What is Thought Field Therapy?

Thought Field Therapy (TFT) is a new technique for the rapid relief of all kinds of emotional distress. It works rather like acupuncture by stimulating the body’s energy meridians to resolve problems with the body’s emotional control system. However no needles are used. Instead the patient taps on various parts of the body with their fingers. The results are frequently amazing as emotional problems often disappear in minutes.

What can it be used for?

TFT was originally developed as a treatment for phobias and traumatic stress. Further research has meant that it can now be used to treat a wide variety of problems including stress and anxiety, panic attacks, depression, obsessive compulsive disorder, grief, acute trauma and PTSD, anger, guilt, pain, sexual problems, addictions (including food, alcohol, tobacco, drugs, gambling, nail-biting, etc.) and much more.

How was TFT discovered?

TFT was discovered in 1980 by Dr Roger Callahan PhD, one of America’s most experienced and distinguished Clinical Psychologists. Dr. Callahan was dissatisfied with conventional therapy techniques which he found to be time consuming and largely ineffective. He became interested in an alternative therapy called Applied Kinesiology (AK) which addresses the body’s energy meridian system and realised that some of its techniques could have an application in the rapid and efficient diagnosis and treatment of negative emotions.

How does it work?

According to Dr. Callahan’s theory, whenever we think of something, we are effectively tuning in a specific “Thought Field” in much the same way as a TV must be tuned in to receive a specific channel. Held within that energy field are the coded information patterns used by the mind and body to generate the entire emotional experience associated with that thought. This is why the experience is always identical – the same “instructions” are followed each time. Dr. Callahan has named these “perturbations” (from a dictionary definition of the word – “a cause of mental disquietude”).

By tapping on the correct meridian treatment points in a specific sequence these perturbations can be deactivated, thereby “switching off” the emotional experience. The individual can now think about what troubled them as much as they like as memory remains unaffected – but the negative emotion (anxiety, anger, guilt, etc.) associated with it will no longer be present.