Thought Field Therapy Practitioners and Educators Sanctioned
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NEWS AND COMMENT Thought Field Therapy Practitioners and Educators Sanctioned SCOTT O. LILIENFELD AND gers. Later, clients are asked to move at the November 1999 AABT conven- JEFF M. LOHR their eyes in specific directions, count to tion in Toronto. five, hum snatches of a tune, and again In September 1999, the American Until quite recently, most regulatory tap various body parts in a specified Psychological Association (APA) Con- bodies (e.g., state licensing boards) in order. Although there are no published tinuing Professional Education Com- the field of psychology have been reluc- controlled studies of TFT's efficacy, mittee ruled that the absence of any tant to encroach upon the freedom of many of its advocates have claimed compelling scientific support for its clinicians to use their preferred thera- 80-95 percent success rates for a variety efficacy rendered TFT an inappropri- ate subject for Continuing Education peutic techniques. This "let a thousand of psychological conditions. (CE) courses. These courses are taken flowers bloom" approach to psycho-therapeuticTh p re a cfirst t i c e majohas r comofficiae lunde challengr e to on an ongoing basis by practitioners in attack from research-oriented psycholo- TFT's legitimacy occurred in mid- order to fulfill licensure requirements. gists, many of whom contend that the 1999, when the Arizona Board of As a result of the decision, CE spon- increasing proliferation of invalidated Psychological Examiners sanctioned a sors who proposed to offer courses psychologist who used TFT as his prin- treatments poses a serious threat to focused primarily on TFT were cipal therapeutic modality. This clini- clients and to the scientific status of informed that their applications would cian was placed on probation, ordered clinical psychology. no longer be approved. In recent to refrain from administering TFT years, many scientifically oriented Two surprising developments in within the practice of psychology, and psychologists have sharply criticized 1999 may signal a trend toward informed that he would be strictly APA for failing to set limits on the heightened restrictions on clinicians' monitored for compliance with this content of CE courses, which have adoption of unsubstantiated psycho- order. Foremost among the reasons for included workshops on calligraphy therapeutic methods. These develop- the board's action was the therapist's therapy, Jungian sandplay therapy, and ments concern a controversial tech- inability to substantiate his advertised other invalidated techniques. As a nique known as Thought Field claims of effectiveness. consequence, APA's actions have been Therapy (TFT), which was invented in Another reason was the therapist's hailed by a number of psychologists as the early 1980s by Roger Callahan, a use of a T F T technique known as voice a significant step toward addressing clinical psychologist and author of The technology, which involves an elec- these criticisms. Five Minute Phobia Cure. TFT, which tronic device to convert the client's is claimed by its proponents to be an voice into a visual display. Voice tech- The actions of the Arizona Board extremely effective and efficient treat- nology ostensibly allows clinicians to and APA have been met with numer- ment for post-traumatic stress disor- diagnose the client's energy blocks over ous protests from TFT proponents, many of whom maintain that their der, phobias, addictions, and other the telephone and then prescribe a for- method has been unfairly targeted. psychological conditions, has bur- mal course of TFT treatment without Indeed, a number of similarly unsub- geoned in popularity among clinicians ever having to meet the client in per- stantiated psychotherapics have largely in the past several years. For example, son. The therapist disciplined by the escaped the close scrutiny of regulatory TFT was used by clinicians to treat Arizona Board had refused to disclose bodies. In the eyes of some observers, information concerning the voice tech- survivors of the 1998 bombing of the however, these two recent actions may nology device, and invoked a confiden- United States Embassy in Nairobi, herald a shift away from a laissez-faire Kenya, and TFT workshops have tiality agreement with Dr. Callahan approach to psychotherapeutic practice recently been offered in many major regarding this device as the rationale and toward heightened clinician American cities. for his refusal. accountability. TFT purportedly works by manipu- In recognition of the Arizona lating and balancing the client's energy Board's decision, the Science and Scott O. Lilienfeld, Ph.D.. is an assistant fields by means of a complex series of Pseudoscience Review committee, professor of psychology at Emory algorithms or fixed procedures. While a newly formed special interest group University and a SKEPTICAL INQUIRER clients imagine an anxiety-provoking within the Association for Consulting Editor. Jeffrey M. Lohr, Ph.D., event or stimulus, the TFT therapist Advancement of Behavior Therapy is a professor of psychology at the instructs them to tap various body parts (AABT), bestowed its first annual University of Arkansas and President of (e.g., eyebrow, collarbone, knuckles) in Scientific and Professional In- the AABT Science and Pseudoscience a predetermined order using dieir fin- tegrity Award upon the board Review Special Interest Group. SKEPTICAL INQUIRER March/April 2000 5 NEWS AND COMMENT New York in a psychic predicted an unexpected event station with the bodies of several before the fact," said Emery, a science extraterrestrials aboard; Quarantine? writer in Providence, Rhode Island. For • Fidel Castro will be jailed after his Failed Psychic example, the forecasts published with government is overthrown "in a massive Predictions for 1999 great fanfare in the supermarket tabloids revolt"; failed to mention such surprising events • The U.S. Postal Service will cancel Remember the 1990s? It was the decade as the massive earthquakes in Turkey mail delivery on Saturdays; when scientists discovered an anti-aging and Taiwan, the nuclear accident in • Cancer will be cured; drug that stretched the normal lifespan Japan, or the death of John E Kennedy • Oprah Winfrey will marry the next to 150 years, Madonna gave birth to Jr., his wife, and sister-in-law. mayor of Washington, D.C.; quintuplets, earthquakes transformed Instead, said Emery, Anthony Carr, • Liz Taylor will marry Malcolm both San Diego and Los Angeles into billed as "the world's most documented Forbes; islands, and a Super Bowl had to be can- psychic" by the National Examiner, is • The first successful human brain celed because so many players were sus- documented as predicting that Carolyn transplant will be performed; pended for drug use that both coaches Bessette-Kennedy would give birth to • Public water supplies will be treated couldn't field a team. healthy twins. And Sanjiv Mishra of widi chemicals that will prevent AIDS; At least that's what should have India, described by the tabloid Sun as • American voters will be able to cast occurred had the world's top psychics one of the ten "greatest psychics on their ballots using touch-tone tele- been correct. People may be celebrating Earth," made the not-so-great forecast phones; and the new millennium, but the world's top that JFK Jr. would fly "on a space shut- • Deep sea vacation dives to the psychics shouldn't be raising a glass of tle mission in August," with John Glenn Titanic will become commonplace. champagne to celebrate their successes as his co-pilot. for the 1990s, according to Gene Tracking the psychics is fun, but it has Emery, who has been tracking the hits a serious side, said Emery. "Every time and misses of the tabloid psychics for die media hypes psychics, it encourages two decades. consumers to waste large amounts of And, Emery says, die folks who money calling psychic hotlines. Most can claim to be able to see die future also ill afford it. It also encourages some didn't do very well in their forecasts for police departments to listen to psychics 1999. The psychics said 1999 would be who claim to be able to solve crimes. Not the year that: only do 'psychic detectives' waste valu- • A pollution cloud forced New York able police resources, die psychics some- City to be quarantined; times implicate people who later turn out • Wynonna Judd quit country music to be innocent." to become a women's wrestler; Emery said psychics give the illusion • Marijuana replaced petroleum as of being accurate when people forget die nation's chief source of energy; the bad predictions or don't realize how • The cast of 60 Minutes II was equivocal the forecasts are. Psychic replaced by Candice Bergen, Mary Tyler Sylvia Browne, for example, predicted 'Fastest Man on Earth/ Moore, and Margot Kidder; that in 1999 "the Pope will become ill Col. John Paul Stapp, • The Statue of Liberty lost both and could die." Said Emery: "That Dies at 89; Had arms in a terrorist blast; means she can claim success if the Pope • Monica Lewinski became a mil- suffers anything from a head cold to a Connections to Roswell lionaire after opening a New York bou- fatal heart attack." (Browne's notable Incident, Murphy's Law tique for the full-figured women called predictions for 1999 included forecasts Monica's Closet; of cures for breast cancer and sudden Colonel John Paul Stapp, USAF (Ret.), • O.J. Simpson confessed to Howard infant death syndrome [SIDS]. She died on November 13, 1999, in Stern on die air that he killed his ex- also said that "The world will not end Alamogordo, New Mexico, at age 89. wife, and anytime soon.") Some of die unam- On December 10, 1954, Stapp became • Roseanne shed her clothes to do a biguous forecasts the psychics made for the "Fastest Man on Earth" in a pio- week's worth of talk shows from a nud- the 1990s include: neering rocket sled experiment, in ist colony.