A Report on the Efficacy of Self-Hypnosis & EFT for Eliminating Skin Conditions

A Report on the Efficacy of Self-Hypnosis & EFT for Eliminating Skin Conditions

(Or How I Evicted a Whole Family of Verucae from their 15 year Encampment on the Sole of my Left Foot) by Derek Palmer

Sometime during 1994, I developed a verruca on the sole of my left foot.

Having previously anatomically hosted one or two warts which had appeared and then disappeared of their own accord within months and mindful of the fact that verrucae are members of the wart family, the new visitor didn’t unduly alarm me at first.

But when it soon became clear that this interloper was seemingly entrenching itself and settling in for the long haul, I decided to take some remedial action and visit a local Chiropodist.

This marked the first in what turned out to be a lengthy series of such visits to several different Chiropody practitioners over many years.

And during the course of these visits I probably experienced every type of treatment currently available: salicylic acid; duct tape; cryotherapy – freezing with liquid nitrogen – on two separate occasions; and even banana skin wrap!!

Following each of these treatments, there were occasional, modest signs of success ... quickly followed by an even more virulent return of ‘the offender’.

My final encounter with a Chiropody professional about the issue was a couple of years ago when it was suggested that I seek help from complementary sources, such as homeopathy, due to conventional treatments clearly being thus far ineffective.

Now, I appreciate that verrucae are hardly life-threatening but they are an embarrassment, an inconvenience and can, on occasions, be quite painful.

Moreover, my 1994 variety not only developed a growing fondness for its host environment but it also decided to replicate itself several times leading to my sole becoming a veritable breeding ground for verrucae so that by early 2009, the bottom of my left foot looked like this:

Derek Palmer

And, unsurprisingly, I had resigned myself to having these little fellows with me for the remainder of my days.
Until, that is, EFT [Emotional Freedom Technique] came galloping over my horizon to deliver me.

My interest in personal development has been life-long. As a schoolboy, I was always intrigued by “what makes us tick”. Throughout my 30 year sales and marketing career, I was passionately interested in learning about strategies and techniques to help me perform better in terms of communication skills and understanding of people.

And when in 2007 I finally reconciled my passion with my career by embarking on a Diploma Course in Hypnotherapy and NLP [Neuro-Linguistic Programming], I began a fascinating, ongoing period of study ... a by-product of which formally introduced me to Meridian Energy Therapies, including EFT.

I quickly learned that the overriding principle behind Meridian Energy Therapies is that emotional difficulties are associated with disturbances in the body-mind’s energy system and can be released by tapping on several points of the Meridian system.

I also learned that:

  • Meridian therapies are sometimes referred to as Energy psychology or Meridian-based Psychotherapy. These are umbrella terms for various techniques, developed by different people, such as Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), Thought Field Therapy (TFT) and Be Set Free Fast (BSFF).
  • The principles behind EFT were discovered in the 1980’s by Dr Roger Callahan, a clinical psychologist of more than 40 years experience, who had made it his life’s work to find a way to cure people of unfounded fears, phobias and anxieties.
  • Dr Callahan called his discovery Thought Field Therapy (TFT), on the grounds that thoughts related to the energy field in the body-mind, and that changing this energy field by tapping on meridian points could release negative or imbalanced emotions rapidly and easily.
  • Dr Callahan refined and researched his method, and today TFT and many of its descendants is the subject of serious scientific study and have already gained widespread acceptance.
  • Gary Craig, one of Dr Callahan’s students came up with the brilliant idea to tap all of the meridian points in a sequence; so whichever point or points were the correct ones, they would be covered by default.
  • Craig created a technique that everyone can learn to use very easily and quickly. This streamlined technique is known as Emotional Freedom Technique or EFT.
  • Positive change can often be dramatic, leaving people more relaxed, even smiling; and with significant new insights into the situation that has been troubling them.



And on Gary Craig’s website – www.emofree.com – I discovered video evidence of real people experiencing wonderful, dramatic, positive results ... often within minutes!

So, by the time I graduated as a Hypnotherapist and Licensed NLP Practitioner in October 2008, I was keen (for the benefit of all my prospective clients) to develop my therapeutic skills into the Meridian Energy field and I began researching suitable Courses to obtain an appropriate Practitioner qualification.

However, before continuing along this path, it occurred to me that I should discover for myself whether EFT works by putting it to the test on myself.

After all, I had certainly tested the power of Hypnotherapy when I successfully became a non-smoker for good in 1993 (following spectacular failures using willpower alone). And, self-hypnosis and NLP techniques had assuredly transformed me from a distinctly below-average, very self-conscious and unconfident public speaker into a vibrant, enthusiastic barnstormer of oration.

So self-testing EFT is a no-brainer.

But, for what?

To say I have absolutely no emotional baggage/issues would be outrageous but I do consider myself fortunate in being able to quite effectively “heal myself” in these areas and therefore when focussing my attention on suitable topics to address, try as I might, nothing significant on the emotional plane came to mind.

What DID come to mind though were my bothersome, unrelenting verrucae – now if EFT could help eliminate those little critters ...?

And that was how, on an otherwise unremarkable Spring day at “Palmer Towers”, I came to be standing in my study with Gary Craig’s EFT Manual (freely downloadable from www.emofree.com) perched open against my PC monitor, tentatively practising inaugural tapping routines ... to both the delight and bewilderment of our black lab.

I simply followed the instructions ... to the letter. My opening statement was as precise as it could be (“ Even though I have verrucae on the bottom of my left foot, I deeply and completely accept myself”) and I carried out 3 full rounds of The Basic Recipe ... with every intention of repeating this each day for 30 days, as suggested in the Manual.

As it transpired, I managed just 3 days of this activity! Not because it’s at all onerous. I simply got side-tracked by business and other “important” matters and, before I knew it, several days had gone by without me “doing my EFT”.

But, rather than beat myself up, I took this as a great opportunity for the effectiveness of EFT to REALLY be tested – so now, not only “if EFT can eliminate those little critters” but do so with only three sessions being undertaken by a completely novice Meridian Therapist (following the practice of a self-hypnosis protocol designed to further strengthen and underpin my belief in the body-mind) then that really WILL be impressive.

So I determined to temporarily forget my little experiment and just see what would happen over the next few weeks ... if anything.

Although the days and weeks that followed brought subtle but increasingly encouraging feelings of sole-revival, it wasn’t until a few months later that I finally allowed myself the luxury of a proper foot inspection.

And, aside from one or two signs of hard skin residue, my family of verrucae had completely vanished ... as can be seen here:


Derek Palmer

According to www.nhs.uk:
Warts are small, skin-coloured, rough lumps on the skin that are benign (non-cancerous). They often appear on the hands and feet. Warts can look different depending on where they are on the body and how thick the skin is. A wart on the sole of the foot is called a verruca.

Warts are caused by infection with a virus called the human papilloma virus (HPV). HPV causes keratin, a hard protein in the top layer of the skin (the epidermis), to grow too much, producing the rough hard texture of a wart.

According to www.patient.co.uk:
Without treatment, about 3 in 10 warts have gone within 10 weeks, and most warts will have gone within 1-2 years, and leave no scar. The chance that a wart will go is greatest in children and young people. Sometimes warts last longer. In particular, warts in older people are sometimes more persistent and may last for several years.


My wife regularly uses the services of a wonderful, local mobile Chiropodist and, following the astounding success of my self-hypnosis/EFT treatment, I took the liberty of booking myself a session with her at her next visit so as to gauge her professional opinion.

She ran her highly experienced, highly qualified eyes over my left sole; gently prodded at and then scraped away top layers of residual hard skin (where the verrucae had previously been resident) and announced: “Yes, they do seem to have cleared up completely.” Adding only, “If there is still an underlying viral condition, they may reappear ... but if so, this would normally occur within a few weeks.”

I am delighted to report that nothing of this type has (yet) taken place and, after 15 verrucae-filled years, I’m FREE!

πŸ—£ Chat!
Derek Palmer
Information about Derek Palmer
EFT Practitioner in New Milton, Hampshire, England & New Milton, Hampshire, United Kingdom.

Contact details and membership information for Derek Palmer:
  •  Creative - Plane Hypnotherapy
  •  New Milton, Hampshire, England
  •  New Milton, Hampshire, United Kingdom
  •  Visit Derek Palmer Website
  •  Qualified 22nd February 2010
  •  Member #65,178

Do you love ENERGY?Β Do you love working with energy, playing with energy, talking about energy and discovering more about Modern Energy?

The GoE is the place to be for Modern energists.

Sign up to GoE conference news

Find out what's on where, who's doing what in energy tapping & Modern Energy.Β Get special offers & the latest information on special events, workshops and certification courses.