Thought Field Therapy

Thought Field Therapy was developed in the 1980’s by Roger Callahan, a psychologist who was working with a woman with a phobia of water.  Her phobia was so severe that it was hard for her to be around running water.  Dr. Callahan had tried all interventions common to that time and was starting to believe that he wasn’t going to be able to assist this woman with the phobia.  When she shared that she felt the fear in her stomach, he pulled from his awareness of eastern practices and had her tap on the meridian for stomach.  Within three seconds the woman got up and started running towards the pool, her lifelong phobia of water was gone.

Dr. Callahan researched and found this technique did not work for all mental health imbalances and began to explore the algorithms that would work for issues such as anxiety, trauma, and addiction.  Per his estimation in his book, at the basic level of training, TFT is 70% effective in reducing these issues.

Currently, Thought Field Therapy is listed as an evidence-based best practice approach for trauma and for addiction with the National Registry of Evidence Based Practices.  Thus far published research for Thought Field Therapy is limited and weak (and yet sufficient enough to make it to this registry).

The process works with the meridians which are used in acupuncture and acupressure, which have documented research spanning centuries and is now a treatment offered as a benefit of some health insurances.  Because of the coveted and limited access (very cost prohibitive at this time) to this process in the 80’s and 90’s, one of the people trained in this technique developed an off-shoot of the technique called Emotional Freedom Technique, which is wider known.  Currently there is another well-known process called The Tapping Solution. The research of these techniques isn’t known to this writer.

At advanced levels, Dr. Callahan purports 97% effectiveness and practitioners are addressing other health issues as well.

Thought Field Therapy can be effective both to reduce symptoms and to support thoughts and emotions to align to goals for activities such as public speaking, performing, skill acquisition and consistent performance.

For most people, easy starting points are reducing distress or supporting vision for an area of life to enhance, so that once the mental/emotional aspects are aligned, the actions to support this are easier and sometimes seemingly automatic.  At the end of the day, it is an experiential opportunity in which people “try it on” to assess the personal impacts and ways in which it can be utilized to enhance health and wellness, so they can live life more fully.

A summary of the research can be found here:

https://www.thoughtfieldtherapy.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/References-2023-03-13.pdf