No Pain Without Gain - EFT & Primary Gain by Silvia Hartmann

Silvia Hartmann writes: Every cloud has a silver lining, and every problem has its upside somewhere, too. Psychology uses the term "Secondary Gain" for this well known phenomenon. In some cases, the benefits of having the problem are so great, they outweigh the suffering the problem is causing; in some cases, these benefits turn out to be the reason for acquiring the problem in the first place (I call that the Primary Gain).

Let's state something right up front about this phenomenon because it is important to understand that "creating" a problem unconsciously is not a sign of being a hypochondriac, or being weak or feeble in some way. In the contrary, this "problem creation" happens mostly with people who are far too hard on themselves and keep on forcing themselves into certain ways of living or behaviours.

Eventually, their unconscious mind will come up with a way to get them a better deal - even if it means creating an illness or a psychological problem that is not under their control. Here are three examples where the "Primary Gain" had to be addressed first for the problem to be allowed to leave:

1. A retired lady with kidney pains. She had had the most extensive allopathic testing, treatments and even exploratory surgery but "there was nothing physically wrong with her". In spite of there not being anything wrong with her, the pain she experienced was very real and ever present. The pain didn't move when we tapped, either, so I asked what the benefits of the pain were and how her life had changed since the pain arrived. She told me that her husband had for the first time since they'd been married in 1942 started to take over some of the housework; that he was much more considerate and would help her with the shopping and do all the heavy cleaning now; and that her two daughters no longer brought all their respective children to be looked after.

When we talked and tapped some more, it was that last issue that had "caused" the pain to appear - she did not feel that she could tell her daughters that the children were simply too much for her now, and not to have to look after the babies especially was a total relief. We tapped on "Even though I should look after the babies" and "I can't tell them I don't want to help them". She reflected for a while afterwards and said that she had done her child rearing and that she would be able to set boundaries with her daughters in future. Then, we tapped on the pain again. It receded noticeably, but there was a remnant of 3 which remained stuck.

We tapped on, "Even though I can't expect my husband to help me out if I'm not in pain" until the lady felt that she could expect this, and could ask for his help, and that he would probably give it gladly. We went back to the remaining pain, and this time it went down to 0 in a single round. In this case, the extra attention from the husband was the secondary gain (icing on the cake), and the babysitting the primary gain (the reason for having manifested the problem).

2. This lady had a long standing weight problem and although EFT had helped her with other things, it "did not seem to work for the weight issue". When we talked about the benefits of having the problem, for a while she wouldn't believe that there could possibly be anything good about being seriously fat whatsoever. But after a while, she hesitantly offered the following: - she didn't have to go to work or go outside much which was stressful and frightening to her; - she was "out of the competition" with other women, a competition she felt she could never win, even when she was slim, because "she was so ugly". - her husband had stopped making sexual demands on her; - she felt more in control of her body and her life than she had ever felt when she was slimmer.

I helped her resolve these issues and their respective aspects and memories; much of the tapping was done by herself at home. After two weeks, she felt ready to begin to address the weight issue itself and found it possible now to deal with the practical aspects (such as hunger pangs, cravings for certain foods, buying too many unsuitable foods when in the supermarket, and fear of exercise) with focus and essentially, all by herself.

3. Remember when you're dealing with primary and secondary gain to ask the question, "What could be the reason for wanting to keep this problem in place?" In the this example, the answer was surprisingly simple, and it unblocked the route for EFT to work it's magic once again.

This gentleman had suffered from a stroke which left the right side of his body paralysed. He had had much physiotherapy and could now move his arm a tiny bit, and said he wanted to try EFT to be able to regain more movement. When nothing seemed to happen after a single round, he sighed and said, "Oh well that was that then. At least I've tried it." I found it a little puzzling that he would "give up" so readily when I had heard how much perseverance he had put into his physiotherapy, so I asked him, "What would happen if it worked like a charm and you could regain full movement of your arm, and your leg as well?" He looked at me in horror and exclaimed, "Why, then everyone would know I was a fraud and that I'd just put it on all these months!" It turned out that he had so much in the way of examinations, second opinions, and insurance doctors coming in and, at least in his mind, "suggesting that he was faking it to get early retirement", that he had a terrible fear of waking up and finding the problem gone, and being publicly unmasked as a hypochondriac, a liar and a cheat. In his case, his unconscious mind needed to be assured of two things: firstly, that he would never have to go back to work again which had been unbearably stressful (and I have the notion, was what caused the stroke in the first place); and secondly, that people CAN get better WITHOUT it meaning that they are hypochondriacs, liars and cheats.

Once these fears had been allayed, the tapping produced a very noticeable increase in his ability to move and control his arm, and he was also able to stand up and take a couple of steps leaning on my arm. He continued to tap, and the physiotherapy progressed very smoothly from that day on, and last I heard, he has recovered 80% of his movements. He is still tapping every day. To sum up this section: the gains, and especially the primary gains, the reason for having any kind of problem, are extremely important. At any time you are stuck with a problem you are working on, considering what gains there could be and addressing this first can make all the difference to the outcomes.

Silvia Hartmann

This excerpt is from Silvia Hartmann’s Emotional Freedom book ‘Adventures in EFT’ and was originally published in our special essay section here on the AMT. Silvia has recently published her wealth creation book ‘MindMillion’ whose details are also available in our store.

Posted Aug 16, 2005