Can EFT Tapping help people forgive someone who has hurt them emotionally?

Gun Meskanen
6 days ago
2 min read

Why Forgiveness Matters

Forgiveness is not about excusing harmful behaviour. It’s about reducing the emotional pain, stress, and rumination that keep us tied to past hurts. Many people carry the weight of interpersonal wounds for months or years, and finding a compassionate, effective way to soften that pain can be transformative.

What the Study Explored

This preliminary study examined whether a single, brief EFT Tapping session could facilitate forgiveness by reducing distress, improving mood, and shifting emotional responses. The aim was to see whether EFT could serve as a helpful coping strategy for people experiencing emotional pain linked to interpersonal offences.

Researchers hypothesised that participants who received the EFT intervention would show improvements in:

Forgiveness indicators
Empathy
Mood
Reduced rumination
Reduced perceptions of injustice
Reduced anxiety and depression symptoms

And the results? The data strongly supported these predictions.

How the Study Worked

A total of 98 adults, aged 28–72 (91% women) from Australia and the U.S., self-selected into the study. They were randomly assigned to:

an online EFT session, or
a control task

Both took around 40 minutes.

Key Findings

Nine out of the ten measured outcomes showed significant differences between the EFT and control groups. The most notable improvements in the EFT group were:

Increased benevolence toward the person who caused harm
Reduced negative mood
Reduced anxiety symptoms

Participants also showed a significant decrease in avoidance and revenge tendencies, alongside an increase in forgiveness-related attitudes. These findings suggest that even a single EFT session can meaningfully shift emotional responses linked to past interpersonal hurts.

This early research highlights EFT as a promising, accessible tool for people seeking relief from emotional pain—especially when forgiveness feels out of reach.

Read the Full Study

If you’re curious to dive deeper, you can read the full paper here: https://doi.org/10.1080/23311908.2025.2538740