Dr Reto Wyss - Interview

First let’s talk about your background and how you got to where you are today. Specifically, how did you find your way to Meridian Energy Therapies?

As a trained psychotherapist and Business coach I´m all the time on a kind of quest looking for the best tools that may help ease the suffering of my clients. Due to this, a lot of different very powerful methods “landed” finally within my professional toolbox: Neurolinguistic Psychotherapy (NLPt), Expressive Arts Therapy, Hypnosis, EMDR, brief and solution oriented stuff… However, 8 years ago, I encountered EFT! And this was the time when really a door to a new world opened up. It was the world that I was longing to find for so long.

The first time I used EFT on myself it was simply UNBELIEVABLE: It was unbelievable that it did work so fast, so smoothly – and it was really unbelievable for me that something like can work. I mean, I could consult every teacher and professor I ever had, I could look into every book in my bookshelf, I could track down my own personal process – and all of them would say: It is not possible that tapping some body points really will change negative emotions… In fact, I had a long phase of re-learning and opening myself up to this new field of energy psychology – but I wanted to know as much as possible about this realm. A new world opened up me and I designated myself to really understand all these nice little acronyms like EFT, TFT, BSFF, TAT – and of course, EMO..

What is it that you find most helpful about EFT, EMO and your other skill sets?

The really nice part is: These methods work, they really do! This is just amazing. Of course, it´s great for the therapist, the coach, the healer. But, it´s even greater for our clients because they finally find healing and gentle ways of ease their suffering. I believe that life is always connected to suffering – it´s simply a fact of life, it´s a human existential. We will never come to a point when nothing will hurt us anymore, because we have a body. We are vulnerable physical beings.

Pain is an essential part of our human live of our “Sein” as Heidegger stated it – and this is unchangeable. The only thing we can do (and hope for) is to find powerful tools that will help us to go on with our life, to live our dreams – even though there are moments of pain and suffering in our life: Energy psychology intervention are simply the best tools for this. Yes, EMO and EFT are not only powerful tools but they are also 1.) easy to learn and remember, 2.) easy and spontaniously to handle in every possible situation in our lives, 3.) empowering, as we realize that we are able to help ourself and create new affective realities – and finally 4.) they have instant effect on our well being.

And this last part is something that is most important: We FEEL that it works (even though we will not understand the how and why): We feel it DIRECTLY in our body – and the body is our primary representation form in this world. Whenever tension and stress fades away we feel save in our body… save in this, in our world! Thus, whenever we really can be and rest in our body we will find the best ways to conquer all the challenges that show up in our lives because we are in full contact with our true potential. And our potential is far greater that we even dare to believe.

What are your favourite applications of these techniques?

Well, whenever I work with clients I see myself more like a servant. I serve to help the person to solve his problem. The goal is always that he learns to master the present challenge(s) in his life.

Out of this I seldom fall back on something like my favourite tools or my favourite procedures but more on my own intuition. I take the tool out of my toolbox that seems – out of the momentum – most appropriate. For sure, as I mentioned before, one of my primary focus is always the body, as the body is our most accurate feedback organ to our “being in this world”.

Surely, EMO, by definition, is an ideal tool to work with the body and all its tensions, blockages, pains… But also with EFT or TAT we may chase the pain out of the body. Whenever you would watch me working with clients I would always switch modalities, techniques and levels of attention. I think professionalism is linked to a great variability of approaches and techniques. And there is one thing that I really need to go in for a moment: Out of the fantastic healing effects that may result out of applying EMO or other modalities the practitioner should never forget that even if he knows how to apply a powerful technique does not mean that he is a coach, therapist or even psychotherapist.

Professional coaches, therapists or psychotherapist have to go through trainings that last around 3 to 6 years – and within these trainings they learn to relate to a person, to build up trust and rapport, to make working-contracts with their clients, to learn specific questioning in order to set the real core goals and they learn to help their clients to transform the just experienced emotional cognitive changes into their further life. Helping people is far more than having a nice tool, it´s a profession and it is connected to a huge responsibility.

I believe, that helping people is less a question of using tools than more an art of creating moments of trustful relationships in which change can happen. Lately I watched the Spiderman movie and there is this very nice sentence: “Great power is connected to great responsibility”. We should never forget this… even though we have such simple tools with such an unbelievable effectivness! Gary Craig somehow pinpointed this with his favourite sentence: “Stay where you belong”!

You are one of the most active trainers in Europe, training hundreds of people per year. What is the secret to your success?

What in general is the key to success? I think it is authenticity and congruency!

Whenever I am able to be who I really am, whenever I do what really does inspire me, whenever I really love myself doing what I do: Success is inevitable. For sure, there are other things that seemed to help me. Something I quite often get as a feedback is, that clients and trainees trust my traditional background. My studies and scientific degrees in psychology, psychotherapy and philosophy give me a kind of trustful sincerity. Even though I do some fancy stuff with these energy methods it’s hard for the people to put me in the esoteric hocus-pocus field.

I really see this point and consider this as really helpful for attracting people in the first moment. However, as soon as people sit in the first row of my seminars all this credential and reputation thing fades away – and the only thing that is left is ME; and if I´m not totally authentic I will never see them again after the training.

Ok, I wouldn´t consider this as a huge problem when people do not show up for the next level of EMO or whatever method you do train. The real tragedy is that people will not apply these great methods in their daily life, just because I was not totally authentic and congruent! How sad is this, what a misery!

Thus, authenticity and congruency is always the crucial factor to real success. At least if I take my picture of success: Being able to change the world a little bit – and with every person that suffers less, the world becomes step by step an even better place to live!

Fantastic to see you will be flying in to present "Performance Mastery" at the International EMO Conference this year in April. What in your opinion makes EMO the perfect tool for athletes and performance seekers alike?

In the high performance field the so called “mental training” is an essential part of developing the potential. Out of my experience in a lot of cases “mental training” does not work - and this is due to the blockages that we bear in us.

I can say “I´m gonna win this race” and I can go into my mental training room and visualize myself as the winner. OK, but… here is a very important point to consider whenever we use such powerful tools like visualization or affirmations. If there is a subtle negative feeling connected to my “I´m the winner” visualization and if I train this over and over, the negative feeling gets stronger and stronger – and I NEVER will make it to the top.

In EMO theory we would even say, that mental training could make the problem even worse, as we block and block the energy flow every time… and the energy gets harder and harder! But, we can only show our true potential and perform on the best level possible if we are in free flow! Again, whenever we are fully in the here and now, whenever we are fully in our bodies and whenever we are in true inner balance, success is really inevitable! A lot of studies show that high performance is only possible if we apply structured forms of mental training. We need to visualize the goal state in a relaxed state of being, train our thoughts in the so called alpha brain state!

However, this works only if we are “grounded” in our bodies and experience total balance and harmony. The great thing about EMO is that you can apply EMO even though you are in a relaxed alpha state. Thus, it is a really powerful thing to visualize your goal, noticing the blockages, releasing them with EMO until you can see yourself in the winner pose WHILE you are in free flow.

This is the real secret – I mean the one that stands behind “The Secret”, this is pure attraction!

You are a busy man, so thank you very much for taking the time out your schedule to talk to us.

It was a pleasure! Thank you very much – and see you in Brighton!

• Learn more about and contact Reto Wyss
• Further information about Reto Wyss and Performance Masterery at the International EMO 2007 Conference