The International Institute For  Self-Help Holistic Therapies Ltd.

FAQ 

Frequently asked questions

What is a thought field?

Dr CALLAHAN had to coin this concept when he came to explain the phenomenon happening to patients when tapping acupuncture points in a sequential order: he observed that their psychological problems suddenly vanished. However to get such a result needed a prerequisite: the patient had to think of the problem while tapping. Tapping in itself and by itself is not enough and the patient has to bring the problem to his conscious mind. This is why acupuncture, a therapy known and used for thousands of years has not imposed itself as the specific treatment of mental disorders. While the needles were being implanted nobody ever asked the patient to focus on his problems. Still, it is known that acupuncture is dealing with the body "vital energy", the Yin and Yang principles. Postulating that a thought is energy, only through the notion of field, proper to the quantum theory, can we explain why this thought's energy transcends the whole body. It is well known that a traumatised person will suddenly enter in a state of agitation at the mere evocation of the trauma. The same thing may happen to the phobic at the simple mention of the object of the phobia. The whole body is affected at the same time: crying, rush or withdrawal of blood, shortness of breath, acceleration of the heart rate, constriction or relaxation of muscles, all these may happen at the same moment. Furthermore, it happens at a speed that cannot be explained by the action of chemical mediators released at synaptic junctions or by the action of hormones on their targets. If that were the case, the injection of any hormone would produce its effect at the same speed. It is not the case. Drugs given to panic-stricken or depressed people take  from minutes to hours to have effect. Administering a self-help CT-TFT treatment will typically yield a result at the end of each therapeutic sequence or holon. Progress is obtained very rapidly. Only the notion of quantum field can both explain why the whole body is affected at the same time and relieved by stimulation of acupuncture points on the energy pathways represented by the meridians. Tapping the proper points energizes the meridians and that helps to remove the perturbations in the thought field (Callahan). This is consistent with the quantum theory of fields where a field is a medium connecting simultaneously different points in space and where any modification of its state is made through an exchange of energy. It is of the utmost interest to quote here the works of French doctor J. Benveniste on digital biology: he showed that intercellular communication is not done by way of a biochemical reaction, which is slow, but through a resonating wave of electromagnetic nature which represents the "signature" of any molecule. Dr Benveniste and his team have been able to get the electromagnetic signature of many biochemical molecules such as heparin, acetylcholin and, after digitization, transmit it via the telephone line to resonate in water and get an answer on the biological target of the experiment. In other words, a heart immersed in water exposed to the digitized signature of acetylcholin, its resonating wave, but without a trace of it, would still react as if it were in contact with the real molecule. 

What can be treated with VT and CT-TFT?

anxiety and stress, phobias, travel anxiety including fear of flying or driving on the freeways, social or public speaking fears, nail biting, personal fears or your children’s fears...

insomnia, depression,loss of loved ones, low moods and mood swings, procrastination...

anger and frustration, rage, jealousy,  sexual or intimacy problems...

cravings, weight problems, eating, smoking or drinking problems, addiction...

 fibromyalgia, schizophrenia...

How does it work?

Your symptoms, which are classified and categorized by doctors in order to deliver a diagnosis, are usually the expression of an imbalance in your autonomic nervous system. Consider depression: to get such a diagnosis you must have at least four of the following problems:

1.   loss of weight or anorexia

2.   insomnia or hypersomnia

3.   hyperactivity or slowing down of activity

4.   loss of interest or pleasure in common activities

5.   loss of energy, fatigue

6.   feeling of guilt, of indignity

7.   difficulty or incapacity to focus your mind, slowing down of the thinking process

8.   death wish or attempt to commit suicide

Conventional psychotherapies look for a cause to your problems either under the form of shock (brutal loss of a loved one) or through grotesque interpretation (conflict with your husband because you had a problem with your father, anorexia because you are afraid of being eaten by your mother who considered you as a rival and being thin you could escape this fate). Sometimes you know for sure that something really did happen that made you fall into depression. Before you lost your job you were fine. Now, we consider that such traumas as loss of your job, brutal or agonizing death of a loved one, child abuse etc. leave traces in your mind. When testing your voice while thinking of a specific problem (when you are tuned to a specific thoughtfield) we can identify perturbations whose code we can translate into specific acupuncture points to be tapped in a sequential order.

Thinking of a particular problem, when tapping acupuncture points in that sequential order, you'll remove the perturbations in the thought field by sending energy (coded information) through the meridians, your energy pathways. And consequently through this action your symptoms typically will disappear. There simply will be no trace of the problem.

Sometimes the patient will even deny that he had the problem or be very reluctant to accept that the sequential tapping of acupuncture points as provided by the energy coach was the cure! This phenomenon, called the apex syndrome, would be quite frustrating if we were not prepared for it.

This is why we consider that the trauma is not in itself the cause of the problem. The cause of the problem is the perturbations in the thought field creating havoc through your autonomic nervous system, with psychosomatic symptoms expressing the distress that makes your suffering. Tapping your healing sequence will have the perturbations disappear, together with the psychosomatic symptoms and distress. The conscious memory of the trauma will still be there, but you will not suffer from it and you will be able to attend to its consequence with serenity and efficacy. 

Will the treatment last?

 Dr Callahan likes to underline that this very question is never raised in any other form of therapy just because no healing is expected. Most people consulting a psychotherapist, when asked (this is for an NLP practitioner, conventional therapists don't even ask what the patients wants!) "What are your expectations, what do you want in coming here?" answer: "I want to understand the cause of my problem" . The typical patient doesn't expect a treatment, only an answer that could lead to sedation.

Yes it will last.

Dr Callahan’s first case treated with TFT was Mary, who was suffering from a severe hydrophobia, a fear of water, and to such an extent that she was even afraid to drink! One tap did the treatment and she is still in a good condition after twenty years. 

As we just said, in most cases the treatment will last. However, when dealing with complex cases, we need to wait for the relapse that will surely come. When there is indeed such a relapse it means that toxins are undoing the treatment that you did to yourself, disrupting your energy pathways and raising your sensitivity level. Your energy coach will help you identify which toxins are the cause of the relapse and help you to keep away from them.

Then, you will consider that if you want a real cure of your complex problem and the end of your suffering you have to envision a real change in your lifestyle, dropping bad habits (toxic food, cigarettes...).

What is a toxin?

The notion of toxin derived from the simple observation that treatment achieved through the Callahan Techniques Procedures could be undone. Looking for the reason for the return of the problem when it had already disappeared led to questioning of the role of food, tobacco, inhalants etc. as the cause of the return. Many authors already suspected the toxicity of food, a concept which is different from the common and undisputed food allergy. That a food, a common food, may be toxic and affect your body balance can be observed when its ingestion causes you one or some of the following symptoms: sudden and intense fatigue, migraine, nervousness, sudden anger, emotional instability, depression, indigestion, gastric pain, tachycardia etc. (One patient reported that while eating dinner, after absorbing wheat [a basic ingredient of bread, noodles, cakes etc., he  had to lie on a couch and would fall into a kind of slumber for half an hour before resuming his meal. Only when he was prescribed a wheat avoidance diet, which he occasionally broke, did he relate his fits of torpor to his ingestion of wheat.)

How can a common food be toxic?

Food is energy. Absorbing food is incorporating an energy which will affect the sympatho-vagal balance that actually reflects your body energy balance. A toxin stimulating the sympathetic or depleting the parasympathetic will raise the heart rate. Dr Arthur F. Coca developed the "Pulse Test" to test a food’s toxicity: 1) any morning before getting up from bed, having breakfast and starting your activities, check your pulse (a normal pulse is between 60 to 65 beats per minute) 2) then hold a piece of the food to be tested against your chest and check if your pulse is faster: an acceleration of 10 beats is already very suspicious. Keep in mind that if a response to the test means with certainty that the food is toxic, no response absolutely does not mean that the food is safe. An alternative test for the safety of a food may be, sometimes, to measure the HRV while holding it on the chest. Another way that can lead you to suspect a food is your craving for it: you are addicted to it! In such a case the food is causing you a state of anxiety that can only be calmed down by the ingestion of more of the food, just like the tobacco addict! That food is your drug! We can help you break this addiction easily! 

How can a toxin affect my mood?

We understand that with all the fuss being made about interpreting the cause of people’s mental condition, especially with Freudian oriented explanations, or lately, due to genomic research, about looking for genetic defects, simpler and unheard theories are weird. However, recent research has shown that morphin-like proteins, which are by-products derived from such common food as cereals and dairy products (casomorphin, gliadorphin*), accumulate in the brain structures involved in vision, hearing, communication and mood. Some cutting edge laboratories can measure these compounds in blood and urine and they have been found in great quantities in individuals suffering from autistic and schizophrenic troubles. Those morphin-like by-products will interfere with the normal functioning of your brain.

*you can have your urines checked by asking for the measurement of "urinary peptides"

How long should I keep away from a certain type of food?

When we advise you to change your diet you will usually get results in the first 15 days. Your self-help treatment will last without relapse and this will encourage you to persevere! You need to let your body recover from the toxin for four months. After this period of time you may try, cautiously, to have that food again, in small quantities while being aware of the return of any symptoms. Please remember that a reduction of 98% is not enough! You need total abstinence from the toxic food, with no extras! This is a zero tolerance requirement from your body! Furthermore should you indulge once in your food during that four month period, you'd have to start it all again from the beginning. However only complex cases are required to check for their food!

Is it acupuncture?

Thought field Therapy is not acupuncture or acupressure though it taps in the same energy system. There would not be any CT-TFT if Dr Callahan had been ignorant of acupuncture. It is because he had a knowledge of it that he could establish a relation between the thought field and acupuncture with his first treated case, Mary, the woman suffering from a severe hydrophobia for more than 20 years. The two major differences are the necessity to 1) be tuned to one's thoughtfield, and 2) perform the tapping in a sequential order that can only be discovered by an energy coach, someone trained in the Callahan Techniques.

Is it kinesiology?

Definitely not! Applied Kinesiology (AK) relies only on muscle testing and does not yield such results as obtained with CT-TFT, especially Voice Technology, VT.

How long is the treatment?

Simple phobias may just need a few minutes, while complex problems, usually concerning highly multiple-toxins sensitive people, require numerous sessions (sometimes up to 50) and a change of lifestyle.

What about my medical pharmaceutical treatment? Can I stop it?

Certainly, you can stop your treatment when you are cured. We do not advise you to do so without medical supervision and you have to know that stopping a medical treatment abruptly can be dangerous. It is better to ask the advice of the doctor who prescribed you the drugs. Quite often he will be sceptical and discourage you. The problem is that most of the drugs are toxic. If you are sensitive to milk, lactose is quite often an excipient in the tablet you take. If your doctor does not want to help you, find another one! Homeopathic or natural medicine doctors are not difficult to find and will provide decisive help!

Why is it expensive?

The treatment is efficacious and fast. It looks expensive only if you forget how much ineffective therapies such as psychoanalysis are costing a phobic! A one hour session with VT, very often quite enough for a simple phobia, even if you have had it for twenty years, barely represents 8 to 10 sessions of psychoanalysis (some people have been on a treatment with this technique for more than ten years with two to three sessions a week!). Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) requires more than 6 months of treatment with cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) and still relies heavily on medical drugs! One VT session will always save one night in the emergency room and, while it is about the same price, the result is quite different! The fee will seem expensive only to those who are profligate with welfare money and do not hesitate to spend it to alleviate unjustified fears through unnecessary scanner or MRI exams, but do not want to spend one dime on themselves!

Who is concerned?

All those who are disappointed with conventional treatments. 

What if I'm treated before I finish my time credit? 

Would it not be fabulous if your treatment were even faster than you expected? That should be a reason to be happy! In such a case we would think we deserved your money and there would be no refund or transfer of your time credit.