When Healing Feels Stuck: Understanding Psychological Reversal
What is Psychological Reversal?
And Why Healing Sometimes Doesn’t Seem to Work
Have you ever found yourself saying, “I want to heal” — but nothing seems to shift? You try therapy, affirmations, energy work, or even trauma-informed practices… and yet, something inside still resists. You may feel blocked, stuck, or like you're quietly sabotaging your own progress.
This might not mean you're doing anything wrong. It might mean you're experiencing something called psychological reversal.
What is Psychological Reversal?
Psychological reversal is a term from energy psychology — especially in techniques like Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) and Thought Field Therapy (TFT). It describes a subtle, often unconscious resistance that can block healing, even when a person genuinely wants to get better.
It’s as if your inner system is sending out crossed wires:
Your conscious mind says: “I want to be free of this.”
But a deeper part whispers: “I don’t deserve to be free.”
Or, “Healing isn’t safe.”
This inner contradiction creates a kind of reversal in your energy system, making it harder for healing interventions — even ones that are usually effective — to take hold.
What Does It Look Like?
Chronic self-sabotage
Repeating cycles despite deep therapeutic work
Feeling like “nothing ever works for me”
Getting worse after starting something new
A sense of being locked in a pattern without understanding why
These can all be signs that something deeper is trying to protect you — often without your awareness.
Psychological Reversal in EFT
In EFT, we gently test for psychological reversal early on. If we find signs of it, we use a setup phrase to acknowledge the conflict and begin shifting the energy system. For example:
“Even though a part of me doesn’t want to heal, I deeply and completely accept myself.”
This may be paired with tapping on the karate chop point (or other meridian points), helping to bring the nervous system into alignment with the conscious desire to heal.
Not Just Energy Talk — This Shows Up in Other Therapies Too
Although the term psychological reversal comes from energy psychology, the idea behind it shows up across many forms of therapy:
Psychoanalysis might call it resistance
Somatic therapy might see it as a freeze response or survival strategy
Cognitive models might identify limiting beliefs or secondary gains
In trauma work, this often makes perfect sense. For many, healing means feeling pain that was once unbearable. It might also mean facing betrayal, injustice, or abandonment. Sometimes, there’s a hidden belief that staying unwell is safer, more loyal, or less painful than moving forward.
How to Work with It
The key is gentle curiosity. Rather than forcing yourself to heal faster or blaming yourself for being “stuck,” it can help to ask:
What part of me might be scared to heal?
What would healing mean I have to face?
Is there a younger part of me that still needs protection?
Tools like EFT, sleep hypnosis, somatic therapy, and inner child work can all be powerful ways to address this — not by pushing through, but by listening deeply to the part of you that’s holding back.
If this resonates with you, or if you’re working with deep-seated patterns that don’t seem to shift, know this: there is nothing wrong with you. Your resistance might be wisdom. And healing often begins by honouring what once kept us safe.