RIP Roger J. Callahan: 1925-2013

On November 4, 2013, Roger Callahan, the Founder of Thought Field Therapy and someone with whom I shared quite a history, passed away. It has been nearly 10 years since I had spoken with him and even longer since I had seen him, since we parted ways in February, 2004. There was only one brief obituary I could find in his local paper (Palm Springs, CA), but there was an outpouring of love and support from therapists and others who had trained with him over the years.

Others who saw his high fees and grandiose claims for his novel unsupported therapy thought he was a con man, but I have to say that having known him quite well I don’t believe that to be the case. As a human being, he had many strengths. He was a genuinely caring person who sincerely believed he was helping people with the therapy he developed that he believed to be the most effective therapy on the planet. Although in his last video posted on the Callahan website he said evidence for TFT was strong, this was far from being the case by any recognized scientific standards. In spite of the fact that there have been studies published on TFT, the only two that actually tested its mechanism of action showed null results. It doesn’t matter if you tap on meridian points and the sequence, upon which he based his most expensive advanced forms of TFT, does not matter.

Nevertheless, Roger to the very end of his life, sincerely believed otherwise. He seemed to exemplify the saying that the strongest form of deception is self-deception. As I reflect on my time with him I remember our conflicts, but on a personal level, I also remember good times with Roger as a friend and a colleague. I remember his generosity with his time and always being willing to speak with people who he didn’t even know who called him and wanted to understand more about TFT. 

I remember witnessing the genuine love Roger Callahan displayed for his wife, children and grandchildren and his concern that his family be cared for. His wife, Joanne, also took very good care of him. They were married for nearly 25 years. On his website, one of his daughters wrote that it was thanks to Joanne, that he was able to live as long as he did. For the past 30 years or so, he had survived cancer and heart disease, and while he attributed this to TFT, I think his daughter’s attribution to Joanne for taking care of him for the past 20+ years is probably more accurate.  Roger also had a genuine love for animals. I recall him shedding tears when I was visiting him in 1998 for one of his dogs who had recently died and I also recall having dinner with him years later at a fish restaurant in San Francisco, as we brought food to the alley cats at the back of the restaurant. In spite of the fact that Roger was very opinionated and could judge people harshly, he was a kind man who treated people with gentleness and respect. He was uncomfortable with direct conflict to the point where he would not engage in it and walk away if someone became contentious. I recently learned that he declined to even read my TFT: A Former Insiders Experience. I suppose to him, I have been dead for many years now. That being said, as a fellow flawed human being, I extend my heartfelt condolences to his family and I wish that he rest in peace. Whatever else may be said about him, Roger Callahan lived long, prospered and died a happy man.

A memorial website has been put up by his family for him. 

SUNY Albany School of Social Work Gets $15,000 Tapping Therapy Grant

Under the leadership of three SUNY Albany School of Social Welfare faculty, this institution has been given a $15,000 grant from the Association for Comprehensive Energy Psychology (ACEP) and Global Gateway Foundation to study Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), a tapping therapy that is an offshoot of Thought Field Therapy (TFT). The SUNY Albany website features pseudoscientific claims about EFT (couched in superficial scientific sounding jargon).

EFT is a low-risk acupressure technique that calms the limbic structures of the brain, enabling clients to regulate their over-aroused systems, and eliminating the flashbacks, nightmares and terror that plague traumatized adults and children. EFT is a trauma-focused practice that engages neuroplasticity to restore development. Grounded in neuroscience research and Eastern preventive medicine, pilot intervention studies of EFT with veterans are building an evidence base for EFT as PTSD treatment.

It is highly embarrassing that a top ranked school of social work would make such claims, although they are not the first to do so. In 2007, I published an expose of similar therapies being taught at the University of Michigan School of Social Work while their Dean appeared to be unresponsive. At the time I published this, I was warned by a faculty member of a prominent college of social work who himself is critically oriented toward such practices, that this could greatly hurt my academic career and it might very well have done so, but if I had it to do over again, I would not change a thing. If remaining silent about such questionable practices is the price for being accepted in social work academia, that is a price I am not willing to pay.

After eight years of my published academic criticism that few people read, to no avail it would appear, it’s time to start using the internet more so the public can be alerted as to what the social work profession is up to. Based on some conversations I have had, a number of academic social work faculty are in denial about this problem.

I wonder if Dean Katharine H. Briar Lawson, supposedly a staunch advocate for evidence-based practice,  is aware of what her institution is supporting. The faculty involved as co-principal investigators are:  Dr. Heather Lankin, Dr. Ron Toseland and Dr. Lara Kaye and are working with a leading proponent of tapping therapies, Mary Sise, LCSW and a graduate of SUNY Albany. The research will focus on “PTSD treatment for older heart attack survivors” which in and of itself, is a problematic and unsupported assumption to make, that heart attack survivors need “PTSD treatment”. Even the topic of depression screening of heart attack survivors has met with much controversy due to its lack of evidentiary basis. Subjecting such people to a questionable therapy is doubly reprehensible.

Dr. Heather Larkin, who bears the title, Assistant Professor, according to her bio on the SUNY Albany School of Social Welfare website, has also been involved in the work of Ken Wilber and something called Restorative Integral Support (RIS), which appears to be heavily connected to Global Gateway Foundation, one of the funders of the EFT study. Wilber’s work and RIS  is described with the following typical pseudoscientific obscurantist jargon (just to give you a small sample of what one can read throughout this article, linked to on the Global Gateway website):

The Integral model includes quadrants (or interiors and exteriors of individuals and collectives); levels of increasing complexity along various lines or waves of development; typologies; as well as states, which include meditative states of consciousness, healing states, and altered states.1

It appears that Dr. Larkin is now extending her involvement with such practices to tapping therapies. This is apparently what top ranked schools of social work are looking for. Faculty in major research institutions these days are expected to secure grants in order to ultimately qualify for tenure. Apparently, at this institution, a grant from Global Gateway and ACEP, organizations that promote and fund questionable therapies researched by enthusiastic proponents, is acceptable.

How about studies that would constitute a rigorous test of the claims of energy psychology using a control group with sham tapping points? We haven’t seen that and with Mary Sise, LCSW as a co-investigator, I doubt we will. According to SUNY Albany’s research guide (see p. 101) the current study treatments will be delivered under the supervision of Ms. Sise, who is a long-time enthusiastic TFT/EFT devotee who for more than a decade has received financial remuneration from here practice of tapping therapies. The study design is the usual weak one, only comparing EFT to no treatment. This type of design does not control for placebo effect, which has already been demonstrated in Waite & Holder’s EFT study, which used a stronger design, that used control groups that tapped on non-meridian points and showed no difference between groups, but a difference between the sham group and no treatment, suggests placebo effect. Waite & Holder are not EFT proponents and the treatment effects from both groups, although statistically significant compared to no treatment, were minimal (small effect sizes). This is a type of study that thus far, TFT/EFT proponents have not conducted. It appears that this study will contribute virtually nothing to the literature, not telling us anything we do not already know about the tapping therapies, that they typically get large effect sizes, when compared to no treatment, with placebo effect not ruled out. What an utter waste of faculty’s time and money.

If this is what is happening in top-ranked schools of social work, how can there be any hope for the social work profession? The question to ask is cui bono? Who benefits, besides faculty members getting grant money that they are expected to get in order to eventually obtain tenure? How far are faculty members willing to go to fulfill that requirement? Of course, there is virtually no grant money for people to take a more critical approach to such practices. Thus, we can observe that it is the Heather Larkins who are getting hired in tenure track positions at major institutions because they get grant money from these institutions of energy therapy enthusiasts and therapies based on new age theorists with virtually no empirical support, such as Ken Wilber’s gibberish. The more critical people who want to do a more rigorous design, won’t get funded because it goes against the agenda of these organizations and can forget about getting hired, much less getting tenure anywhere. Of course, there are some faculty who are scientifically and critically oriented, but they do not study these novel therapies because there is no grant money for that, unless they go with the funders who are foundations consisting of devotees. The big funders such as NIMH, who would demand a more rigorous design, have no interest in putting their resources into a fringe therapy, thus it is left up to proponents organizations that have vested interest.  Their plan is to do these poorly designed studies and then try to go after the big dollars from NIMH. The social work academic community really needs to reevaluate their priorities which these days appear, ironically and hypocritically, to be the almighty funding dollar and practice what they preach if they want to truly protect the vulnerable.

The Jodi Arias Defense Expert: More Myths About Psychology and Mental Health Assessment

Thursday, Richard Samuels, the defense psychologist expert witness in the Jodi Arias case answered questions from the jury and was then once again questioned by the defense and then the prosecution began a re-cross examination of him. A common theme throughout his testimony is how many years of experience he has had and the assertion that this makes him more credible and accurate at what he does when he assesses and diagnoses people. As I have written previously, the scientific evidence shows that this is not necessarily the case.

Samuels and the defense counsel trying to play the experience card, I suspect is a way subtle way for them to take a swipe at the prosecution’s rebuttal expert. Although I haven’t seen her full CV, she is obviously much younger and a more recent PhD (2009). Does this mean that her opinion is inferior to Samuels? Research evidence says not necessarily. She might actually have an advantage over Samuels, being more recently in school and being more up on the latest research. Some of the statements made by Samuels displayed an astonishing ignorance of developments over the last decade or so. For example, he testified that sodium pentathol and hypnosis were good ways to recover repressed memories when these methods have been discredited as unreliable and even dangerous because they may produce false memories and do great harm. Even though he made it clear he didn’t think Jodi Arias had repressed memories, he still presented these myths to the jury about what he thought was a good idea for people who did have them. He thought Jodi Arias had dissociative amnesia, due to the hippocampus shutting down completely during the part of the murder she says she cannot remember. That too, is a highly questionable notion, as the literature shows that this is very rare and when amnesia does occur during a murder, it is usually temporary. More typically trauma is very well remembered and people with PTSD have the opposite problem — they wish they could forget the trauma but cannot stop thinking about it.

Samuels would do well to review the literature on psychological assessment and whether psychologists learn well from experience and improve. There is quite a large body of literature showing that this is not the case and also how unreliable clinical judgment is. He was correct to call it “speculation” and Juan Martinez was very correct to pin him down on what he said. Some of this literature is reviewed in Howard Garb & Patricia Boyle’s chapter in Scott Lilienfeld’s edited volume, Science and Pseudoscience in Clinical Psychology on “Understanding Why Some Clinicians Use Pseudoscientific Methods” (2nd Edition to be published soon). Garb & Boyle discuss experienced vs. less experienced clinicians. They write:

For the task of interpreting personality assessment test results, alleged experts have not been more accurate than other clinicians, and experienced clinicians have not been more accurate than less experienced clinicians.

They cite a large body of literature accumulated over 30 year period that supports this. One of the examples they provide is about one of the tests used by the Jodi Arias defense, the MMPI. Two groups of psychologists were presented with MMPI protocols. One group consisted of PhD psychologists who had routinely used the MMPI in practice for 5 years, the other group were psychologists who had used the MMPI for over 5 years and demonstrated a broad knowledge of the research literature. Both groups were asked to interpret the MMPI. The findings showed that the psychologists with more experience were no more accurate in their interpretations than the group with less experience. The two were completely unrelated.

We can only hope that the prosecutions’ expert Janeen Demarte is aware of this literature so she can soundly refute any attempts by the defense to make less of her by claiming that because she has less years of experience than Samuels, she is not as credible — this is absolutely false.

Once again, we are seeing myth after myth presented on national television for all to see, although for the purposes of this case, from the juror’s questions that were asked last Thursday, it doesn’t look like the defense has been very successful in persuading the jury of his credibility.

Jodi Arias Case: Juan Martinez Cross-Examination of Psychologist Expert Begins

During the last hour of court yesterday, prosecutor Juan Martinez’s cross-examination of psychologist defense expert Richard Samuels began and it has already been devastating. Martinez demonstrated that Arias lied on the assessment for PTSD, listing the main event responsible as the one she now admits she lied about, that two intruders broke into Travis’ home and murdered him. Amazingly, Samuels gave her this test and accepted her answer, even though he knew her story was not credible and strongly suspected she was lying. He admitted he made a mistake in not readministering the test.

Prosecutor Martinez also exposed the fact that Samuels exceeded his role, which was to evaluate Arias, by sending her a self-help book and cards when he learned she was depressed and suicidal.

The cross-examination is available on YouTube and there will be more to come today. Martinez has just barely gotten started. Stay Tuned.

I do hope his grossly inaccurate claims about dissociative amnesia and PTSD get challenged and the actual controversy over this exposed, but for the purposes of the case, that might not even be necessary, given that it was shown the test results were invalid to begin with, since she lied.

The Jodi Arias Case: Controversial Theories and Junk Science in the Courtroom

A few years ago, I blogged about a case in Texas, The State of Texas v. Billy Joe Harris, where the defendant, charged with rape, was trying to plead insanity by claiming he had Dissociative Identity Disorder.  The defense’s expert witness attempted to argue that because DID was in the DSM, it was therefore scientific and valid. The prosecution’s expert witness challenged this and demonstrated that just because something was in the DSM, that did not mean it was necessarily scientifically valid. The DSM represents consensus of those on the DSM committee and is all too often more political than it is scientific. Ultimately, the junk science in this case was defeated, thanks to R. Chris Barden, PhD, JD’s expert testimony for the prosecution and the defendant was found guilty of rape.

We now have another case, the State of Arizona v. Jodi Arias, this one airing on national television for all to see, where highly questionable and controversial theories about traumatic amnesia are being misrepresented as unquestioned science by defense expert witness Richard Samuels. This case begs for the kind of expert rebuttal witnesses for the prosecution that the State of Texas was fortunate to have. Let’s hope such witnesses are lined up to refute the expert witness testimony that has been given by the defense’s expert. Prosecutor Juan Martinez is doing an excellent job in presenting a compelling case against Arias, but he  really needs a strong expert witness to refute the many layers problems with Samuels’ testimony. It is questionable if Arias even suffers from PTSD, but even if she does, the notion that her memory would be permanently wiped out for the incident in question, even five years later, is scientifically, highly improbable. To have an effective rebuttal to the tangled web being woven by Samuels, all these layers of problems with Samuels’ testimony need to be challenged.

Samuels proudly held up and read from a copy of the DSM during his testimony, as if it were the Holy Bible, praising it as being written by “learned” professionals as if its authority was above question. Far from it. In recent years, during the development of DSM V there has been massive protest against many of its proposed diagnoses, as well as already existing ones that are not sufficiently supported by scientific evidence. More than 7000 psychologists, psychiatrist and clinical social workers signed an open letter to protest several of the proposed changes. In other words, in the opinion of many scientific mental health professionals, the DSM is loaded with junk science, not only the changes, but with some of the existing diagnoses as well. The fact that something appears in the DSM does not mean that it will meet the Daubert standard for scientific evidence, as was demonstrated in the State of Texas v. Billy Joe Harris. The defense expert in that case, Colin Ross, tried to argue that because DID was in the DSM, it was scientific. Thanks to the prosecution’s expert witness, R. Chris Barden who debunked that notion, the defense failed. This is a notion that also needs to be debunked in the Jodi Arias case, this time for what is being claimed regarding PTSD and Acute Stress Disorder.

Jodi Arias has been charged with first degree murder in the death of Travis Alexander. If convicted, she could get the death penalty or life in prison without possibility of parole. She has already admitted that she was the one who shot Travis Alexander in the head, stabbed him 29 times and slit his throat from ear-to-ear.  She claims that she did it in self defense (even though the facts of the case thus far presented do not appear to support this and she gives a story that sounds highly implausible and the prosecution who, in my opinion, has demonstrated was physically impossible for a number of reasons beyond the scope of this article). Arias testified that a mental “fog” rolled in and she cannot remember anything beyond the initial stages of the incident. In other words, she forgot that she stabbed him 29 times and slit his throat.

The defense expert is claiming she suffers from PTSD and amnesia. In reading the DSM criteria for PTSD and Acute Stress Disorder, he points out that one of the symptoms listed ( for Acute Stress Disorder) is inability to remember parts of the trauma — in her case, stabbing him 29 times and slitting his throat. What Samuels either seems to be unaware of or is not disclosing is that this notion of traumatic amnesia has been repeatedly challenged in the literature on PTSD and trauma and there are peer reviewed publications that have proposed eliminating the association of the criteria for Acute Stress Disorder (which includes forgetting important parts of the trauma and other dissociative symptoms) with PTSD. The fact that it wasn’t, doesn’t prove that the decision was scientific. This is nothing more than a political victory that does nothing to change the fact that there is very little scientific support for the notion of traumatic amnesia. The point here is that controversial notions have no business being presented in a court of law, especially when they are being presented as if they are uncontroversial, undisputed facts when they are far from it.

Go here to read all that psychiatrist Robert Spitzer, the main founder of the DSM who is now highly critical of many aspects of it and his esteemed coauthors see as being wrong with the current DSM-IV-TR criteria for PTSD, the edition being so revered by Jodi Arias’ defense expert. Harvard Psychology Professor Richard J. McNally writes that “Controversy has haunted the diagnosis of posttraumatic  stress disorder since its first appearance in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.”

In a peer reviewed article entitled “Saving PTSD from itself in DSM-V, critiquing the DSM IV-TR PTSD diagnosis, published in the Journal of Anxiety Disorders, Spitzer and his coauthors, in their analysis of what is wrong with the DSM definition of PTSD, list many proposed changes.  Here are some of the ones most relevant to the Jodi Arias case.

On malingering (faking a PTSD diagnosis), Spitzer and his colleagues write:

Malingering – the intentional production of false or grossly exaggerated physical or psychological symptoms motivated by external incentives – is a potential explanation for any psychiatric presentation, but is of particular concern with PTSD since the diagnosis often results in findings of disability or entitlement to financial compensation. Although malingering is included in the differential diagnosis section of the DSM-IV text for PTSD, we think that it would be useful to specifically remind clinicians that malingering needs to be considered and ruled out. This goal can be accomplished by explicitly including this consideration within the diagnostic criteria.

Contrary to what Samuels would have us believe, PTSD is not at all difficult to fake. There are all kinds of popular books available to the public on PTSD that describe it very thoroughly, which Jodi Arias could have had access to and she is certainly bright enough to understand them and incorporate them into her narrative. Spitzer points out that financial compensation would be motive to malinger. Having the possibility of the death penalty hanging over ones head, as is the case with Jodi Arias, would be even more of a motive.

Regarding Acute Stress Disorder, which was brought up repeatedly by Samuels, these authors proposed deleting this altogether from the DSM because the evidence of its association with PTSD is really very weak and points out that the research evidence shows that only a minority of PTSD cases started out as ASD, which is contrary to what Samuels would have us believe.  Although about three-quarters of people diagnosed with ASD do go onto develop PTSD, most of those with the PTSD diagnosis never had ASD. Therefore the assumption that someone with PTSD first had ASD is highly unwarranted. See the difference.

This is of critical importance to the Jodi Arias case, since it is the symptoms of ASD (which can only be diagnosed for a month following the trauma), not PTSD that include dissociative amnesia or inability to remember the trauma or parts of it.  Since it hasn’t been demonstrated as far as I can tell from the evidence I have heard, that Jodi Arias was examined and diagnosed with ASD within one month of the trauma (at that time she was still by her own later admission, lying about two intruders killing Travis and was not yet claiming to have amnesia), we cannot assume she ever had ASD. The fact she now has a diagnosis of PTSD, does not necessarily mean she ever had ASD. The bulk of the scientific evidence shows that people with PTSD remember their trauma all too well — in fact they are tormented by their traumas to the point where they wish they could forget about the trauma, but they cannot stop thinking about it. The person who suffers from PTSD is often so absorbed by the traumatic event, that he or she becomes forgetful of everyday things, but not of the trauma itself, which is vividly remembered.

That being said, the entire concept of dissociative amnesia is highly questionable and as Richard J. McNally and others have demonstrated in numerous publications, much of the evidence claimed to support it, does not, when examined closely, support it.

Will the prosecution rebuttal witnesses have the knowledge necessary to refute the highly controversial notions presented incorrectly as undisputed science that the jury has been subjected to by the defense? The trial is still in progress. The first defense expert is currently testifying (to be continued tomorrow), which will be followed by his cross-examination, another defense expert witness and the prosecution’s rebuttal case. Stay tuned. The trial can be watched either online or on HLN.

Have You Had a Bad Experience with a “Cult Expert”?

There are a number of individuals, some mental health professionals, some not, who offer services to families who have loved ones in groups that are considered to be destructive cults who identify themselves by a variety of titles, the most common ones being exit counseling, thought reform consultant, deprogrammer (a term usually reserved for forcible abduction, which is illegal) or strategic interaction. For convenience, I will refer to this group as exit counselors, although that is not the title all use. There are some exit counselors who are honest, do not charge excessive fees for their services or make unrealistic claims. However, that is not the case for some. Because often, such families feel they are in desperate circumstances, some exit counselors take advantage of this and the result has been that some families have spent as much or more than they would have spent on a child’s college education (as Steve Hassan argues to justify the high cost in his recent book), yet have not achieved the results they hoped for. Families that spent tens of thousands of dollars, yet never got to the point of even doing an intervention are not typically counted when “success rates” are calculated. Some self proclaimed “cult experts” (a meaningless term since there are no real criteria for determining who is an expert unless someone has been an expert in court) have been known to charge up to $500 an hour or $5000 a day for their services to desperate families, but that does not stop cult watch organizations from welcoming them as conference speakers and allowing them to promote their books and services. This is a topic that deserves more discussion, as unsupported claims are being made in this area and families are sometimes being exploited, both financially and emotionally.

Have you had a bad experience with a “cult expert”? Have you hired someone who has charged excessive fees with all kinds of extra charges (e.g. hundreds of dollars per hour just to respond to emails or phone calls) that were not advertised on his or her website and ended up spending far more than you expected with no results?  If there was a failure, did you get blamed for it? If anyone reading this has had a negative experience with someone who they hired to get their loved one out of a cult, please let us know, either by responding to this blog or to me privately at pignotti@att.net . If you do not wish to go public, I will keep what you tell me in confidence or you can post here under a pseudonym.

 

Setting the Record Straight: Why I Broke with Roger Callahan and TFT

The topic of my 2004 split with Roger Callahan has come up on the ACEP Research discussion list and all kinds of unfounded speculation is occurring as to the reasons. To set the record straight, here is the posting I did in 2004 to the TFT Algorithm list serv, explaining my reasons. Note that the study mentioned was later published in the peer reviewed journal, The Scientific Review of Mental Health Practice in 2005. In spite of the fact that TFT proponents with a vested interest in Callahan’s TFT denounced the study as “flawed” this study underwent a rigorous peer review by people without such a vested interest and was accepted for publication. The purpose of the study was to discover whether Roger Callahan’s proprietary Voice Technology sequences made a difference in results. My study clearly showed they did not, hence the expenditure of $100,000 to train in VT and therapy clients paying Callahan up to $600 for VT treatment was not warranted, as they could have gotten the same results with random sequences not requiring any special proprietary treatment.

I’m sure that many people will be shocked at the announcement I just made about
the change that will be taking place on this list. I am therefore posting what
I have just posted to the TFT Dx, which will explain the circumstances.

In August, 2001, I did a posting to the TFT Dx list serv announcing research I
was conducting on some cutting edge algorithms derived from an experimental
procedure. Recently, I did another posting [to that list serv] making one final
call for reports. I have decided that at this time, my data are conclusive and
I am ready to report the results of my research, which includes a controlled,
single blind study I conducted on these same algorithms, the summer of 2001.
Please be forewarned that the results I am about to announce are going to be
very surprising to most of you, and I believe that they completely overturn the
basic premises behind CT-TFT and causal diagnosis.

As you all know, the critical distinction between TFT and forms of most energy
psychology offshoots of TFT, is causal diagnosis, which provides a precise code
of specific treatment points. The TFT algorithms were developed through causal
diagnosis and when algorithms don’t work, individualized treatment sequences are
obtained through TFT Dx or Voice Technology. Dx and VT practitioners have
reported being able to help people through causal diagnosis, where algorithms
failed, thus it would seem reasonable to conclude that especially for such
complex cases, precise sequence was critical to the success of the treatment.

However, there are those who have challenged this notion. As most of you know,
Gary Craig, the first person to train in the Voice Technology adamantly
disagrees with Roger Callahan. He has repeatedly claimed that he can disregard
the VT and still get the same results he got with the VT. More recently on his
list serv postings, he is claiming that his success rate with EFT is close to
100% and the way he got it this high was not with causal diagnosis or dealing
with toxins, but by having the client get more specific about issues being
treated.

In 1998, Gary Craig conducted a seminar that several Dx trained people
attended. The transcript of this seminar can be downloaded from his website.
During this seminar, he had a discussion with several Dx trained people who have
very different reports about their experience getting VT support, some even
claiming that most of their clients who received VT support were not helped by
VT. Roger Callahan, however has his side to the story, that these people have
apexed or forgotten that he did, in fact, help these clients. The upshot of all
this was that some people believed Gary Craig and these Dx trainees and other
people believed Roger Callahan. Basically, what we had, as much as we hate
using this word, is conflicting anecdotes — their word against his. Although
Roger does have tapes of the session, the trainees’ interpretation and
perception of what went on is very different from Roger’s.

How is this to be resolved? In the summer of 2001, I decided that the only way
this could be definitively resolved would be to take the bull by the horns and
do a single-blind controlled study on VT vs. random sequences. I undertook to
conduct such a study. Over a period of several months, I collected data from
eight different algorithm trainings held in the US, the UK, and Australia. I
informed the instructors that I was collecting data, but I didn’t tell the
instructor or the participants that I was using a random algorithm on half the
group. Every other person got VT, and every other person got the random
sequence, and no one could hear the difference over the phone because I kept
everything else about the protocol, including all the reversal corrections, CB2,
etc. the same.

I obtained the random sequences by putting cut up pieces of paper with the
initials of the treatment points into a container and drawing 5-7 points (the
number of points also randomly determined). I ended up with 24 random
sequences.

Because I was expecting to have a high failure rate with the random sequences,
especially at trainings where people were sometimes presenting problems that
didn’t respond to algorithms, I had predetermined that whenever a random
treatment sequence failed to get a drop in the SUD for 3 holons in a row, I
would switch to VT, thus not depriving the person of a cure and each person,
regardless of the group they were assigned to, would get the highest quality
help available.

The results I got from this experiment stunned me. It turned out that I had
identical results for each group – a 97% success rate, success being defined as
it was in the 4 other VT studies cited by Roger Callahan on p. 51-2 of *Stop the
Nightmares of Trauma* (Callahan, Leonoff, Daniel & Pignotti), as a SUD of 1
(using a scale of 1-10) – complete elimination of all subjective units of
distress.

Note that this study was identical to the one done by Stephen Daniel (n=214)
and an additional study done by myself (n=72), where just VT was used with
algorithm trainees. These studies were adduced by Roger in support of the power
of TFT VT. Please keep this in mind, that any criticisms that people might have
on the limitations of my study (and there are indeed valid criticisms) must also
be directed at the two VT studies done by Stephen Daniel and myself. The only
difference was that this time I added a control group.

There was literally no difference between the two groups and it took the same
average number of holons to get the SUD to a 1 (3 holons). The control group
had 1 failure, someone with fybromyalgia who started at an 8 and only got down
to a 7. After 3 failed holons, I switched to VT and the VT also failed to help
this person. In the VT group, I also had one case where the SUD failed to get
to a 1, but this one was partially successful – the SUD dropped to a 3. In
short, there was no statistically significant difference between the two groups
at all.

What was even more incredible was that there were individuals at that training
who had utterly failed with algorithms who were helped with these random
sequences. For example, a woman had a SUD of 10 on a trauma that she had been
trying to treat all day with the trauma algorithm. With the random sequences,
her SUD came down to a 1 and she was greatly relieved and thanked me profusely.

Once I had collected and analyzed this data, I reported my results to Roger
Callahan and he was, of course, stunned. We both were. Neither of us knew what
to make of these completely unpredicted results. What he suggested I do was to
post to the Dx list, announcing that I was doing research on some cutting edge
algorithms. This was the post I made, which I reposted here recently. The
reports I got back were overwhelmingly positive with individuals being helped
where Dx had failed.

The treatment sequences I have been been sending out to people who requested
them, where such powerful results were reported, are these randomly selected
treatment sequences. They were not derived from VT or any form of causal
diagnosis. They were not even derived from intuitive diagnosis because I
literally drew slips of paper out of a hat. In every test I have done so far,
they have performed just as well as VT.

The failures reported with these algorithms were people who had also failed
with VT, either previously or subsequently, with one exception. That exception
was myself. One day in late Sept, 2001, I was experiencing a high degree of
anxiety so I decided to try some of the random sequences. They failed to reduce
my SUD. I then called Roger and reported this to him. He quickly got my SUD
down with the VT. However, there are three additional factors to consider: 1)
Roger identified toxins I had, in addition to the VT treatment, which I hadn’t
done with the random sequences. 2) I obviously wasn’t blinded to the fact I was
doing random sequences on myself; and 3) it has been my experience and that of
several other people, that there have been times when we try to treat ourselves
and the treatment fails, whereas if we call another VT person and have them
treat us, the treatment succeeds. Therefore, these are three alternative
explanations for my treatment success.

Nevertheless, as Roger recently pointed out to me when I brought this up on the
VT list, having my very high anxiety which was bordering on a panic attack, so
immediately eliminated was a powerful personal experience for me and one which
did, at least temporarily, have an impact on my conviction that the results of
my previous controlled study were conclusive. Roger did not believe that the
results of my study were conclusive enough to overturn 20+ years of his own
personal experience to the contrary and at the time, I was convinced also and so
refrained reporting what, at the time, I considered to be inconclusive results.
There was too much at stake here because if I were to prematurely report these
results, this could completely destroy the credibility of the Voice Technology,
in some people’s eyes. If I was in error, I could potentially be putting an end
to the most powerful treatment in the history of psychology and I wanted to be
certain before doing this.

Around that same time, I made a move to the west coast from NYC and this
further took my mind off the study I had conducted. I thought very little about
the study until very recently. However, during that time I had been
increasingly having a number of doubts and misgivings about a number of aspects
of TFT, Voice Technology and even HRV. I will be outlining these in a separate
posting, which will more clearly help people to understand the process I went
through which culminated in my changing my mind about the meaning of my results
and what must appear to all of you to be my radical change in my opinion of TFT
and VT. I began to once again think about the study I had conducted, the
summer of 2001 and to reconsider.

What I ended up doing was discussing my study and my results to two PhD friends
of mine, who were not TFT trained who have a high expertise in research and
asked their opinions of my data. These were people who I trusted to hold what I
told them in confidence until such time I chose to release the data, and they
have kept their promise.

The opinion of both of these people is that the data from my controlled study,
which had 66 people, were conclusive, in terms of falsifying the claim that the
VT provides precise treatment sequences which are critical to the success or
failure of treatment. A sample that size with the p values being what they were
yielded highly conclusive results. I then remembered that from everything I had
learned in my research training, this was correct. I also was running my data
with smaller numbers and noticed that as my sample grew, the numbers got more
and more alike. If a sample any bigger was needed to get statistical
significance, that could hardly be considered clinically significant. A robust
treatment as VT was claimed to be, should have gotten large clinically
significant differences, even with a small number of people.

Note, that even though there was a success rate of 97% in both groups, this
does not prove that either is efficacious. There were a number of serious
limitations to my study which precludes drawing this conclusion. What my study
does conclusively show is that there is no difference between the VT and random
sequences derived from drawing treatment points out of a hat.

Had there been any truth to the claims of the VT being a precision treatment on
a par with hard science, there should have been a difference between my VT group
and my control group. Some people would be expected to be helped by the random
sequences, but there should have been a sizeable number who were not helped and
needed VT. This isn’t what the facts have shown, ladies and gentlemen. My data
show that there is no difference between the VT and random sequences that
anyone, regardless of training level, could randomly determine.

To summarize, I have decided that in spite my previous tremendously high
enthusiasm for and investment in the Voice Technology, I am forced by the facts
of reality I am faced with, to conclude that no longer need to use it. I
cannot, in the face of these results, in all good conscience, continue to use
VT. Thus, I have decided that I no longer will be accepting any new VT clients.
I am announcing my results publicly and will leave it up to each person to
decide how best to interpret them.

When I first became acquainted with TFT, I was highly skeptical. However, I
have always been open to evidence and the truth has always been more important
to me than being “right” or “wrong”. At that time, I had been debating Roger
and other TFT proponents on a list serv, but when Roger offered me evidence, in
the form of an algorithm, I tried it and when I saw the results, I announced
that I had been wrong in my negative judgment against TFT. You all know the
rest of the story. I became one of the most passionate advocates of TFT and of
Voice Technology. However, now, the facts of reality have presented me with
another correction and I have to, once again, say that I have been wrong.

During my life, I have repeatedly found myself coming to conclusions that have
surprised me. I could never have predicted my involvement in TFT and I never
could have predicted the conclusions I have now been forced to come to about the
VT.

Roger has repeatedly pointed out that this is the way of the scientist is to be
completely open, as much as possible to the facts of reality and to strive for
objectivity. This is how I have always lived my life and this openness, to me,
is the ultimate spirituality. My path in life has always been to follow the
facts of reality, as best as I can determine them by rational thought, wherever
that takes me. While it saddens me to have to have a parting of the way with
Roger on this issue, I must continue to live by the principle of truth and
loyalty to my values, above all else. Roger said in a posting to the VT list
that I am passionate about truth and he is correct in his assessment of me.

I also want to state, for the record, that in my opinion the secrecy behind the
VT proprietary procedure is the antithesis of scientific openness and is the
biggest mistake Roger Callahan has ever made. I am now of the opinion that the
VT is not at all objective — far from it.

I intend to write up this research and attempt to have it published in whatever
forum I can publish it. All I can do is present you with my data and what my
interpretation of it is. The rest is up to you and I will respect whatever
conclusions people come to.

Monica Pignotti, MSW