What Can You Do After EFT Practitioner Training?

One of the questions people often have before attending EFT Practitioner Training is what they will actually be able to do afterwards.

Does practitioner training mean you can work with clients? Can you add EFT to an existing therapy or coaching practice? Can you run workshops? What is involved in becoming accredited? And, if you want to continue developing professionally, where can EFT training eventually take you?

There is no single answer because people come to EFT Practitioner Training for very different reasons.

Some want to establish a professional EFT practice. Some are already therapists, coaches or other professionals and want to integrate EFT into the work they already do. Others want practitioner-level knowledge and skill without any intention of becoming a professional practitioner.

All of those are valid reasons for training.

After more than 34 years working therapeutically and 26 years training people in EFT, I have seen students take what they learn in many different directions. What matters is understanding what practitioner training prepares you for, the boundaries of your level of training, and what further development is required if you want to progress professionally.

What Does EFT Practitioner Training Actually Give You?

EFT Practitioner Training should give you considerably more than the ability to perform the tapping sequence.

It is relatively easy to learn where the EFT tapping points are. It is also possible to find an enormous amount of information about tapping online. But knowing where to tap is not the same as knowing how to work effectively with another person.

Practitioner training develops the skills involved in identifying what to work on, listening for important information, recognising possible connections, choosing appropriate EFT approaches and responding to what happens as a session develops.

You are learning not only how to tap, but how to think as an EFT practitioner.

That distinction becomes increasingly important as you gain experience.

If you would like a broader introduction to what professional EFT training involves, you can also read What Is EFT Training?

You Don’t Have to Become a Professional EFT Practitioner

Completing practitioner-level training does not mean you have to establish an EFT practice.

Some people want a much deeper understanding of EFT because they have experienced its benefits themselves and want to become more skilled in using it. Others want to understand emotional patterns, triggers and responses at a much more sophisticated level.

You may therefore choose to use what you learn primarily for your own personal development.

Practitioner training can give you a much greater range of approaches than simply learning basic EFT. It can also help you understand why you might choose one approach rather than another.

There will still be times when working with another practitioner is preferable. Training does not necessarily give us objectivity about our own experiences, particularly where significant trauma or complex emotional issues are involved.

Nevertheless, practitioner-level knowledge can become an extremely valuable personal resource.

You Can Work Towards Becoming an Accredited EFT Practitioner

For students who do want to work professionally, completing the live practitioner training is an important stage, but it is not the whole accreditation process.

My EFT Practitioner Training follows the standards of EFT International, a worldwide professional EFT organisation.

After completing the required training, students who want to become Accredited EFT Practitioners move into a post-training period of consolidation, practice and assessment.

This distinction is important.

Completing EFT Practitioner Training and becoming an Accredited EFT Practitioner are not the same thing.

The training gives you the knowledge and foundation. The post-training process gives you time to consolidate what you have learned and demonstrate that you can apply it competently.

Students are expected to complete this consolidation and testing phase within one year of attending the training. If they do not complete it within that period, EFT International requires them to re-attend the Level 2 element of the training before continuing towards accreditation.

I offer my students discounted re-attendance where this is required.

The fastest I have seen someone complete the accreditation process is approximately three to four months after practitioner training. However, accreditation is not something I believe should be rushed.

The objective is competence, not speed.

For a detailed explanation of the distinction, read EFT Certification vs Accreditation: What’s the Difference? You can also find more information about the EFT practitioner accreditation process.

You Can Begin Developing Real Practitioner Experience

Something changes when you move from practising techniques during a training course to actually gaining experience using EFT.

Real people do not arrive with neatly organised problems.

A person may tell you they are anxious, but as you explore the problem you may discover that the anxiety is connected to a particular event, anticipation of something happening, a belief about themselves, an earlier experience or a number of interconnected factors.

This is where practitioner experience becomes so important.

The more you practise, the more you develop your ability to listen, notice patterns, identify useful targets and make decisions about where to take the work.

You gradually move away from asking:

“Which EFT technique am I supposed to use?”

and towards asking:

“What is happening here, and what would be most useful to work with?”

That development cannot come entirely from a training manual or a classroom.

It comes through training combined with practice, mentoring, reflection and experience.

You Can Establish an EFT Practice

For some students, practitioner training is the beginning of an entirely new professional direction.

Once you have met the appropriate requirements for professional practice, including the relevant training, competence, accreditation, insurance and any requirements that apply where you live and work, you may choose to establish an EFT practice.

Some practitioners work quite broadly. Others gradually develop particular areas of interest.

You might find yourself particularly drawn to working with confidence, anxiety, stress, emotional patterns, performance, fears or another area that interests you.

You do not necessarily need to decide on a niche when you first qualify.

In fact, gaining broader practitioner experience can help you discover the type of work that particularly interests you and where your strengths lie.

If becoming a practitioner is your goal, you may also find How Do I Become an EFT Practitioner? useful.

You Can Add EFT to Work You Already Do

Not everyone who attends EFT Practitioner Training is starting from scratch.

Over the years I have trained many people who already work therapeutically or professionally with others. They may be therapists, counsellors, psychotherapists, coaches, hypnotherapists, complementary practitioners or people from other professional backgrounds.

For these students, EFT may become an additional approach within an existing professional practice rather than a completely separate career.

Existing professional experience can be extremely valuable, but it does not remove the need to learn EFT properly.

EFT has its own principles and subtleties, and one of the most important skills is learning how to target the work effectively.

Similarly, learning EFT does not automatically extend the scope of another professional qualification. Whatever your background, you need to work within your competence, professional role and insurance.

You Can Work One-to-One With Clients

For people intending to practise professionally, one-to-one client work is one of the main ways EFT Practitioner Training may eventually be used.

This is where the depth of practitioner training becomes particularly important.

Client work is not simply a matter of guiding someone through a tapping sequence. You need to be able to listen to what the person is telling you, recognise potentially important information, identify useful targets, track what happens during the session and adjust your approach accordingly.

You also need to recognise the boundaries of your competence.

Being trained as an EFT practitioner does not mean you are trained to work with every possible psychological or medical presentation. Good professional practice includes knowing when something falls outside your expertise and when referral or additional specialist support may be appropriate.

You Can Run Small Groups and Short EFT Workshops

EFT practitioners are not limited to working one-to-one.

Practitioner training can also prepare you to introduce EFT within appropriate small groups and short workshops.

For example, a practitioner might run an introductory workshop in which participants learn about EFT, experience basic tapping and explore how it might be used around an appropriate theme.

This can be a useful way of introducing EFT to people who may never have encountered it before.

There is, however, a very important boundary.

Running an EFT workshop is not the same as training EFT practitioners.

An EFT practitioner can introduce EFT and facilitate appropriate group experiences within the limits of their training and competence. They are not qualified simply by being a practitioner to train other therapists or practitioners in the professional use of EFT.

Training people to become EFT practitioners is a different level of responsibility and requires appropriate trainer-level qualification and experience.

You Can Progress to Advanced Practitioner Training

For practitioners who want to continue developing their professional EFT skills, the next major stage is Advanced Practitioner Training.

Advanced Practitioner is not simply the next certificate to collect after Practitioner Training.

Practice and experience are an important part of the progression.

Once you have worked with enough people, you begin encountering situations that reveal why deeper practitioner knowledge matters. Sessions become less about following a learned sequence and more about understanding what is happening with the individual person.

You begin to recognise complexity.

You notice when the presenting issue may not be the central issue. You become more sensitive to language and changes in emotional response. You develop greater flexibility in how you structure the work.

Advanced training can then build upon experience that already has a practical foundation.

This is why I believe substantial practitioner experience is so important in professional development.

Can You Eventually Become an EFT Trainer?

For some people, yes. But becoming a trainer is much further along the professional pathway.

The progression is:

EFT Practitioner → Practitioner Experience → Advanced Practitioner → Substantial Practice and Further Development → EFT Trainer

Becoming a trainer should not simply be about completing enough courses.

To train other people to become EFT practitioners, you need substantial experience of actually practising EFT.

There is a very good reason for this.

A trainer needs to be able to do considerably more than teach the tapping points or explain techniques.

When students ask why something happened in a demonstration, the trainer needs to understand it. When a student becomes stuck in practice, the trainer needs to recognise what may be happening. When students encounter situations that do not fit neatly into an example from a manual, the trainer needs sufficient depth of experience to help them think through the problem.

Teaching practitioner-level EFT carries responsibility because you are preparing people who may subsequently work with members of the public.

That responsibility requires experience.

I train practitioners, Advanced Practitioners and trainers, and my involvement with EFT training standards goes back to the early days of AAMET, the organisation that later became EFT International. I served on its original training board, where I was involved in overseeing EFT training syllabuses and standards.

That experience has strongly influenced the way I approach training.

My aim is not simply to teach techniques. It is to develop knowledgeable, thoughtful and competent practitioners.

EFT Practitioner Training Can Change the Way You Listen

One of the less obvious things that can happen after good practitioner training is that you begin to listen differently.

You start noticing connections.

A person may say something almost in passing that suddenly seems significant. You may notice that their emotional response changes when they mention a particular person, event or possibility. You may recognise that what appears to be a present-day problem has links to an earlier experience.

You begin to ask different questions.

• What happened?
• When did this begin?
• What specifically triggers the response?
• What does the person believe might happen?
• What meaning have they given to the experience?
• Does this feeling remind them of something else?

This way of thinking is useful whether you ultimately establish an EFT practice, integrate EFT into existing professional work or simply want to understand EFT at practitioner level.

Practitioner Training Is a Foundation

It is tempting in any field to think of professional development as a sequence of courses and certificates.

I see it differently.

Training provides the foundation. Experience develops the practitioner.

After your initial training comes consolidation, practice, assessment, mentoring and continued learning. If you want to progress further, Advanced Practitioner Training can build upon that developing experience.

For those who eventually want to become trainers, there is another level of development again.

There is no advantage in racing through these stages.

A practitioner who has accumulated certificates without substantial practice does not necessarily have the depth of understanding of someone who has spent considerable time actually working with people.

Professional development should deepen competence, not simply add titles.

So, What Can You Do After EFT Practitioner Training?

Your next step depends upon why you trained in the first place.

You might use EFT primarily for yourself and never have any intention of becoming a professional practitioner.

You might complete the post-training requirements and work towards becoming an Accredited EFT Practitioner.

You might establish an EFT practice, or integrate EFT into therapeutic, coaching or other professional work you already do.

You may want to work one-to-one, or also introduce EFT through appropriate small groups and short workshops.

As your practitioner experience develops, you may decide to progress to Advanced Practitioner Training and deepen your skills further.

And, after substantial practitioner experience, advanced practitioner development and further training, you may eventually decide that you want to train other EFT practitioners.

These are different pathways, and they do not all have to lead to the same destination.

What matters is understanding the level at which you are trained, working within that level of competence and allowing experience to develop alongside your professional education.

Interested in EFT Practitioner Training?

I teach live online EFT Practitioner Training to students in the UK and around the world.

The training combines structured teaching, live demonstrations and supported practical experience. Students practise during the live course, with support available while they work, rather than simply watching someone else demonstrate EFT.

The main teaching, demonstrations and questions are recorded and made available privately to students who attended the live training. Private student practice sessions are not recorded.

Students also receive access to a private training platform containing additional demonstrations and learning resources to support the consolidation of what was taught during the live training.

For those who want to become Accredited EFT Practitioners, the training provides the practitioner-level foundation from which they can progress through the post-training consolidation and assessment requirements.

Whether you want practitioner-level EFT knowledge for yourself, want to integrate EFT into work you already do, or are beginning a longer professional journey as an EFT practitioner, good training is the foundation.

What you do with that foundation can develop over many years.

Find out more about my live online Accredited EFT Practitioner Training.