Statement Regarding the American Psychological Association (APA) Division 12 Review of EFT under the Tolin Criteria

In 2021, I (Dr. Peta Stapleton) formally initiated the process for Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT or “tapping”) to be reviewed by the Society of Clinical Psychology (SCP) Division 12 within the American Psychological Association (APA) as an evidence-based treatment for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), under the established Tolin Criteria for empirically supported therapies.

The Application Process

• October 2021 – March 2023: The APA’s Committee on Science and Practice (SCP) approved EFT for review, and a comprehensive submission was made, including the updated meta-analysis of Clinical EFT for PTSD.
• March 2023: All requested revisions were completed and resubmitted. At that point, EFT met all the scientific and methodological requirements of the existing Tolin Criteria.
• April 2023: Just one week after resubmission, SCP announced that it was changing its criteria and would no longer evaluate EFT under the guidelines it had approved. A task force was formed to redefine what constitutes a “psychological treatment.”

Redefinition of “Psychological Treatment”

Over the next year, SCP revised its definition of a psychological therapy to require that the mechanisms of change be “founded in psychological science” as they define it—specifically excluding any intervention that includes a somatic or physiological component, such as acupoint stimulation.

EFT was therefore not rejected due to lack of evidence of effectiveness—but rather disqualified on definitional grounds.

In essence, SCP determined that because EFT includes tapping on acupressure points as part of its method, its mechanism of action was not considered “psychological,” even though the emotional, cognitive, and exposure-based elements are well established and its outcomes are consistent with leading psychological interventions.

Appeal Process

• May 2024 – August 2025: A detailed appeal was submitted challenging the new definition and asking that EFT be reviewed under the criteria in place when it was submitted. 
• May 2024: A Commentary on the new definition was accepted for publication by the SCP’s flagship journal, Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice. The Commentary demonstrated that the criterion used to disqualify EFT, “founded in psychological science,” would  “disqualify many of the treatments already on the SCP list,” including cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) and dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), both of which were derived primarily from clinical practice. The Commentary further showed how the new definition had been selectively applied to disqualify EFT but not CBT, DBT, or many other treatments on the SCP list.
• October 2025: Nonetheless, the SCP Executive Board denied the appeal, refusing to review the Committee’s demonstrably flawed definition of a psychological treatment, while also stating that all treatments—past and future—will be evaluated under the new definition of psychological treatment, regardless of when they were submitted.

Current Status

This means that, as of 2025, EFT is not listed by the APA’s Society of Clinical Psychology Division 12 as an approved psychological treatment—not because it lacks evidence, but because of a definitional change in what the SCP Division 12 considers “psychological.”

What This Means

EFT remains an evidence-based intervention by every empirical standard used internationally:

• It meets APA SCP Division 12's own Tolin Criteria for efficacy (under the 2015 framework).
• The evidence base continues to grow across clinical, neurobiological, and applied domains.

The APA SCP's Division 12 decision represents a philosophical boundary, not a scientific finding. EFT continues to align with modern integrative models of psychotherapy that recognise the mind–body connection, affect regulation, and neurophysiological mechanisms of healing.

Note: Following our appeal to the APA’s Society of Clinical Psychology, which highlighted that many existing treatments listed on their website did not meet the newly introduced definition of a “psychological therapy,” the SCP subsequently revised its listings. As of late 2025, the SCP website now shows that 84 previously approved therapies have been moved to an “archive” section, meaning they are no longer recognised under the updated definition. This includes EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing). This change suggests that the EFT application and subsequent correspondence may have prompted a wider internal review of consistency across their listings.