STOP THE NIGHTMARES OF TRAUMA THOUGHT FIELD THERAPY (TFT) THE POWER THERAPY FOR THE 21ST CENTURY ROGER J. CALLAHAN, PH.D. AND JOANNE CALLAHAN, MBA (HEALTH CARE) Copyright © 2000 Roger J. Callahan Joanne Callahan All Rights Reserved No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, includ- ing photocopying, recording, or by any information stor- age and retrieval system, except in the case of reviews, without the express written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law. ISBN Number 1-57087-505-7 Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 99-76342 Professional Press Chapel Hill, NC 27515-4371 Manufactured in the United States of America 00 01 02 03 04 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 ii DEDICATION We dedicate this work to our grandchildren Jennifer, Ryan, Caitlin, Haley, Tessa, Charlie and Will RJC and JC iii DISCLAIMER All material presented herein is provided for educa- tional purposes only and may not be construed as medi- cal or psychological advice or instruction. No action or inaction should be taken based solely on the contents herein; instead, readers or viewers should consult appro- priate health professionals on any matter relating to their health. This information and the opinions provided here are believed to be accurate and sound, based on the best judgment available to the authors. Readers or viewers who fail to consult with appropriate health authorities assume the risk of any injuries. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS It is easy to confuse Thought Field Therapy (TFT) with acupuncture or Applied Kinesiology. Actually it is neither, but without the preceding work and discoveries in these fields my (RJC’s) discoveries never would have been pos- sible (see the Chapter Notes on Discovery). Therefore, I wish to express my profound appreciation to the unknown genius in the Orient who first discovered the energy me- ridians that travel throughout the human body. Also, I want to acknowledge my great appreciation to George Goodheart, DC, the genius who discovered and devel- oped Applied Kinesiology (AK), for without his discover- ies, mine would not have been possible. I also wish to thank David Walther, DC, and Robert Blaich, DC, for teaching me AK and in welcoming this psychologist to their hundred-hour course in that subject many years ago. Their grasp and appreciation of my dis- covery of psychological reversal (discovered before I took the course) was encouraging at a time when I was not receiving much encouragement. Thought Field Therapy, however is not AK. The AK principals and I would agree on this. v I have never received outside financial support for my years of research and development of TFT. All my work has been made possible by my clients who had faith in, or at least were willing to try a method which seemed quite strange but nevertheless yielded powerful results—I thank them for putting up with the seeming strangeness of the procedures. Our trainees, and especially those trained in Voice Technology™ (VT), have been a delight to work with and we are grateful for their support. I would like to acknowl- edge especially Dr. Stephen Daniel, VT; Dr. Gale Joslin, VT; Liz Joslin, VT; Yoshinori Takasaki, MD, VT; Dr. Caroline Sakai, VT; Monica Pignotti, VT; Dr. Jill Strunk, VT; Dr. Norma Shenck, VT; Dr. Mark Steinberg, VT; Dr. Jennifer Edwards; Dr. Luis Jorge Gonzalez; and Richard Petty, MD. We would like to thank Ryan Tannascoli for his illus- trations. We have received editorial help for this project and we would especially like to thank Dr. Jill Strunk, VT; Monica Pignotti, VT; Dr. Mark Steinberg, Curtis Morris, and Ginny Turner for their special help and attention, as well as edi- torial suggestions. Remaining errors are the sole responsi- bility of the authors. RJC and JC LaQuinta, California, 1999 vi CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .................................................................. v FOREWORD ......................................................................................ix CHAPTER 1—HOW TFT VIEWS TRAUMA ................................. 1 CHAPTER II—DISCOVERY OF THE TRAUMA TREATMENT................................................................................ 9 CHAPTER 3—HOW TO STOP THE NIGHTMARES AND PAIN OF TRAUMA: THE TFT ALGORITHM (RECIPE) FOR TRAUMA ..........................................................................15 CHAPTER 4—HOW TFT CAN HELP WITH DIFFERENT TYPES OF TRAUMA ............................................................................33 CHAPTER 5—CAUSAL DIAGNOSIS ...........................................45 CHAPTER 6—PSYCHOLOGICAL REVERSAL (PR) ...................69 CHAPTER 7—THE HEALING SYSTEM ........................................89 CHAPTER 8—THE APEX PROBLEM ............................................95 CHAPTER 9—THE SUD SCALE: HOW WE MEASURE SUCCESS WITH TFT ........................................ 111 CHAPTER 10—CURE AND TIME ............................................. 117 CHAPTER 11—PLACEBO EFFECT ............................................ 131 CHAPTER 12—THE PERTURBATION (P): THE FUNDAMENTAL CAUSE OF EMOTIONAL SUFFERING............................................................................ 137 vii CHAPTER 13—EMOTIONAL CONTROL SYSTEM................ 167 CHAPTER 14—MEMORY ........................................................... 181 CHAPTER 15—THE LAWS OF TFT ........................................... 187 CHAPTER 16—WHY NIGHTMARES AND OBSESSIONS? ....................................................................... 201 CHAPTER 17—NATURAL TREATMENT .................................. 221 CHAPTER 18—TFT AND HRV (HEART RATE VARIABILITY) ........................................................................ 231 CHAPTER 19—NOTES ON MY DISCOVERIES ..................... 253 APPENDIX A—TFT Glossary....................................................... 271 APPENDIX B—Rap Song: I Just Can’t Thought About It Anymore ................................................................. 295 REFERENCES ................................................................................. 297 INDEX ............................................................................................. 315 viii FOREWORD Much of human suffering in the world today is due to traumatic events. Man-made events such as war and crime, as well as natural disasters from earthquakes to hurricanes all leave their victims in pain, tortured with vivid past memories and recurring nightmares. My years of teaching seminars to accelerate personal and professional development and enhance self-esteem have shown me how fragile we human beings are and how deeply affected we are by our fears and past trau- mas. As a result, many of the stories in our Chicken Soup for the Soul® Series are centered around the courage needed to overcome or respond to some sort of trauma in our lives. I have used Dr. Callahan’s simple techniques for over- coming fears and phobias, the Five Minute Phobia Cure, in my teaching and seminars for nearly ten years. Often, eliminating a simple fear such as fear of public speaking can go a long way to improving an individual’s self-es- teem and increasing the expression of their innate poten- tial. Unfortunately, up until now, there has never really been a brief and effective self-help procedure for past trau- mas. Healing from traumas usually takes time. Suffering often continues for many, many years as the victim relives ix the event over and over again. Children often suffer the most. In this new book, Dr. Callahan offers a completely new theory as to why we have recurrent nightmares and why we suffer for extended periods following most trau- matic events. He tells us that most of this suffering is need- less and gives us step-by-step procedures to alleviate the pain, nightmares, and stress that haunt us. Stop the Nightmares of Trauma, for the first time in history, gives us a simple, painless way to reduce and even eliminate the painful emotions and nightmares from our past traumas. We now have at our fingertips a safe and natural technique to help reduce the suffering of trauma victims throughout the world. Jack Canfield President, Self-Esteem Seminars and Co-Author, Chicken Soup for the Soul® Series x NOTE When the words “I,” “me” or “my” are used they refers to the primary author, RJC. The descriptive term (name) Thought Field Therapy (TFT) cannot be trademarked. Therefore, in order to dis- tinguish the authentic and standardized TFT from the nu- merous diluted copies, we sometimes use the term Callahan Techniques® TFT or CTTFT. Callahan Techniques® was the original name during the first fifteen years of de- velopment of the procedures now referred to as Thought Field Therapy. Therefore, Callahan Techniques® (CT) iden- tifies the originator or source. After careful thought during its development, I came up with the name TFT. But now, the term by itself has lost its significance since individuals who do not clearly un- derstand this work are applying the name TFT to much- diluted, hybridized and less-effective versions. xi CHAPTER 1 HOW TFT VIEWS TRAUMA maintain that most of the treatments used to help trauma victims today, which entail suffering and reliv- ing the emotional experience, are harmful and trauma-inducing in their own right. It makes no difference that numerous so-called experts acclaim these outmoded procedures—they fail the scientific test; they are experi- ments that not only do not work, but in fact cause harm. Generations of suffering people have been wrongly taught that suffering is necessary and that