Ross Pomerantz was expected to absorb every aspect of the
advertising business in his entry-level, trial-by-fire job at an
elite San Francisco firm. Twice a week, the 23-year-old had to
deliver a research presentation to his superiors—a task that
filled him with dread. Minutes before each meeting, he'd be at
his desk softly repeating to himself some version of this
mantra: "I'm very nervous right now that I'm going to screw this
whole thing up in front of my boss, the person who gave me this
job." As he spoke to himself, Pomerantz repeatedly tapped a
sequence of invisible points on his face, neck, and upper chest
with two fingers. OCD? Tourette's? No, a secret weapon, he says:
"Some of my officemates called it my voodoo. But I'm not self-
conscious, because I know it works."  Pomerantz is a devoted
practitioner of a reputedly stress-reducing, focus-enhancing
therapeutic practice called EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques),
better known as tapping. EFT has been around since the nineties,
and its origins go back t