Eremophobia

LadyJ

I'm quite curious about this phobia but can't seem to find too much information about it. It's the fear of being alone/lonely/oneself.

If anyone can find any useful material relating to it could they please post up a link in this thread?

Cheers.

nacho libre

http://www.changethatsrightnow.com/problem_detail.asp?SDID=457:1537

JuliusCaesar

eh...that website sounds a bit dodgy to me. Quick fix for mega bucks and "no awful 'exposure' therapy". Eremophobia? or social isolation, low self-esteem, anxiety and depression? I wonder what the NICE or NIMH have to say about this? The Summer 05 issue of the National Phobics Society, a registered charity in the UK, Prof Paul Salkovskis reviews The Linden Method (which incidentally has a very similar kind of website). The full article is on a forum: http://www.nomorepanic.co.uk/lounge/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=3252

JuliusCaesar

Oh alright here it is:


Review of “The Anxiety Disorder and Panic Attack Solution; The Linden Method”:

Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence

Paul Salkovskis, Clinical Director, Maudsley Hospital Centre for Anxiety Disorders and Trauma

The claims made in this programme are bullish. We are asked to believe that this is the one true way to rid yourself of panic attacks, anxiety disorders and phobias. At one point it says that it is the only cure for anxiety. But before looking at the evidence for such extraordinary claims, lets look at the process.

Firstly, one has to learn the “nine pillars”, read the material, do the visualisation exercise twice each day, do Tai Chi exercises as often as possible and do exactly what the Method teaches you. Confusingly, there are then two “powerful” elements; diversion which apparently re-balances the sufferer’s conscious logical thinking and subconscious habits. Secondly, the sufferer needs to breathe correctly and improve their posture.

So what are the nine pillars?
Stop visiting your doctor (and other doctors too)
Talk to your doctor about stopping the medication (confusingly as you are not supposed to visit them)
Stop looking for answers to your problems elsewhere
Only use the Linden method
Stop talking to other people about how you feel
Stop relying on other people for help with your feelings (which follows from not talking to them presumably)
Get rid of memories about your problem
Keep busy as a diversion (distraction)
Don’t allow anxiety to change what you do.

You don’t have to be a psychologist to see that 1-7 are all ways of saying “rely on the this method alone”. That leaves two pillars which are about not giving in to anxiety. Good stuff, but not good enough.

Interestingly for someone who says that the way to getting better is not to dwell on the details of your past problems, Mr Linden offers the story of his own problems in great detail in the “Nine Pillars” booklet. The story comes to its culmination when he received Cognitive-behaviour Therapy. His cognitive therapist taught him all kinds of useful stuff, which Linden applied and added to. I found myself musing about this. Why is this person, who benefited from cognitive therapy (and added to it in ways any sensible CBT therapist would encourage one to do) now taking the position that other people should not seek help from anyone except himself? I’m keeping my answers to myself, I’m afraid.

The Nine Pillars book then offers a reasonable account of the physiology of anxiety (although some of it made me wince). Nothing unique here, and certainly not the best account available. For someone opposed to the use of medication Linden seems very fond of biological accounts of anxiety. Oddly, although he seems to have benefited from cognitive-behavioural therapy, the cognitive component does not come through directly. For example, this early section on Panic Disorder he neglects to mention catastrophic misinterpretation of bodily sensations, choosing instead to suggest that the brain has been programmed to produce panic. Linden is also fond of diagnosis, and paraphrases the American diagnostic system as a way of describing anxiety disorders. This improves later as one listens to the CD based material, but the nuggets are well hidden.

The chapter on stopping anxiety has some good snippets, and Linden is fond of the idea of hyperventilation, resurrecting the old “brown paper bag” idea. Some other practical ideas are to be found in “diversion tactics”; these are good old fashioned distractions, varying from splashing water on the face to eating apples. Maybe he thinks an apple a day keeps the doctor away, so it fits with his first pillar? But there is another major problem here. He gives no consideration to safety seeking behaviour. This is a shame, because a lot of his “behavioural activation” stuff (meaning: don’t let your behaviour be changed, reach for the things you want) fits with current views on and evidence about the role of safety seeking in anxiety disorders. However, in places he is implicitly encouraging safety seeking behaviours. This in my opinion is further evidence that Linden’s science is, as best, muddled.

The supplementary materials are interesting. The introduction on the CD is a pleasant and slightly soporific lecture which re-iterates the positive message in the nine pillars book. In the interview which follows, we are treated to more of the same. The visualisation exercise is even more soporific. It follows the convention set by progressive muscular relaxation, and again is worth doing for its relaxation and distraction potential, if relaxation and distraction is what you need.

The “Panic Attack Eliminator” seemed more promising on the basis of its preamble. And I mean promising; the promise is there, right at the beginning; “this is the conclusive method for disarming panic attacks”. Apparently it can work on the first occasion, but might take up to three times. In the rest of this seven minute wonder, the sufferer is told that they cause their own panic. “Place every square millimetre of your body in my trust” Linden intones. Go with it, let it do its worst. Discover that it can’t do anything bad to you. At last, something resembling cognitive therapy! Not set up properly, but sensible. Fear of fear is emphasises, as are vicious circles. But they are not explained properly, and of course it is not fear of fear which is the problem in panic, but fear of the consequences of fear. Sadly, it is clear that this is not the conclusive method.

This is all a bit sad. One way of looking at it is that Charles Linden had cognitive behavioural therapy, found it helpful, embellished it and now markets it as his own one true way not just for the problem he had, but for all anxiety problems. It’s not.

Now don’t get me wrong, this is mostly sensible stuff for panic, and if it cost £5.99 at the bookshop, I’d be recommending it, suggesting that there might be useful snippets here and there.

My opinion is that it will be of no value to people whose anxiety is not fuelled by panic, and only limited value to most of those with severe and persistent panic. So would I recommend it in a limited way?

What makes any recommendation impossible is the cultic element. The explicit method is, use my method only (and pay my price for it). The National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) anxiety guidelines are now available, summarising the best science. Cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) is the treatment of choice. The Linden Method has no evidence underpinning it and therefore doesn’t even make third choice for NICE, which is guided self help based on CBT principles. Charles Linden’s method is not evidence based, the science is flawed and the price is ludicrous. In essence Linden claims this treatment is novel and effective; sadly, it seems likely that what is novel is not effective, and what is effective is not novel. My title for this review is that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence; there is no such evidence



Professor Paul M Salkovskis

Fear Eliminator

Hi,

Most fears and phobias are learned responses. Luckily, they can generally be easily unlearned.

I'll be running a seminar in late November on using EFT for fear and phobia elimination. Feel free to send me a message for more information.

EFT is a great therapy for phobics because it doesn't require any desensitisation or "face your fears".

p.pete

For anyone interested, here's a paper on EFT:

http://www.srmhp.org/0201/emotional-freedom-technique.html

<edited to remove request for info>

JuliusCaesar

and another: http://www.csicop.org/list/listarchive/msg00072.html

I seem to remember having come across an article which questions Craig's qualifications but can't find it at the moment......

Gibs

And another one that looks at TFT and EFT and other tapping-type pseudo therapies. The whole thing is way beyond dodgy imho.

Pure genius though, to make it unfalsifiable by saying that you can't compare with a placebo effect, due to all tapping on the body producing the same effect. And as for being able to deliver the therapy over the phone - I can only say hats off to Mr Craig: A marketing wizard, without a doubt.;)

Fear Eliminator

p.pete wrote:

For anyone interested, here's a paper on EFT:

http://www.srmhp.org/0201/emotional-freedom-technique.html

<edited to remove request for info>

<edited>

Everyone who is sceptical is absolutely right to be. Just bear in mind that when Stephenson created the "Rocket" train, scientists said that anyone travelling faster than 28mph in a train would probably die of asphyxiation. Science isn't always correct.

I know that people claim that this is a "placebo" effect, but placebos are enormously effective in drug trials - how can that be? When "iatrogenic" deaths (direct result of treatments by a physician) is the 3rd biggest killer in the USA after cancer and heart disease, maybe you have a better chance with the placebo ;-)

<edited>

Fear Eliminator

JuliusCaesar wrote:

and another: http://www.csicop.org/list/listarchive/msg00072.html

I seem to remember having come across an article which questions Craig's qualifications but can't find it at the moment......

If you want to find out about Gary Craig's qualifications then just go on his website: http://www.emofree.com/a/?2064 - he doesn't have any! Well, nothing specific in the healthcare arena anyway. He does have a degree in engineering from Stanford although he has never worked as an engineer. He is also a qualified Master Practitioner of NLP (which show in his work). He also studied TFT under its originator - Dr. Roger Callaghan (who is a Medical Doctor, not just a PhD).

Another person who works in this field - Anthony Robins - was once queried by a qualified psyciatrist about his qualifications. Robins replied "I have a doctorate". The psych says "what in". Robins replies, "Results!"

Call it "placebo", call it "pseudo science", call it what you want but you cannot call it innefectual. Don't count the qualifications, count the results.

Fear Eliminator

Gibs wrote:

And another one that looks at TFT and EFT and other tapping-type pseudo therapies. The whole thing is way beyond dodgy imho.

Pure genius though, to make it unfalsifiable by saying that you can't compare with a placebo effect, due to all tapping on the body producing the same effect. And as for being able to deliver the therapy over the phone - I can only say hats off to Mr Craig: A marketing wizard, without a doubt.;)

He must be a shyster. A marketing wizard who achieves great results for people with emotional issues - and then sells his information at an exhorbitant cost. Oh wait, its free? Ah, but he must be selling something - of course, the DVDs, stuff like that always costs thousands. <edit to remove advertisement> Hmmm. Oh, I know there must be some "certification" program that makes him loads of money. Yes there is! Oh, somebody else runs it and takes the cash. Well, he must make a fortune off his own therapy work. What! He doesn't charge people for it (if you can get him because he has a full waiting list of people that he treats over the phone)!

What a shyster.

Gibs

Fear Eliminator wrote:

Everyone who is sceptical is absolutely right to be. Just bear in mind that when Stephenson created the "Rocket" train, scientists said that anyone travelling faster than 28mph in a train would probably die of asphyxiation. Science isn't always correct.

I know that people claim that this is a "placebo" effect, but placebos are enormously effective in drug trials - how can that be? When "iatrogenic" deaths (direct result of treatments by a physician) is the 3rd biggest killer in the USA after cancer and heart disease, maybe you have a better chance with the placebo ;-)

Hard to know where to begin here, there is so much to disagree with;)

Whatever about the veracity of this story about Stephenson and the apocryphal pessimistic scientists, it is pretty certain that they did not maintain their concerns about asphyxia after the train had run (death-free) for the first time.;) In the presence of real, measurable, repeatable, reliable and valid evidence to the contrary, they would have had no hesitation in throwing out their initial hypothesis of the dismal consequences of high speed. They were indeed wrong, as you point out, as were all the other scientists before and since who posited theories and who subsequently discovered facts and evidence that did not support their case. That is what science is about - being wrong and being unafraid to admit to being wrong when the evidence goes against you. I have seen people use this characteristic of scientific study as a stick with which to beat it, as if there is something flawed about science and its methods simply because it does not appear to have a static, definitive version of the "truth". But, the fact that science is dynamic and ever-changing in its efforts to take account of new information and is unafraid to throw out theories when new evidence comes to light that doesn't support them, is its greatest strength. Science has no loyalty to any particular person or any particular theory. It only seeks to establish facts and gather evidence in pursuit of a clearer understanding of how things work and why they are the way they are. It operates on the principal that one uses the best available current evidence. However, it does this in the clear knowlege that there will never be a time when all relevant facts or information will be available. So you are absolutely right. By definition, science isn't always correct. If it were, it wouldn't be scientific.

As for the placebo effect, from what you have said about it, I am actually unsure whether or not you fully understand that describing the mechanism of action of tft in these terms is not an endorsement of tft as a therapeutic approach, it's a criticism of it. If I give you water to drink and tell you that it will cure your headache, it probably won't work, particularly if you know that it's water and you don't have any particular reason to believe me. If on the other hand, a person in a white coat who is a world-renowned headache expert gives you an impressively packaged clear liquid to drink, charges you a lot of money for it, and tells you that it contains the latest and greatest headache remedy known to humanity, your headache is probably much more likely to improve, even if it is just water. A person's expectation of efficacy, i.e. the placebo effect, is indeed a powerful influence on symptom change, but what is it that initiates this change? Is it the white coat? Is it the reputation of the expert? Is it the packaging of the liquid? Is it the expense of the trestment? The research suggests that it's all of these factors, and more besides, that produce the effect, but one thing that is not responsible for the effect is the water. Tapping parts of my body, whether over the phone or via ESP or as a result of some invisible, undetectable energy fields is not what makes me feel better. It's my expectation that this kind of quackery is doing something. Don't get me wrong - that's a great thing and one can use it to great effect in mobilising a person's hope and possibly triggering internal biological responses (e.g. the production of natural endorphins), but any therapeutic effect is not as a result of the tapping.

Placebo effects are real and measurable, but their existence is a confounding variable when trying to delineate mechanisms of therapeutic action. That's why most reputable studies use a double-blind placebo-controlled approach, where noone, not even the experimenters, knows who is getting the "stuff" and who isn't. There are controversies even with this approach (ethical and methodological), but at least it attempts to isolate what it is about a particular treatment that is having an effect, apart from the expectations of the recipients.

Some people who undergo TFT may be better off afterwards. However, that is not because anyone tapped them. The tapping is irrelevant and, frankly, pretty silly imho.

I don't really understand your point about iatrogenic deaths being a reason to turn to placebo approaches. Does this mean that we should eschew all medicine because not everyone beneifts from it? Of course there are risks with medical intervention. There are also risks involved when people are suckered into spending money on bogus, unverifiable, unfalsifiable, unscientific and irrational "therapies" whose only value is as a methaphorical sugar pill.

JuliusCaesar

I have to say I feel a bit quesy about this site being used for self-promotion & selling. If FearEliminator wants to advertise his services, can't he go the usual route and pay for his advertising? I don't mind discussing his methods but feel uneasy at the advertising. Mods?

Gibs

JuliusCaesar wrote:

I have to say I feel a bit quesy about this site being used for self-promotion & selling. If FearEliminator wants to advertise his services, can't he go the usual route and pay for his advertising? I don't mind discussing his methods but feel uneasy at the advertising. Mods?

Seconded...

p.pete

Hmmm, I feel guilty as my post was pretty much an invitation to advertise - I feel guilty but I'm only learning this mod thing.

I'm going to edit my post and also the first & last paragraphs of of post 9 by Fear Eliminator as I see them to be the offending ones. This is being based on the part of the charter which states "No advertising or trying to sell things."

My faux pas aside - this has been an interesting thread, excellent last post Gibs.

Fear Eliminator

p.pete wrote:

Hmmm, I feel guilty as my post was pretty much an invitation to advertise - I feel guilty but I'm only learning this mod thing.

I'm going to edit my post and also the first & last paragraphs of of post 9 by Fear Eliminator as I see them to be the offending ones. This is being based on the part of the charter which states "No advertising or trying to sell things."

My faux pas aside - this has been an interesting thread, excellent last post Gibs.

I'm sorry - I'm new to this too and didn't know that I was breaking the rules. I was just trying to help. I won't repeat this mistake.

To Gibs, I absolutely accept that all your arguments are pretty much valid - the scientific method is very important. You are right that science will throw out old theories as new ones overtake them. That was actually the point that I was clumsily trying to make. I believe that in the near future, that most of the energy therapies will be accepted as more main stream therapies as they are shown to be repeatedly effective.

Not too long ago, I would have been totally on your side about this type of whacko "therapy". The first time I saw EFT (BTW, I use EFT not TFT), I said to myself, "who is this nut-job tapping his face like that".

Then I opened up a little to some of these "alternative" methods and tried it. I have had constant whiplash pain in my neck since an accident in 1999. EFT cleared it! Better than my NSAID medication (which I haven't used since discovering EFT). No other alternatives that I had tried had helped like this and my GP just shrugs as she writes out the prescription.

Since then, I have successfully used EFT to help other people relieve pain and phobias and other emotional issues.

It may be that this is a placebo effect - that is wonderful, keep giving me that placebo - I love being pain free. However, I do believe that there are energy things going on - after all, what are we but energy - and that we can use our intention to interact with our own and others energy fields.

There are stranger things under heaven, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

Gibs

Fear Eliminator wrote:

I'm sorry - I'm new to this too and didn't know that I was breaking the rules. I was just trying to help. I won't repeat this mistake.

To Gibs, I absolutely accept that all your arguments are pretty much valid - the scientific method is very important. You are right that science will throw out old theories as new ones overtake them. That was actually the point that I was clumsily trying to make. I believe that in the near future, that most of the energy therapies will be accepted as more main stream therapies as they are shown to be repeatedly effective.

Not too long ago, I would have been totally on your side about this type of whacko "therapy". The first time I saw EFT (BTW, I use EFT not TFT), I said to myself, "who is this nut-job tapping his face like that".

Then I opened up a little to some of these "alternative" methods and tried it. I have had constant whiplash pain in my neck since an accident in 1999. EFT cleared it! Better than my NSAID medication (which I haven't used since discovering EFT). No other alternatives that I had tried had helped like this and my GP just shrugs as she writes out the prescription.

Since then, I have successfully used EFT to help other people relieve pain and phobias and other emotional issues.

It may be that this is a placebo effect - that is wonderful, keep giving me that placebo - I love being pain free. However, I do believe that there are energy things going on - after all, what are we but energy - and that we can use our intention to interact with our own and others energy fields.

There are stranger things under heaven, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

It sounds like you are sincere in your beliefs about the efficacy of EFT and that you are well-meaning in your intent, with regard to helping others deal with pain and phobias, but while obviously you are free to do whatever you please, I am very uneasy about the rationale and justification you are using.

I am all in favour of discussion, but while there may well be an art to the application of psychological principles, fundamentally Psychology is a scientific endeavour. Quoting shakespeare and making reference to "energy fields" and some putative interaction between "intention" and these "energy fields", is in the realm of fictional gobbledegook and does not conform to any recognisable version of scientific, legitimate psychology.

Show me the evidence and I will agree with you. Reproduce the effects that are claimed for EFT under controlled experimental conditions that demonstrate a clear causal relationship between EFT and outcome and I will agree with you. Making assertions regarding the validity of EFT that are based on a "belief" that these "energy therapies" will "soon become mainstream", without backing it up with properly conducted legitimate scientific studies, is simply not a tenable argument in favour of EFT and cannot be taken seriously as evidence of efficacy.

To be honest, I'm unsure whether discussion of this topic belongs in the psychology forum, at least to the extent that it is being discussed as a possible valid, therapeutic intervention. Perhaps it should be moved to another forum, such as the excellent "skeptics society" forum. This thread is an example of a similar discussion to the one being engaged in here.

I don't doubt you when you say that you feel you were helped personally by EFT. However, as the old cliche says, the plural of anecdote is not data. When 2 things occur simultaneously (also known as correlation), for example, tapping parts of the body and a reduction in pain/stress/phobia, the temptation is to link those two things causally, but one cannot infer causation from correlation. It may be the case that one thing is actually causing the other, but it may also be that it is just coincidence or that both things are caused by something else. You simply cannot assume that you know the direction of causality unless you use a scientifically valid experimental design in order to test your hypothesis about what might be affecting what. Any conclusions not based on a methodologically sound approach are nothing more than 'just so' stories.

An old psychology professor of mine used to use the example of the distance of Halley's comet from the earth and his age, both of which were perfectly correlated (i.e. as the distance of the comet increased, so too did his age). Of course, while they were perfectly correlated, it would be extremely silly to propose that Halley's comet moving away from the earth was causing him to get older, or conversely, that his getting older was causing the comet to get further and further away from the earth. You might think it's a ridiculous example, but that is the point. The only difference between this example and other situations that can be explained using correlation is the illusion of proximity (he was tapping on my body and afterwards my body felt better) and an assumed relevance (the rationale of "disturbed energy fields" and "tapping into them").

By the way, I am not being cynical here. I am open to the possibility that TFT and EFT and ESP etc. might work, and might be useful therapies. At the moment, however, while there may be anecdotal evidence, there is absolutely no scientifically legitimate evidence to support their efficacy. Until there is, and until they are shown to have measurable, repeatable, significant effects, it is not reasonable or, in my opinion, ethical, to offer them as panaceas for 'what ails you'.

Show me the evidence.

Fear Eliminator

Gibs wrote:

...Show me the evidence.

There are some published studies on EFT. For example:

Evaluation of a meridian-based intervention, Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT), for reducing specific phobias of small animals
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/abstract/104545992/ABSTRACT

It should be noted that this study was conducted by some people (Wells and Carrington that I know) who make their living from EFT - although that should not necessarily detract from the results.

The Effects of EFT on Long-Term Psychological Symptoms
http://www.psychologicalpublishing.com/ccpj/contents/v2_i3.htm

Assessment of the Emotional Freedom Technique
An Alternative Treatment for Fear
http://www.srmhp.org/0201/emotional-freedom-technique.html

This one (which has placebo groups) is not the most complementary but does summarise that EFT may be useful in the treatment of fear but suggests that this derives from similarities to more traditional therapies. I would note that the application of EFT in this test appears to have been by pretty much untrained people and unsophisticatedly applied; the surprise is that they got any good results at all!

Energy Psychology in Disaster Relief:
New Applications for an Age-Old Paradigm
http://www.energytraumatreatment.com/

This one compares the use of energy therapies (including EFT) versus therapies such as Cognative Behaviour Therapy in the treatment of trauma sufferers in disaster situations (such as Katrina).

Not a great body of work (yet), but a start. There is more to come.

Gibs

Fear Eliminator wrote:

Evaluation of a meridian-based intervention, Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT), for reducing specific phobias of small animals
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/abstract/104545992/ABSTRACT.

It should be noted that this study was conducted by some people (Wells and Carrington that I know) who make their living from EFT - although that should not necessarily detract from the results.

I would seriously question the results, based on the authors allegiances to the treatment. I've only read the abstract, but it also seems like very small numbers to be performing ANOVAs on in the statistical analysis (N=17!!). Also, what expectations were participants given about the "treatment"?

Fear Eliminator wrote:

The Effects of EFT on Long-Term Psychological Symptoms
http://www.psychologicalpublishing.com/ccpj/contents/v2_i3.htm.

No control group, therefore, no way of saying what, if anything, caused the changes. Also, the individual scales on the SCL-90-R are notoriously highly inter-correlated and are not independent, valid measures of each of the things that they purport to measure.

Fear Eliminator wrote:

Assessment of the Emotional Freedom Technique
An Alternative Treatment for Fear
http://www.srmhp.org/0201/emotional-freedom-technique.html

This one (which has placebo groups) is not the most complementary but does summarise that EFT may be useful in the treatment of fear but suggests that this derives from similarities to more traditional therapies. I would note that the application of EFT in this test appears to have been by pretty much untrained people and unsophisticatedly applied; the surprise is that they got any good results at all!.

This research design is actually the only reasonably designed piece of research mentioned. I think it's worth reproducing the abstract to emphasise the point that it makes - that any benefits accruing from EFT are not due to "tapping meridians" but are due to elements of the technique that are shared by other approaches. Therefore, it is not the tapping that produces the effect, as I pointed out above. Here's the abstract for those who are interested:
The effectiveness of the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), a treatment for anxiety and fear, was assessed. One hundred nineteen university students were assigned and tested in an independent four-group design. The groups differed in the treatment each received: applied treatment of EFT (Group EFT); a placebo treatment (Group P); a modeling treatment (Group M); and a control (Group C). Participants' self-reported baseline and post-treatment ratings of fear were measured. Group EFT showed a significant decrease in self-report measures at post-treatment. However, Group P and Group M showed a similar significant decrease. Group C did not show a significant decrease in post-treatment fear ratings. These results do not support the idea that the purported benefits of EFT are uniquely dependent on the "tapping of meridians." Rather, these results suggest that the reported effectiveness of EFT is attributable to characteristics it shares with more traditional therapies

Fear Eliminator wrote:

Energy Psychology in Disaster Relief:
New Applications for an Age-Old Paradigm
http://www.energytraumatreatment.com/.

This one compares the use of energy therapies (including EFT) versus therapies such as Cognative Behaviour Therapy in the treatment of trauma sufferers in disaster situations (such as Katrina)..

Sorry, but this is just a website authored by someone who is obviously a "practitioner" of EFT and belongs to something called the "Association for Comprehensive Energy Psychology", whatever that is. The site looks impressive and the article is presented in a style reminiscent of authentic, legitimate research, but this is just packaging. The article is not in a peer-reviewed journal and therefore has not gone through a process of being exposed to scrutiny and criticism to ensure its adherence to good scientific practice and experimental design. It might look official and impressively scholarly, but it could say anything and noone in mainstream psychology would have had a chance to critique it, or more probably, reject it for publication on numerous methodological grounds.

Fear Eliminator wrote:

Not a great body of work (yet), but a start. There is more to come.

Here's where I couldn't agree more. It's definitely not a great body of work. Three out of four of the articles you refer to are not credible, either on the grounds of independence of the researchers, on basic methological grounds, or on the basis that they are vanity publications and are not in any recognised, mainstream psychology publications. The other article actually demonstrates that EFT is not effective in the way that its proponents say, and that the tapping is irrelevant with regard to any therapeutic effect. All in all, I would still maintain that there is no credible evidence to support the legitimacy of the supposed mode of action of EFT.

Fear Eliminator

Gibs wrote:

...All in all, I would still maintain that there is no credible evidence to support the legitimacy of the supposed mode of action of EFT.

Thanks for the critique. You know, I am learning quite a lot about study methodologies that I just didn't know before. This is fun!

You are quite skeptical about EFT and, you know, you are right to be. You should be skeptical. Until you have seen just how powerful these techniques are, why should you be any other way.

I welcome the opportunity to demonstrate to you, or anyone else on this forum.

Gibs

Fear Eliminator wrote:

Thanks for the critique. You know, I am learning quite a lot about study methodologies that I just didn't know before. This is fun!

You are quite skeptical about EFT and, you know, you are right to be. You should be skeptical. Until you have seen just how powerful these techniques are, why should you be any other way.

I welcome the opportunity to demonstrate to you, or anyone else on this forum.

Hmmm...that's quite an impressive soft-sell technique. Start by thanking the critic, tell them they are helping you to learn, say how much you are enjoying the debate, re-frame the scepticism as being something you welcome and that is to be expected, and then, when you have established your reasonableness, fall back on assertions about how "powerful" these trademarked techniques are, if only we could experience them with our own eyes. Now there's where you are using effective psychological techniques :rolleyes:

Pure sideshow imho. My previous criticism still stands. Demonstrating the technique to me or anyone else you like, is simply irrelevant. A demonstration does not establish mode of action. Only a carefully controlled, methodologically sound experiment does that. It doesn't matter how impressive your demonstration is, you still have to establish causality. Even then, any effects that might be shown should be reproducible by other researchers.

Bottom line: Tapping people has not been shown to cause people's pain/emotional distress to reduce.

Actually, I'm not sure why I am debating this with you - I should really know better. I'm just giving unnecessary oxygen to the whole thing. If you are making a living from it, it's unlikely that you will be moved by appeals to logic.

Fear Eliminator

Gibs wrote:

Hmmm...that's quite an impressive soft-sell technique.

It would be impressive if I was actually trying to sell you something. I am just accepting that I can't come up with the experimental evidence that you are asking for (because I, as I said, don't know enough about the protocols involved) and trying to suggest a way that might help convince someone - the only way I know how is to demonstrate it.

I'm sure that you will now break down the above paragraph to show everyone that I am just a slimy snake oil salesman.

Gibs wrote:

Demonstrating the technique to me or anyone else you like, is simply irrelevant.

It may be irrelevant to you, but not irrelevant to the demonstration subject who might get relief from their issue.

Gibs wrote:

Bottom line: Tapping people has not been shown to cause people's pain/emotional distress to reduce.

By your standards it has not, but by the standards of thousands of people worldwide, it has - those who have been helped by the technique.

Even if EFT is just a wrapping around more traditional techniques (which is the [flawed IMHO] option of the study that you have accepted as having a correct methodology), then is it not a valid way of bringing people to those techniques?

Gibs wrote:

Actually, I'm not sure why I am debating this with you - I should really know better. I'm just giving unnecessary oxygen to the whole thing. If you are making a living from it, it's unlikely that you will be moved by appeals to logic.

You are debating because you think that you are right and that I am wrong - and you feel strongly about it. I respect that.

Actually, I don't make any living from this. This is purely a hobby that I have invested a lot of time and energy in. My passion is helping people - especially those with phobias.

I could listen to your "appeal to logic" but then I would never help anyone to feel better by applying EFT again. My "evidence" is that time and again people are helped. That is good enough for me.

If the human race was purely logical, and never did anything because we just thought it was a good idea, we probably would never have got out of the caves.

Gibs

Fear Eliminator wrote:

It would be impressive if I was actually trying to sell you something. .

Up until your initial post was edited by the moderator, you were trying to sell me something. You were offering to run courses for people using EFT. You are still trying to sell the idea of EFT as a legitimate therapeutic technique.

Fear Eliminator wrote:

I am just accepting that I can't come up with the experimental evidence that you are asking for (because I, as I said, don't know enough about the protocols involved) and trying to suggest a way that might help convince someone - the only way I know how is to demonstrate it.

There are many ways to convince someone to believe you. However, some ways of convincing people - for example, presenting them with verifiable, valid, robust, methodologically sound, experimental evidence - are more credible than others. Exhorting people to believe what you say, only because you say it, or only because something seems to be happening when you perform certain rituals (like tapping) with them, is certainly one effective way of convincing them. The problem is, that using demonstration as a method of convincing someone that something is happening, is not the same as demonstrating how your method works or whether it works in accordance with the purported mode os action. I don't think anyone is arguing that there is no effect generated for some people when they engage in energy "therapies". It's just not the effect that is claimed for it - It's a placebo effect. I am all in favour of new approaches in psychology, but only when they have been validated by universally accepted scientific methods of experimental confirmation. Otherwise, it's not psychology, it's pseudoscientific nonsense and it can't be taken seriously as a legitimate therapeutic approach. I could just as easily put forward a completely different version of EFT, that required no tapping at all, and that involved waving my hands over you and talking about blockages in your energy fields and how I can thereby relieve you of your emotional distress and pain.

There is psychology in EFT, but only the psychology of belief, expectation and placebo. At the risk of repeating myself ad-nauseum, there is no reputable, credible scientific evidence to support the mechanism of action posited by proponents of EFT. It works because people believe that it might work.

The evidence that does exist for EFT and many other placebo-therapies, consists of exhortations to believe, anecdotes, miraculous stories and testimonials, but no hard evidence. All the hallmarks of a pseudoscience.

Whatever "tapping therapies" might be - charlatanism, hucksterism, faith-healing, placebo-mediated silliness - they are not in the realm of legitmised scientific psychology. But don't just take my word for it. The American Psychological Association's decided a few years ago to prohibit its sponsors of continuing education programs for psychologists from offering credits for training in TFT, see here for the article.

In addition, the APA sanctioned an Arizona psychologist for using TFT and Voice Technology within the practice of psychology. See here for the article

For anyone interested, if you want to get a more detailed analysis of why TFT and EFT are not legitimate and are essentially fake therapies (at least in as far as they describe their mechanism of action), this website has a critical review of energy therapies. It's written by someone who used to be a proponent of these approaches. Here's another article similarly debunking TFT and energy therapies.

Here's another site that attempts to seperate the quackery from the science.

For anyone interested in the phenomenon of "believer" therapists and the pseudoscience they peddle, there's also an excellent book on the whole topic of psychology and pseudoscience that looks at the field and why it is that so many bogus "therapies" get such airtime and publicity. You can find it here.

I wish you well in your "hobby", but I would urge you to think about the ethics of offering this kind of "therapy" to vulnerable people when there is no credible, legitimate evidence to support it.

JuliusCaesar

Monica Pignotti is an interesting character. She was a Scientologist for many years and has written a lot on her experience there and how she got out; she went on to study and gained a Masters in Social Work; got into TFT and out again. She's now big into ACT (Acceptance & Committment Therapy) which does, AFAIK, have a sound base in behaviour analysis. (Sorry for going off-topic!)

JuliusCaesar

I wonder what LadyJ - the original poster - makes of all this? She seems to have vanished!

Gibs

Yeah, we seem to have gotten quite off-track!! Mods - you need to keep me in line please

Meant to say earlier Julius - nice post from you re the Paul Salkovskis critique of the Linden method. He writes really well and is very funny too. I saw him at a conference in London a few years ago and he was excellent.

p.pete

Lol, I was actually thinking about this before the weekend...
The thread has been nothing to do with the first post (well related but not directly). I'll see if I can move the original post into a new thread and see if it gets any reaction the second time around and just rename this one.

Fear Eliminator

Gibs wrote:

Up until your initial post was edited by the moderator, you were trying to sell me something. You were offering to run courses for people using EFT. You are still trying to sell the idea of EFT as a legitimate therapeutic technique.

You will note that I joined this thread in response to someone (not you) that had a phobia. I was asked (by the moderator) for more information and I gave it. I have since apologized for my breech of the rules.

I do not, however, apologize for considering EFT to be a valuable and legitimate technique for the relief of emotional issues - especially phobias. I suspect that selling that idea to you would be like me trying to convince Osama Bin Laden that going to church for confession would be a good idea.

Gibs wrote:

But don't just take my word for it. The American Psychological Association's decided a few years ago to prohibit its sponsors of continuing education programs for psychologists from offering credits for training in TFT.

In addition, the APA sanctioned an Arizona psychologist for using TFT and Voice Technology within the practice of psychology.

Ah, but you have your timeline and facts wrong. The APA did not sanction the Arizona psychologist (Stephen Daniel, Prescott, Arizona), it was the Arizona Board of Psychologist Examiners - a completely separate organization. And, they did not sanction him for using TFT - it was for making claims that he could not substantiate. "It's important to understand that we didn't rule against Thought Field Therapy," says Yandell (Arizona Board of Psychologist Examiners member David Yandell), who emphasizes that his opinions do not necessarily represent the board's official stance. "We ruled against a practitioner who made misleading statements to potential clients."

This case was one of the reasons why the APA decided to remove topics like TFT from its CE approval process. "We're becoming increasingly more selective about our CE sponsors, based on the courses they're offering," says Hecker (Jeffrey Hecker, chair of the APA's continuing education committee). "We're not out to squelch creativity. But we are looking closely at any program making claims so bold and unsubstantiated that clinicians can't possibly make informed judgments about them."

It is interesting to note that there are many AMA members practicing "energy therapies" (e.g. Dr. Henry Grayson - http://www.henrygrayson.com/author.html, Gregory J Nicosia - http://theamt.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=164, Dr. Carol Solomon - http://www.eftmembers.com/about.html), so obviosuly practicing it doesn't get you thrown out of the association, you just don't get education credit for attending trainings.

Even more recently the National Association of Social Workers in the US has approved a distance learning course in EFT for its CE scheme.
http://www.socialworkers.org/ce/calendarmodule/renderdetails.asp?seq=4491

While one can take how you want the claims of Dr. Roger Callaghan that the APA is being protectionist, one must assume that the NASW has no loyalty either way.

Gibs wrote:

For anyone interested, if you want to get a more detailed analysis of why TFT and EFT are not legitimate and are essentially fake therapies...

Tell me your preferred treatment for phobia elimination and I'm sure that I can find a website or two that "debunk" it - maybe even ones created by Psychologists! Also, be sure that your choice of therapy has "been validated by universally accepted scientific methods of experimental confirmation".

Perhaps you prefer to throw some drugs at the problem?

http://www.apa.org/monitor/oct06/phobia.html

BTW, Monica Pignotti's (as yet unpublished in a peer reviewed journal) study comes down against TFT's "Voice Technology" - not core TFT per se. In fact, she cites Gary Craig (early student of TFT and then founder of EFT) in support of her arguments.

Gibs wrote:

...bogus "therapies"...

I would like to quote Dr. Paul Watzlawick (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Watzlawick) from his book "The Language of Change, Elements of Theraputic Communication":

"But the mere fact that a given technique does not fit into the conceptual framework of another theory cannot be taken as a priori evidence for the wrongness of uselessness of that technique."

Gibs wrote:

...I would urge you to think about the ethics of offering this kind of "therapy" to vulnerable people...

Given my previous statements, I can't understand how you could question my ethics! Given that I strongly believe in the efficacy of the techniques, how could it be unethical to offer relief to those who are suffering? Your argument is that of a Protestant Minister telling a Catholic Priest that he is unethical to teach transubstanciation.

If we are throwing ethics allegations around, I wonder at the ethics of "traditional" therapists who might have a phobic take maybe 8-12 sessions of graduated exposure therapy to face their fears with no guarantee that the problem will be gone (you can give no more guarantee than I can) versus the "new" therapist who looks to resolve the issue in 1-2 sessions (typically 1). What is the cost to the patient - either monetarily or emotionally? I know which one I would like to try first.

And before you continue to throw quotes around the word "therapy", EFT is a "Technique" and I am a "Practitioner". I never claim to be a therapist and wouldn't want to either. Watzlawick has another good quote in his book:

"'I do not treat, I analyze,' one of my teachers was wont to say proudly, and emptied the vessel of his scorn over the warning example of a colleague who had somehow managed to get a patient over his symptom in 45 minutes."

LadyJ

Eh HELLO!

Ok,I don't have eremophobia. I want some good reading material on it. I'm interested to know what causes a phobia like that etc. Just general information about it's origins and all that.

Jaysis.

Gibs

Okay, I think it's clear that you believe strongly in EFT. Nothing I or anyone else might say appears to be able to shift or modify that belief, despite the fact that the evidence in favour of EFT is unscientific and the available scientific evidence points inexorably to a placebo response as being the mode of action of EFT as a technique.

As a result, I don't really see the point in continuing the debate with you. You still haven't addressed the primary issue of mode of action i.e. how it works. Until you do that, and offer an explanatory mechanism for EFT, it must be consigned to the same category as any other bogus technique that relies on testimonials and the belief of the participants alone.

I'm not suggesting that there won't be evidence produced to support EFT as a therapy, (or, as you prefer, a technique), in future. If there is, I will happily accept its bona fides. Until then, my concern is that vulnerable people who don't understand the difference between valid, reliable, scientific, testable, legitimate evidence and bogus, belief-based, pseudoscientific techniques will choose methods like EFT that do not have a credible evidence-base behind them. I mean, who wouldn't choose a single session that promised a quick cure for everything, over a dozen sessions of graduated exposure? I know I would - but first I might like to see some proper evidence that the method proposed was legitimate and had credible scientific evidence to back it up.

And LadyJ, apologies to you for being complicit in the hijacking of your thread !!!:o I will say no more on the subject that isn't related to your original question.;)