with "EFT is bullsh*t no matter what the facts show". I think it's sad that people who have the most time to undo everyone else's edits are the ones who get to choose what is included in the article. I will never trust Wikipedia again (let alone make any donations!). 90.215.225.39 (talk) 16:18, 3 April 2024 (UTC)
 * As has been discussed several times, we don't report on single primary studies, and Church has a massive conflict of interest and published in an unreliable (it is not MEDLINE indexed) journal from a predatory publisher. We can't use this stuff per WP:MEDRS. MrOllie (talk) 16:20, 3 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Yes you do: "A primary source is one in which the authors directly participated in the research and documented their personal experiences. They examined the patients, injected the rats, ran the experiments, or supervised those who did. Many papers published in medical journals are primary sources for facts about the research and discoveries made."
 * Church hasn't been involved in many, probably most of the studies on EFT. More examples: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Tukimin-Sansuwito/publication/358283585_The_Effect_of_EFT_Emotional_Freedom_Technique_to_the_Self_Esteem_among_Nurses/links/61fb52e8aad5781d41c94f47/The-Effect-of-EFT-Emotional-Freedom-Technique-to-the-Self-Esteem-among-Nurses.pdf
 * https://www.researchgate.net/publication/349185541_Emotional_Freedom_Technique_EFT_Therapy_on_Chronic_Kidney_Disease_CKD_Patients_to_Reduce_Fatigue 90.215.225.39 (talk) 16:35, 3 April 2024 (UTC)
 * You're quoting the definition given of what we don't use. If you read the rest of the guideline you might have notice the large bolded text reading: Avoid primary sources MrOllie (talk) 16:36, 3 April 2024 (UTC)
 * It doesn't make any sense as any secondary and tertiary sources are based on primary sources in the first place. I don't know why you are so interested in preventing the public from accessing this information. I'd be more worried about the big pharma who are indeed profiteering from people's poor health while EFT can be free or low cost if you work with an EFT therapist (compared to usual treatment which is counselling + being on antidepressants for decades) and much safer. 90.215.225.39 (talk) 16:44, 3 April 2024 (UTC)
 * If you don't understand the guidelines, feel free to ask questions at WP:TEAHOUSE. But this article is going to follow them even if you think they don't make sense. I am personally interested in keeping Wikipedia in compliance with its sourcing policies. People can 'access this information' on other websites. MrOllie (talk) 16:48, 3 April 2024 (UTC)
 * We have been providing plenty of citations, they just keep being censored by those who have made of editing Wikipedia to their liking their full time job. It's sad that people cannot find a reliable and unbiased source of information on Wikipedia. 90.215.225.39 (talk) 16:38, 3 April 2024 (UTC)
 * You've been making lists of stuff that obviously does not meet WP:MEDRS. No amount of unreliable sources adds up to a reliable one. We keep fringe claims in predatory journals out of the encyclopedia for a reason. MrOllie (talk) 16:39, 3 April 2024 (UTC)