Johns Hopkins researchers who last week announced they are laying the groundwork for a drug that erases traumatic memories have created a storm of controversy over whether the drug will involuntarily erase other useful memories or even alter a person’s life experience. Rather than wait for a controversial drug in the future, today’s trauma victims will find a simpler solution to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in “tapping”—a therapeutic treatment developed 30 years ago by Dr. Roger Callahan.

With Thought Field Therapy, tapping removes the negative emotions tied to the memory—but not the memory itself.

By tapping on various body touch-points in a specific sequence—under the eye and on the collarbone, for instance—TFT stimulates the body’s energy pathways similar to acupuncture, releasing stress, anxiety and emotions that are “stored” in the brain’s “thought field.”

Thousands of years ago, the Chinese mapped the body’s energy pathways and developed ways to eliminate pain and promote physical healing by using acupuncture to manipulate energy flows along these meridians. In the same way, TFT shows that these pathways can be accessed in order to heal emotional distress.

When using TFT for post-traumatic stress disorder, patients really don’t know how they have changed. They only know they are no longer bothered by the memory.

In other words, a patient’s life experience remains intact—but gone is the emotional wound, sometimes undetected, that causes lasting psychological and physical aftereffects such as anxiety, depression, a continual feeling of illness, even nightmares and hallucinations. In layman’s terms, TFT affects how the brain compiles information about the traumatic event by changing the coding system the brain uses to store the negative emotions.

Most importantly, TFT does no harm—while the idea of a “memory erasing drug” gave mental health professionals and ethics specialists pause. Quoted on their opinion of the Johns Hopkins research in The Baltimore Sun, some said loss of other memories—which can be called dementia when someone loses too much of their past—could occur if scientists produce a drug designed to selectively eliminate a single traumatic memory.

“Pills aren’t necessary to remove the negative effects of trauma,” says Dr. Roger Callahan, “and could even be dangerous if they accidentally erase other memories that are needed to function.”

Rape victims, war refugees, victims of traumatic surgeries, Haitian earthquake survivors—even soldiers returning from Afghanistan—have used TFT to get relief after all other methods have failed.

The International Journal of Emergency Mental Health reported on a 2006 study by PhD psychologist Caroline Sakai who used the tapping treatment with orphans of the 1994 Rwanda genocide. The outcomes of Sakai’s study, summarized in the Journal, exceed those of any previous peer-reviewed study of PTSD treatment in terms of speed, degree of effectiveness, and percentage of subjects who were helped.

And Guy Marriott, who trains British Special Forces in the Congo and provides security for international aid organizations in places like the Sudan, Zimbabwe and Haiti, trains his entire force in TFT as a fast, effective, cross-cultural technique for hostile environments.

The technique is also used by professional practitioners around the world who recognize it as an ethically sound, long-term solution to PTSD. Not only that but the technique is inexpensive and does not require patients to spend weeks in a therapist’s office.

If you would like to explore how TFT can help you please visit our home page and start with our free guide on beating stress and anxiety.

photo credit: centralasian

By Dr. Victoria Yancey, TFT, Dx, United States

“You are fat, stupid and ugly.” This is just one example of the taunting that some students endure from peers and classmates.

These and other harmful statements are instances of bullying. Bullying is a form of violence. It is negative, aggressive and unwanted behaviors to cause harm, hurt or humiliation. It is anything that hurts another person, when things are repeatedly said or done to have power over that individual.

There are many types of bullying. There is racial bullying, sexual bullying and cyber-bullying. Bullying includes name calling, saying or writing derogatory comments, purposely excluding an individual from activities, spreading lies and rumors, ignoring, threatening, doing anything to make another person feel uncomfortable or scared, stealing or damaging belongings of others, kicking, hitting, slapping, making someone do things they do not want to do.

When Thought Field Therapy (TFT) was taught to a group of students they reported using TFT when confronted with the violence of being picked on or bullied.

Children handle being bullied in many different ways. Those who are bullied are subject to peer pressure. Sometimes they end up doing something they really do not want to do in order to “fit in” hoping that the bullying will stop.

Those who are bullied often feel pain, fear or hurt. They lose self-confidence and feel lonely, scared and sad. They sometimes do not feel safe at school, home or at play and often have poor grades in school. They may suffer from depression, headaches, stomach aches and other health problems, and they may also have thoughts of suicide. Some feel it necessary to fight or bring a gun or weapon to school to stop the hurt of being bullied.

I worked with a group of middle school students who felt they where being bullied. The students where referred to me by their parents because they where getting into trouble in school. Many of the students were receiving declining or failing grades. Some of the students had either experienced detentions or suspensions, in or outside of school, for fighting.

When meeting with the students they explained the reason for their getting into fights was because they felt they were being “picked on.” They explained that a group of students constantly bullied them and they got into the fights because they felt angry and wanted to lash out against the bullying. Statistics reveal that one out of every 4 students are bullied, picked on, or abused each month. In addition, thirty percent of students in the United States admit to being bullies, victims of bullies, bystanders (those who witness bullying) or have participated in all three roles (Olweus, 2001).

My work with the group began with explaining Thought Field Therapy after their discussion of anxiety and fear of being picked on and bullied and having to fight to try to solve this problem. The students rated their Subjective Unit of Distress (SUD) after tuning into the thought field. The SUD ratings ranged from ten or above for fear and anxiety to seven. I began leading the students through Psychological Reversal to correct any reversals that may negatively effect the treatment. I then taught them the algorithm for General Anxiety and Stress, e (under eye), a (under arm) and c (collar bone). We checked the SUDs then continued by repeating psychological reversal and the majors since the SUD did not go down by two points for all in the group. We repeated the majors. This was followed with the 9 gamut since the SUDs subsequently lowered by at least two points for all students in the group.

We continued in this way until the SUD for each student was down to zero or one. The students reported feeling better, they explained feeling better meant that they where having fun doing Thought Field Therapy and they did not feel tense and angry when they thought about being picked on. Studies show that the less confidence a student has the more likely they are to be bullied. The more confidence a student shows the less likely it is that bullying will occur (Fulker, 2010). They continued to practice the steps of Thought Field Therapy until they learned the algorithms. The students agreed to use Thought Field therapy throughout the week when they felt like fighting, scared or feeling less confident.

When the students arrived the next week they were laughing and talking with a completely different affect from the previous week when they where somber, sad and angry. The students reported using Thought Field Therapy throughout the week. All of them explained that they did not participate in any fights during the week. They all told experiencing of tapping when feeling scared. One student explained that she was able to concentrate on her school work and was able to pass her math test because for the first time she was able to study. But the most compelling comment came from one student who was constantly engaged in fighting and was on the verge of being expelled from school although she was the victim of bullying.

She stated, “I didn’t fight when some kids where picking on me. I just started tapping and walked away.”

Dr. Victoria Yancey is known as the Guardian Angel of Hope for the children and families of Philadelphia.  She is a certified Algorithm and Diagnostic Thought Field Therapist.  She is also an Instructor at Walden University.

Fulker, B. (2010). Help your child beat bullying and gain confidence. Birthmarks.com USA.

Olweus, D. (2001). Peer harassment: A critical analysis and some important issues. In Peer Harassment in School, ed. J. Juvonen and

S. Graham. New Yor k: Guilford Publications.

Salmivalli, C. Lagerspetz, K. Björkqvist, K. Osterman, K. Kaukiainen, A. (1996) Bullying as a group process: Participant roles and their relations to social status within the group. Aggressive Behavior 22 (1-15).

photo credit: davitydave

photo credit: Chesi - Fotos CC

“I accidentally removed my hand from the motorcycle throttle while in first gear. The next instant I was slammed onto the garage floor, the air knocked out of me, with a 500-pound motorcycle covering my body…

The owner anxiously asked, ‘Are you still going to buy it?’ I jumped up, dusted off my jeans and responded, ‘Absolutely!’ ”

This dramatic story of a sudden and spontaneous motorcycle purchase opens “Repotting Yourself, Financial-Emotional-Spiritual Flow”, the second and newest book by award-winning sales professional Mary Lou Dobbs.

The motorcycle incident is the catalyst for the 60-year-old Dobbs’s journey of profound personal transformation. Despite all of her substantial professional achievements and financial security, she realizes she is actually living a self-imposed “root-bound” life dedicated to staying small and fitting in.

When she learns to embrace change, rewrite her life story, release fears, be conscious of her intentions, words and actions and activate her “fun meter,” she moves in a direction of flow and ease and begins to live life “full-throttle.” Her business thrives in this prolonged recession, even while she writes “Repotting Yourself” full time, and she attracts an editor and publisher for the book with minimal effort.

In turbulent times, when so many are working harder and longer – with a sense of being frustrated and “stuck” - Dobbs’s story inspires readers to discover how they can transform their own lives.

Mary Lou Dobbs has always been a high achiever and Number One in her chosen field of insurance sales. At Lincoln National Life, she became the only woman in the company’s 75-year history to win a national sales contest. During her eight-year tenure with Wells Fargo, the fourth largest bank and financial institution in the United States, Dobbs functioned as a master coach, working with bank presidents and managers to embrace change and then coach and mentor their own employees. When she assumed the position of senior vice president of the company’s new Insurance Department, she became the top national salesperson six consecutive years in a row.

The innovations she introduced to transform what she calls “a stodgy bank culture” included building and reinforcing employee self-esteem through coaching sessions, goal setting, praise and power phrases -- which successfully transitioned bankers into a dynamic sales culture.

Before writing “Repotting Yourself…” this outstanding professional, keynote speaker, coach, seminar leader and owner of the Albuquerque, NM-based firm, Executive Benefit Strategies penned “The Cinderella Salesman” (Farnsworth: Rockville Centre, NY, 1982).  Endorsed by Og Mandino, and with a forward by the then president of Lincoln Financial, Ean M. Rowland, it was a pioneering guide to building a career in sales.

I’ve no idea how much contact TFTers have had with gay people, but I’ve been asked to share a little of my work here in the UK.

I’ve spent almost 30 years (pretty much my entire professional career as a therapist) specialising in working with gender and sexual minority clients and about a decade ago I established what is now the largest independent therapy organisation in the UK which aims to offer nonpathologising therapies to gender and sexual minority clients.

Many of you will know this group as LGBT or LGBTIQ or something similar (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender, Intersex and Queer/Questioning), although our remit is broader than just these groups.

Traditionally lesbian, gay and bisexual people have higher levels of mental health distress than heterosexuals, they experience higher levels of depression and anxiety and of alcohol and drug misuse (King & McKeown 2003) and parasuicide and deliberate self harm is also significantly higher (King et al 2008). This is probably due to living within a society which privileges heterosexuality and pathologises same sex desires and relationships.

I was somewhat stunned by recent British research (Bartlett et al 2009) who found that 1:6 of their sample of 1328 of counsellors, psychotherapists, psychologists and psychiatrists had agreed to enter contracts for reducing same sex desires and 4% had agreed to help cure people of their homosexuality, despite homosexuality being removed from the manual as a mental illness in 1994 by WHO and in 1983 by the American Psychiatric Association) DSM III.

Our website hosts the only public listing in Britain of ‘gay friendly’ counsellors and psychotherapists, qualified therapists in private practice who adopt a non pathologising view of human sexuality and sexual diversity. The Directory of Pink Therapists comprise both sexual minority therapists as well as heterosexual therapists and come from a wide range of theoretical models and training programmes.

We are just about to relaunch this UK Directory to include complementary therapists as well as to make the Directory international so that someone wanting to find a lesbian friendly acupuncturist in Arkansas or a a transsexual friendly counsellor in Manchester will be able to do so.

I’d really welcome TFT practitioners who wish to register their practice to sign up and the Directory is created so you can sign up online and update and maintain your entry yourself.

One of our other major areas of activity is in providing training for therapists in understanding more about gender and sexual minorities.

Last year we ran over 40 workshops, this coming year we’re scaling down the programme a bit both due to the credit crunch and the amount of work it takes to run such an extensive programme. I have been running Pink Therapy virtually single handed for all this time and this year I’m planning to turn it into a non-profit Social Enterprise so that we can apply for external funding to undertake many of the projects we have learned of. TFT has been such an amazing addition to my skills set and I’ve managed to integrate it into my regular therapy practice with around 70% of my clients now receiving a mixture of TFT and regular talking therapy.

I’ve had some amazing successes that I’d like to share.

I had a young female to male (FtM) transexual who had been breast binding for four years as they were too scared to schedule their mastectomy due to a needle phobia and childhood trauma. They were also having to take buccal (oral) testosterone which had caused gum erosion as they were obviously too scared to inject testosterone.

Working with Another FtM client we managed to significantly reduce his grief at not having a penis (phalloplasty is still very rudimentary, complex and expensive and most FtM’s don’t pursue this operation).

I’ve worked a lot with people who have been sexually abused and very recently managed to complete in just a couple of sessions the sequelae of the sexual abuse trauma of a gay man who’d been orally raped at 14. This was achieved within two sessions and amazed us both. We worked for a few more sessions on some other issues and he left feeling much more in control of his life (and his obsession with chocolate)!

Some people have been reluctant to try TFT or have tried it and not wanted to continue. They’re either skeptical, heavily reversed or enjoy some secondary gains from their problems and prefer to just come and talk each week.

I’ve had to learn to be with my frustration about this and respect their wishes knowing I could probably help them better with TFT!

I really would encourage any of you who have experience of working with gender and sexual minority clients from a non-pathologising perspective to get in touch with me and consider joining our Directory.

References:
Bartlet, A., Smith, G., and King, M (2009) The response of mental health professionals to clients seeking help to change or redirect same-sex sexual orientation. London: Available for download: http://www.pinktherapy.com/downloadables/King_research_therapist_attitudes.pdf

King, M and McKeown, D (2003) Mental health and social well-being of gay men, lesbians and bisexuals in England and Wales London: Mind available for download here:
http://www.pinktherapy.com/downloadables_new/theory/Findings_On_LGB_Well_Being.pdf

King, M. Semelyn, J, See Tai, S, Killaspy, H, Osborn, D, Popelyuk, D, Nazareth, I. (2008) A systematic review of mental disorder, suicide, and deliberate self harm in lesbian, gay and bisexual people.

BMC Psychiatry 2008, 8:70 available for download: http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-244X/8/70

Biographical Information:
Dominic Davies is co-editor (with Charles Neal) of three volumes of the Pink Therapy textbooks (Open University Press, 1996&2000) and was made a Fellow of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy for his significant contribution to the field. He has trained to TFT Adv, (Optimal Health) level and is solely in private practice in Central London.

email: info@pinktherapy.com or dominic@tfthealed.me.uk

website: www.pinktherapy.com or www.tfthealed.me.uk

photo credit: Clar@bell

“The anesthesiologist allegedly faked data in 21 studies on the use of various painkillers, including Vioxx”.

Pain is the most common symptom for which older adults, those aged 65 and older, visit their doctor. The older adult population is rapidly increasing as the baby boomers age.

Inadequate pain relief is one of the top reasons people experience a reduced quality of life. The medications are usually toxic leading to many complications and side-effects, even death. Individuals on blood thinners can’t even take most medications for physical pain and are left with little or no option for their pain relief.

Thought Field Therapy (TFT) is a highly effective, drug-free and non-invasive way to reduce or eliminate even chronic pain without the risk of medications.

With the known risks of painkillers, the fraud appearing regularly in the studies of these painkillers, suggesting unknown risks, we need to help pain sufferers learn and use safer methods for managing their pain.

Length of relief from pain, per occurrence, is also important to the sufferer.

In a study, TFT provided longer relief than that experienced from pain medications. (A free copy of this study is available here).

It makes economic and reasonable sense that we use a natural, risk-free process for pain relief and management, first, before we spend large sums of money for medications with known side-effects and unknown risks.

To learn more about this safe alternative for pain management, visit http://www.tftrx.com/pain-control/

The study mentioned above is available as a free download.

photo credit: zimpenfish

photo credit: chuck.taylor

I have had a most amazing experience, so very similar to when I actually had the opportunity to swim with the dolphins.

One of our Diagnostically trained TFT practitioners is the owner and developer of Virtual Dolpin Therapy which she offers in her spa, La Quinta Healing Arts. Brenda Burger, uses her TFT skills with the Virtual Dolphin Therapy to provide a wonderful healing experience. She often taps the client with the appropriate TFT sequence before they lay down for their dolphin experience.

She explains:

Virtual Dolphin Therapy www.virtualdolphintherapy.com a multi sensory treatment like no other.  Enjoy the sound of the ocean, dolphin echo locations, incredibly relaxing music and up close and personal high definition dolphin footage all while lying on a sound wave table designed to send music and sound as vibrations through the body. Come in and experience our treatment.  With deep respect we have invited the ambassadors of the deep the cetacean nation to be our tour guides as we journey into the deep and beyond, experiencing virtual experiences of profound beauty and imagination.

Virtual Dolphin Therapy therapy will be shown on the "The Doctors" TV show www.thedoctorstv.com on Monday February the 16th.  Check web site for times shown in your area.”

See for yourself and watch her on the new TV show, The Doctors.

We met in beautiful Honolulu, Hawaii, where we enjoyed the air, the waves and the heavenly beauty of Hawaii. We all presented interesting and challenging cases, new ideas and works in progress.  I shared my current work on the ELECTRIC THEORY OF CANCER. and the development of (currently) 15 unique and powerful ways that TFT can help people who have cancer.

We heard about new organizational structures, a new journal featuring TFT, the latest research and humanitarian efforts and some amazing case studies with TFT and cancer, rare neurological disorders, autism, coma’s, and life changing work with prisoners. Many of these cases were considered hopeless by the attending medical practitioners and fully documented with medical records and tests.  They demonstrate the true power of TFT, nature’s healing system.  Watch upcoming issues of the Thought Field and the UPdate for details of these cases and happenings in 2009.  

When we returned from Honolulu I found the mail waiting for me.  The NATIONAL PSYCHOLOGIST NEWSPAPER was the first item.  The headline on the front page identified a recent study confirming what I have been working on, relieving mental stress helps cancer patients.  I will go into more detail in my next post.