Talk:Emotional Freedom Techniques

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This article was nominated for deletion on January 30, 2007. The result of the discussion was keep.

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Neutral point of view as applied to science: Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, a fundamental policy, requires fair representation of significant alternatives to scientific orthodoxy. Significant alternatives, in this case, refers to legitimate scientific disagreement, as opposed to pseudoscience.
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This article has been mentioned by multiple media organizations:

Alexandra Sifferlin (2014-03-25). "Wikipedia Founder Sticks It To 'Lunatic' Holistic Healers". Time magazine.
Megan Geuss (2014-03-25). "Wikipedia founder calls alt-medicine practitioners "lunatic charlatans"". Ars Technica.

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2022 review article by Church

Someone has recently attempted to use a 2022 review article by Church to claim that EFT is now 'evidence based'. We cannot use this source on Wikipedia - the conflict of interest held by Church has been well documented in the talk page archives. This review was also published in 'Frontiers in Psychology' - Frontiers is a predatory publisher, and this journal is not indexed in MEDLINE. Per WP:MEDRS we cannot use it for medical claims. This series of edits also conflated APA sources about Emotionally focused therapy with Emotional Freedom Techniques - despite the similarity of acronym these are not the same thing. MrOllie (talk) 13:57, 29 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The acticle appears in a PubMed search - I asume that is the same as being indexed on MEDLINE. The authors interest is declared in the publication. Is it policy for editors to make judgements as to whether conflicts of interest should determine eligibility? Nigeln42 (talk) 15:08, 11 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

You assume incorrectly. MrOllie (talk) 15:15, 11 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for putting me right. I am still curious about the answer to my second question (albeit it is not relevant this instance). Nigeln42 (talk) 14:23, 14 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Claims of disproof

I made simple edits to improve the scientific accuracy of the article, and they were reverted with the unhelpful explanation of "better before." I would re-revert, but do not want to war; so please explain what your edit means, @Bon courage.

My edits were to change "EFT has no benefit as a therapy" to "EFT has not been shown to have any benefit as a therapy". The former makes an unscientific over-claim of certainty that there is no benefit. No such scientific certainty exists. Is not my edit more accurate? — Epastore (talk) 13:39, 25 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Adding weasel words to water down statements of fact is the opposite of improving the scientific accuracy of the article. MrOllie (talk) 13:43, 25 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Yup, it's not "disproof" which is a weird concept in medicine. Not working is just the default assumption. Bon courage (talk) 13:47, 25 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The burden of proof is on the proponents to show that the therapy has benefit beyond the well-known common factors of psychotherapy, as the sentence says. Biogeographist (talk) 13:54, 25 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

By whom? It would be patently false to claim there is no life on other planets, just like it would be false to claim that there is. It is always best to be clear and accurate: we have not found proof of life on other planets. How is this case different? — Epastore (talk) 14:02, 25 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

This isn't a case where we have no evidence either way. As the sources state, the only controlled studies have been disconﬁrmatory. MrOllie (talk) 14:07, 25 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Weasel words make things unclear; I was attempting to make it more clear. I am in no way trying to make this technique sound more valid; I am just trying to make the article less inaccurate. Epastore (talk) 14:02, 25 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I do assume that you were trying to make it more clear. But what you actually did was the opposite. MrOllie (talk) 14:07, 25 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I understand what you are claiming, but you give no explanation for your claims. How did I somehow make it more unclear by more accurately describing the state of the current evidence? I changed a claim of truth about efficacy (which is not scientifically valid) into a claim about the truth of the evidence (which is entirely valid). — Epastore (talk) 16:42, 30 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Your whole view of the matter is wrong. Medicine does not operate by "disproof". Bon courage (talk) 16:45, 30 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I am unclear on medical convention; but both Wikipedia and science work on dispassionately describing what is known without overclaiming any privileged knowledge of "Truth." I changed "EFT has no useful effect as a therapy" (a statement claiming to know the truth about efficacy) into "EFT has not been shown to have useful effect" (a statement about the state of the evidence). Explain how my "view" is wrong?

(For the record, I think the subject of the topic is not a worthwhile therapy. I am only looking to improve the encyclopedic tone of Wikipedia here.) — Epastore (talk) 16:51, 30 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

So would you say "prayer has not been shown to cure cancer" or "prayer does not cure cancer". The former is just ignorant, wordy and bad. Bon courage (talk) 17:08, 30 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Yes I would say that if I was trying to use unbiased, encyclopedic, descriptive, scientifically-accurate language. You claim that this sort of language is "ignorant, wordy and bad," but give no justification for that seemingly-subjective claim. I claim that it is good because it presents facts more clearly with less bias and with minimal additional text (44 characters). — Epastore (talk) 20:40, 30 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Making a statement vague without any legitimate reason is not more accurate - it is less accurate, by definition. It would be like writing that World War II started sometime between 1900 and 2000. MrOllie (talk) 21:08, 30 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

No, the current wording would be like writing that World War II was started by Hitler. That statement would be incorrectly over-specific. — Epastore (talk) 15:35, 18 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It is really rough to see Epastore battling this point out while being obviously right. Like, burden of proof is a really important concept, but its place on one side or the other doesnt actually make claims a priori true or false. Thats.... not really how empirical stuff works. 78.148.194.54 (talk) 22:10, 9 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Like even if you specified *what* EFT doesn't benefit, that could be supported by the literature but otherwise "no benefit as a therapy" is such an over-reach that it implies it doesnt even perform on par with placebo (it does). (Obligatory disclaimer than im not some pseudoscience person and dont think EFT is real, just that we should be careful with our language here) 78.148.194.54 (talk) 22:14, 9 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Now that we've gone full WP:GODWIN I suggest somebody closes this. Bon courage (talk) 15:38, 18 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Except I'm not comparing anyone to Hitler, only using his name as an easily-recognizable WWII culprit. I could substitute Churchill (who first declared war, after-all) and have the same effect. Please do not trivialize my concern in this discussion due to a simple trigger-word. — Epastore (talk) 15:46, 18 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

We don't need to pretend that untestable pseudoscience might be true, just as we don't pretend that there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit. MrOllie (talk) 16:04, 18 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

There are some scientific papers done regarding eft and there are scientific evidence for i

There has been scientific papers studying EFT and the results show that it is effective for anxiety, ptsd and psychological stress

Disappointed with this Wikipedia article saying that EFT is pseudoscience and placebo. 197.252.213.253 (talk) 16:32, 30 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Like? Bon courage (talk) 16:38, 30 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

If you have citations to provide, then don't just complain that the article is inadequate. Please edit the article and include references to peer-reviewed studies. That is how Wikipedia improves. — Epastore (talk) 20:50, 30 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Specifically studies that meet WP:MEDRS, which is more stringent than just 'peer-reviewed'. MrOllie (talk) 21:06, 30 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]