Raising and Lowering of Heart Rate Variability:
Some Clinical Findings of Thought Field Therapy
This is a preprint of an article published in October 2001, in the ‘Journal of Clinical Psychology’,
©2001, Wiley Publishers, http://www.interscience.Wiley.com By Roger J. Callahan, Ph.D.
E-Mail: roger@tftrx.com
This paper was published in an open review of the original research paper of TFT. The reader is
encouraged to read the original article, along with this accompanying review, and the final critique
of the Journal's decision to publish this set of non-reviewed articles in order to gain a perspective
on the issues presented.
…Larry E. Beutler, editor.
ABSTRACT
This clinical report presents some of the findings in Thought Field Therapy (TFT) that show both
raising and lowering of Heart Rate Variability (HRV). TFT algorithms are effective but the
specificity of diagnosed treatment gives results that are superior to algorithms. Some TFT
treatments take only seconds to yield improved results on HRV. Toxins can undo a cured problem
and toxins can lower HRV. TFT can overturn the effect of some toxins. It is hypothesized TFT
works by inputting a specific code that addresses and effects the healing system. HRV may be a
measure of general physical and mental health.
Thought Field Therapy
I first began developing Thought Field Therapy (TFT) over two decades ago. It is a rapid and
highly effective psychotherapy that usually takes minutes to effect predictable positive change.
(Callahan and Callahan (2000); Callahan and Trubo (in press); Callahan (in press); Sakai, et al.,
(in press); Pignotti and Steinberg (in press).
TFT is based on a process I call “causal diagnosis” (Callahan, 1998) which, among other things,
determines acupuncture meridian points in a certain specific sequence, in order to eliminate a
problem. Thanks to the efficacy of this causal process I have been able to develop a number of
algorithms (Callahan and Trubo, in press) which make it possible to help or eliminate a problem
without the necessity to learn the more complex causal diagnosis procedures (Callahan
Techniques, 1998). The algorithms have a high success rate but obviously not as high as the
individual treatments determined by causal diagnosis.
Heart Rate Variability
Heart rate variability (HRV) is an objective procedure used in medicine, especially in the domain
of heart problems, obstetrics, and neurology. A robust HRV research finding is that it is the best
predictor of sudden death and for mortality from numerous and diverse medical causes (Dardik
1996; see Callahan, in press, for a literature review).
HRV is reported to be a placebo free (see literature review in Callahan, in press), objective
procedure and has high reliability. HRV can show the status of the autonomic nervous system and
can indicate the early degree of deterioration of the nervous system in diabetes as well as in
alcoholism and other possible neural degenerative conditions. Singer and Ori (1995) suggest
“… HRV can be used as a simple tool for monitoring therapeutic effectiveness” (p. 434). Cohen,
Matar, Kaplan, and Kotler (1999) predict: “From the interest it has raised, it may be expected that
this method will be in widespread use in clinical practice in the future, providing a useful tool,
both for diagnostic and prognostic purposes, as well as serving as a further aid towards monitoring
therapeutic interventions” ( p. 59). I agree with the authors in this prediction. In a previous paper
(Callahan, in press) I found a close correspondence between HRV changes and improvement
ratings given by the client after TFT treatment.
I believe the reason HRV is not more known has been due to the inability to make significant
clinical improvements. A physician, who trained at Harvard Medical School and participated in
research on HRV many years ago, told me that he thought it was a very interesting procedure but
lost interest in it since “nothing could be done about it.” HRV has become known as a death
predictor. As effective interventions become more generally known and available, it could change
HRV from being known as a predictor of death to a predictor of life, health, and increased well
being.
Prior to our use of HRV, TFT findings were tested against client report of improvement. We are
now using HRV as a clinical research instrument to objectively test developments and findings in
TFT. Some early findings of TFT have been supported by HRV. We find, for example, with HRV
support, that the accuracy and specificity of TFT treatment make a major difference in outcome.
Samples of HRV results will be presented that demonstrate some robust facts of TFT. HRV can
be used to help select and develop efficacious procedures in therapy that occur deeper than the
awareness of a client’s self-report on a Subjective Unit of Distress (SUD) (Wolpe, 1969).
TFT Raises Low HRV and Lowers too High HRV Recently, it has become known in a study done
on the elderly, that a too high HRV can be worse than one that is very low (deBruyne, et al., 999).
Pignotti & Steinberg (in press) show that TFT lowers HRV when it is very high. Dekker, et al.
(2000) also suggest a very high HRV in middle-aged people may pose a problem.
TFT moves the HRV in the healthy direction. In other words, TFT does not just raise HRV, but
when it is too high, the treatment lowers it (Pignotti & Steinberg, in press). This is a very
important fact and it supports the idea of TFT as a control system for healing.
Toxins
A new discovery for the field of psychotherapy I call the domain of “individual energy toxins
(IET).” What we call the energy system is the first system affected by the toxin (see impact of
toxins on HRV results below) and so it therefore seems appropriate to use the term “energy”
(Nordenstrom, 1983; Becker, 1987). Sensitivities to the category of toxins to which I refer are
highly individual, which is why I use this term.
Hereafter, it should be understood that when I use the word “toxin” I am referring to IET.
I found, about 17 years ago, while treating psychological problems with TFT, that toxins can cause
a cure to be undone in a minority of successfully treated people. The toxin domain
promises
to become important in the field of health, as many “holistic or integrative” professionals
(Randolph, 1989; Rapp, 1986; Mandell, 1979; Coca 1994), to name a few, have already made
quite clear. Psychology has known of the behavioural effect of toxins for some years (Travis,
McLean & Ribar, 1990) but the toxins in this context are universally considered toxic such as
chemical poisons and air pollution, and not individually toxic (IET) such as wheat and corn can be.
Since it is the individual energy toxins that are more generally under a person’s immediate control,
it is these that occupy my major clinical attention.
Since TFT has a high cure rate (Callahan & Callahan, 2000), it has been possible to observe what
might make a cured problem return. About a decade and a half ago, after considering numerous
possibilities, toxins were found to be the common cause of this unusual event. HRV lends support
to a number of my findings regarding toxins. The toxins can be identified by a diagnostic test I
developed many years ago for this purpose (Walther, 1988). Identified toxins can be seen to have a
definite adverse effect on HRV (see below).
Specificity of Treatment –Correct vs. Spurious Treatment.
An event occurred soon after I obtained an HRV. A few trainees were present when a recent TFT
trainee did a rather complex (long) but obviously erroneous (to the trained eye) diagnostic
procedure for a client who was known not to respond to algorithms. The client had a SUD of 8 and
a poor HRV score. After the rather extensive (but wrong) treatment, where a large number of
meridian taps were done, the person still had a SUD of 8 and the HRV did not improve. This is
rather typical when my causal diagnostic procedures are done incorrectly. I observed the recently
trained therapist doing invalid diagnostic procedures. It became clear that the therapist was
attempting to intuit the correct treatments. I do not recommend intuition since I find it subject to
great error. The client did not respond to the lengthy and spurious treatment. Before the spurious
treatment the SUD of the client was an 8 and the baseline SDNN was 85.3. After the spurious
treatment, the SUD remained the same and the SDNN dropped to 60.3 (a drop of -41%). The
lowering of the HRV after spurious treatment is assumed to be due to the insidious progression of
the still untreated problem.
The therapist was then corrected and coached on proper procedure, quickly corrected the errors
and delivered an accurate causal diagnosis. The client was treated again by the same therapist
using the correctly diagnosed treatment sequence. The moment the treatment was finished the
SUD went to a 1 (no trace of the problem). The SDNN improved to 170.4, an improvement of
182%. The properly diagnosed treatment took an additional five minutes.
Twenty years of experience with TFT have shown that it matters whether treatment is diagnosed
properly and done correctly. We now have a number of HRV records that support this robust
clinical finding.
Algorithm vs. Causal Diagnosis.
Soon after receiving HRV equipment, a trainee wanted to test the different levels of TFT treatment
for success and did so with a 60 year-old female. The greater success after causal diagnosis
reflects the greater specificity of the treatment for the problem in question. This principle of
greater specificity of treatment resulting in superior results has been demonstrated and is
documented, with thousands of clients who have showed little progress until more thorough and
correct specific procedures were used.
SDNN
Baseline
32.9
After Phobia Algorithm 52.4(+59%)
After TFT Causal Diagnosis 96.6 (+84% over the algorithm; 193% over baseline)
The algorithm increased the HRV to a very respectable amount of 59%. Treating with TFT causal
diagnosis resulted in a still further improvement in HRV of 84%. If we compare the improvement
from the baseline, the algorithm boosted SDNN by 59% and the causal diagnosis increased the
SDNN 193% over the baseline. Such non-invasive improvements, carried out within a matter of
minutes, outperform HRV improvements reported in the literature from a variety of interventions
such as drugs, quitting smoking, exercise, etc.
More Evidence of the Power of Specificity.
A 74-year-old female psychotherapist was treated for extreme fatigue. The previous day, she was
treated successfully for fatigue generated by wheat that caused the same problem she is
experiencing this day. No wheat was ingested this day, but through a TFT test, it was shown, in
this multiply sensitive person, that today there is a different toxin behind the fatigue. Irish
Breakfast Tea was identified as the current culprit.
SDNN
SUD
Base
80.18
Holding tea 78.9 8
Already affected by the tea as a toxin, she did not show a significant reduction of SDNN since it
was already low, doubtlessly due to the very same tea ingested a couple of hours earlier. She was
so fatigued, she did not feel she had sufficient energy to receive another new long treatment.
However, she ultimately felt so bad that she decided to try the extensive treatments given for
wheat that had eliminated the problem yesterday. Her SUD, as it was yesterday, prior to that
successful treatment was again at an 8.
SDNN
SUD
Wheat Treatment 73.58
The treatment for wheat that helped greatly yesterday, when wheat was the toxin, did not help on
the following day when there was a different toxin causing the fatigue. After a while she felt so
increasingly poor she decided to obtain a new treatment for the effect of the tea.
After treatment for tea 135.7+84%1
Immediately after this proper treatment, the fatigue was completely gone. The proper treatment,
directed toward the appropriate cause, resulted in elimination of the SUD and as we so often see
(Callahan, in press; Pignotti & Steinberg, in press), when we reduce the SUD the HRV usually
improves along with it. I have had clients report tapping various points in varying orders for two
hours or more with no improvement. When the proper points in the proper order were given by
causal diagnosis the problem collapses. The improvement was immediate.
Treating for a Toxin: More Specificity.
The following is a report on a sixty-three year old psychotherapist who had a baseline HRV. After
having lunch he went into a deep depression. TFT testing revealed that a highly spiced olive,
which he never had before, was the toxin. The psychotherapist was aware of the effectiveness of
TFT, and had personally witnessed depression being rapidly and completely eliminated in
numerous cases. Therefore he was confident that the problem could be rapidly eliminated when
desired. This mature professional psychologist, who never before felt so thoroughly depressed,
asked for a postponement of treatment so he could savour the strange emotion. Already knowing
what trauma and anxiety were like, he wished to gain an inside understanding of what his
depressed clients felt. After a couple of hours, he asked for treatment and the depression was
completely eliminated. The HRV improved by 34%.
SUD SDNN
Baseline 1114.5
Toxin ingestion 976.4-50%
After treatment 1102.7+34%
What Can Make a Cured Problem Return?
Toxins and the Undoing of Cures.
The dictionary lists a number of different liberal definitions of cures. However, I use the more
restrictive definition, meaning a complete elimination of all known symptoms of a problem
(Callahan & Callahan, 2000, see Chapter “Cure and Time,” p117).
As mentioned, TFT has a very high success rate and this fact allowed me to discover a new
important domain for psychotherapy: what is it that can cause a cured problem to return? (Callahan
& Callahan, 2000; Callahan & Trubo, in press). The reason, I believe, that this important
information has not been known before is the fact that cure has previously been rather rare. If cure
is uncommon, then there is not much opportunity to witness the undoing of a cure. In fact, a good
number of psychological scientists have stated that cure is impossible (Adler, 1993; Rutter, 1994).
At professional meetings where I have demonstrated my cures, I am sometimes asked (with some
sarcasm) “How long will the treatment last?”
My answer: “Prior to developing TFT, I did conventional therapies (though they were
unconventional at the time) for 30 years. Not once, during all those years did anyone ever ask me
how long my treatment would last. I hear this question often now. Why do you suppose that is?”
Cure is commonplace in TFT and it therefore stands out when a cured problem returns. The belief
that cure is impossible had been supported for years by the inability of conventional
psychotherapies to robustly deliver cures, and this pessimistic idea received powerful theoretical
support by the indelibility concept of LeDoux (1989). LeDoux’s notion of indelibility was that the
cause of phobias was hard-wired in the amygdala and the traces were presumably “indelible,”
meaning unchangeable.
While writing this I just learned that the concept of “indelibility” has been revised (Nader, Schafe,
& LeDoux, 2000). I am glad to hear it, for TFT has proven indelibility to be in error for over 20
years, but my findings, alas, have been a well kept secret. I should point out that despite this
recent revision, I still see a significant error in the theory of the LeDoux group. The error, which is
a common one, is that “memory” is seen as the main problem in trauma. It is not.
Memory not the Problem
We typically show that memory is not the problem since after successful TFT treatment for
trauma, the upset is completely gone while the memory of the terrible event remains perfectly
intact and is even usually more clear without the accompanying emotional upset (Callahan &
Callahan, 2000). To attempt to obliterate memory, one can only rely on invasive procedures
such as strong drugs or surgery directed to the brain. Fortunately, trauma can be cured without
obliterating memory (Callahan & Callahan, 2000).
Drugs and HRV
Most drugs have an adverse effect on HRV. Fei (1995), in his review, reports “diazepam
decreases HRV in a dose dependent manner” (p. 283). He goes on to say, “Several studies have
demonstrated that HRV is decreased by anaesthesia” (p. 283). Drugs may have toxic side effects
and my work shows that toxins, even non-drug toxins can be seen to have a bad effect on HRV.
Nutritional Supplements
Prescription drugs are known to have toxic side effects. Many people assume that nutritional
supplements are unequivocally good or at least neutral. I have been aware for some years that
individual people react differently to various nutritional substances as they do to various foods.
In the sense that I am using the concept of toxin, either drugs (apart from the well-known side
effects) or nutritional substances may, in some people, cause serious problems. This is
demonstrable using HRV.
Heart Nutritional Product
We do not recommend HRV as a nutritional or drug testing device for there are many reasons why
it is not suitable for such a purpose. However, it is possible to show a positive or negative effect of
a toxin in some cases with HRV. We encourage others to repeat our experiments to explore the
effects of various substances on HRV. The implications of my findings suggest that toxins can,
over time, generate poor health and even life-threatening conditions as indicated by HRV.
A sixty-year old woman in good health had an HRV baseline. She was then tested for a fine
cardiac nutritional supplement and it tested positive (bad). She then held this same heart nutritional
product next to her throat and took another HRV.
SDNN
Before holding 59.1
While holding 49.3-20%
This result suggests that this otherwise fine nutritional supplement might be a problem for this
person. Toxins should be held, while the HRV is done, rather than ingested or put in the mouth to
avoid lasting harm. HRV results suggest that merely holding the substance may offer an adequate
test and the impact of the toxin is transitory. Here is a person, on the other hand, with a rather low
HRV score whose score is modestly improved as a result of holding the same cardiac
nutritional supplement.
SDNN % Change
Before holding 41.1
While holding 50.2+22%
The following is a 48 year old man who had a baseline HRV and then immediately afterward held
the same nutritional supplement, followed by another HRV.
SDNN % Change
Before holding 73.2
While holding 27.3-168%
The resulting change in HRV as a result of merely holding this nutritional supplement is quite
significant. Such observations support our clinical findings that toxins can have an immediate
deleterious effect. This man would be well advised to not take this particular supplement. Such
results illustrate the old saw in the toxin domain, “One man’s meat is another man’s poison.”
Effect of TFT on Toxins
The following examples show the ability of TFT to reduce the impact of toxins. However, it
should be understood that this is not quite the same as “clearing or curing a toxin.” Some
professionals have mistakenly believed that successful treatment means the client can consume the
toxin with impunity. This can be a hazardous and serious error for vulnerable patients. We believe
rather than “clearing” a toxin, we are strengthening a person in the presence of the toxin. People
with serious problems or vulnerabilities should scrupulously avoid toxins.
The Effect of Foods
Potatoes.
TFT testing showed potatoes as a problem for this 45-year old health care psychologist. He
reported that throughout childhood he hated potatoes. His parents would force him to eat them and
each time afterward he would become sick to his stomach and vomit. These reactions are among
the signs of allergy according to Profet (1991). This man, interested in HRV, wondered what
would happen if he merely held a potato. There was no SUD associated with holding a potato.
The following HRV readings show that merely holding a potato caused quite a drop in his HRV.
SDNN % Change
Baseline 145.2
Holding Potato 69.4-109%
Holding Potato after TFT 157.9+127%
Although we have evidence that the person was helped by the treatment, we also know from
extensive clinical experience that some other toxin may quickly reinstate the hazard of the
“treated” toxin to potential harm status. The way I view this matter is that toxins per se are not
cured but rather the person’s threshold for a toxin may be raised, at least temporarily.
Corn
This 49-year-old health professional has a problem with corn as revealed by TFT test. An HRV
baseline was taken. She then held some corn close to her throat while another HRV was taken.
The HRV dropped and then a 7-second TFT treatment was administered and another HRV was
taken while she held corn. The results follow:
SDNN
Baseline 50.9
Holding Corn 32.2 (-58%)
Holding corn after brief treatment 96.4(199%)
Wheat
In the following case it had been known for many years that wheat was a toxin for the person and
it showed positive on TFT testing. First, a base line was taken and then another test was done
while the person held some wheat near his throat. The treatment was applied (it took 7 seconds)
and wheat was held again while another HRV was taken. It can be seen that the toxin depresses
HRV. Also, it is seen that a very brief TFT procedure, taking but seconds, can raise HRV while
the person is still exposed to the toxin.
SDNN
Baseline 134.1
Holding wheat 72.0-86%
After 7-second therapy and holding same wheat 152.4+112%
Psychological Reversal (PR) Therapy
Psychological reversal is the first phenomenon I discovered in TFT (Callahan & Callahan, 2000).
I quickly found that this condition, discovered through what I later called causal diagnosis, could
block any otherwise effective treatment from working (Callahan and Callahan, 2000; Walther,
1988). Correcting PR allows TFT (or any other effective treatment) to be about 40% more
effective than it would be without PR correction. The correction takes only a few seconds to do.
It has been found that PR treatment alone can be quite powerful at times. Blaich (1988), who has
used PR correction to help Olympic and other elite athletes, found that PR treatment alone did
more to increase reading speed and comprehension that any of several other more complex and
longer treatments. “Reading #4, which provided a 45% improvement over reading #3 and a 119%
improvement over reading #1, followed the treatment of Psychological Reversal and exhibited the
greatest single change in reading rate of any of the steps done. Dr Callahan’s procedure seems to
have a very significant impact on human performance as evaluated here” (p12).
The PR treatment can have a profound effect by itself, only if the person is in the PR state and is
not overwhelmed with other difficulties. A 47 year old professional male showed a low HRV and
was found to have a PR. HRV was given before and after the brief (few seconds) treatment.
SDNN
Baseline SUD 43.9
Post Therapy 87.7(+99.8%)
Here is another person diagnosed with a PR with no other obvious difficulties. In a few seconds
with PR treatment, there is a gain in HRV of 73%.
Baseline 73.9
After PR Treatment 127.9(+73%)
Encoding and Specificity
The evidence accumulated by TFT lends strong support to the idea that the treatment is dealing
with software rather than hardware. The software, however, is encoded for stability and safety
much as the software on your computer is protected from amateurish messing which might destroy
a program. Before psychotherapy could be highly successful, it was necessary to discover nature’s
code. Otherwise, it would be too easy to destroy valuable information such as phobias that
originally protected life. If very casual approaches to therapy could actually eliminate the deepest
causes of phobias it could have been hazardous for the survival of our species. As theoretical
biologist Robert Rosen put it: “The benevolence of Natural Law lies in assuring us that miracles
are open to us but it does not extend to telling us how to accomplish them; it is for us to discover
the keys, the encodings, and the decodings, by which they can be brought to pass (p131).”
DNA is a code known to exist objectively in nature. I believe we are working with an equally
objective code that I call healing data (hd). Previously, when treating only psychological problems,
I called the unit of code a “perturbation” (see chapter in Callahan & Callahan, 2000). As I began to
understand that TFT addresses the healing system, the term “healing data” (hd) becomes more
generally descriptive than the concept of perturbation. When TFT significantly and rapidly
eliminates problems beyond just psychological problems and improves HRV, it seems appropriate
to label as hd, the information put into the system.
Entropy Foster (1985) notes “Almost all physical processes are wayward and subjected to
shuffling and disorder, and they can only be controlled by a programme which is specific. This
raises the physical process to a corresponding specificity” (p. 105). In physics this condition of
disorder is called entropy. Entropy derives from the second law of Thermodynamics and describes
the universal tendency of physical things to run down or to lose “voltage.” Schroedinger (1958),
the physicist who developed the basic mathematical formula of quantum physics, explained the
problem for life is to find sources of negative entropy (negentropy) so that the organism can move
against this current of entropy. Complete entropy is death. Partial entropy (disorder) may be
viewed as illness.
Healing requires specificity of information. I do not believe it is necessary to refer to the so-called
hard wiring in the amygdala, though the amygdala is relevant in executing emotional processes as
LeDoux (1989) has skilfully shown. My specificity principle refers to the dominance (due to
fundamental causality) of thought fields (and software) in the generative process of emotion and
healing. At the same time, this principle recognizes that nature’s codes cannot be addressed willynilly but require exact and precise methods. However, once that is properly addressed, healing can
be, and usually is, rapid. The necessary precision or specificity in TFT to bring about healing is
provided by the causal diagnostic procedures (when done accurately) that I have been developing
over the last 20 years (Callahan, 1998). The causal diagnosis provides ordered information that is
input to the organism to correct a disorder.
Cell communication expert, Loewenstein (1999) observes that “it’s not energy that counts in
biological systems, but information” (p. 58). I see the energy system as the carrier of the relevant
information that facilitates healing. When properly addressed, the healing process can be almost
immediate. Healing is that vital process that restores order to damaged or disordered systems or
sub-systems. King (1952), writing on information, mentions that the mathematical physicist, L.N.
Brillouin has shown that information is in fact, negative entropy.
Information and HRV
HRV can show the state of relative health. Schmidt and Morfill (1995) make a profound comment
with important implications for understanding the meaning of the variability in HRV. They say,
“Rhythmicity, a major feature of the electrocardiogram (ECG) signal is a characteristic of
biological systems and deviations from rhythmicity are often associated with information transfer”
(my emphasis) (p87). They suggest that the normal intervals between heart beats, though “only a
small fraction of the entire ECG signal … contain a great deal of information about intracardiac
and extracardiac processes. This information includes the active function control by the
autonomic nervous system (ANS)” (p. 87). If the ANS is viewed as a control then the ANS,
according to my experience, is controlled by the coding system we are addressing in our
treatments. This system resides, according to my observations, in the ancient acupuncture
points that, when addressed properly (causal diagnosis), can improve HRV more effectively than
drugs, quitting smoking, exercise, etc (Callahan, in press; Pignotti & Steinberg, in press).
Schmidt and Morfill (1995) say: “In contrast to nonliving systems, biological systems not only
passively react to external influences but also employ active control mechanisms. These include
various sensors, an information transmission system, a central data processing unit and
peripheral effects” (p. 90). These ideas suggest that variability in the intervals between heartbeats
is a sign of information processing that keeps one alive and healthy (distanced from entropy). A
very low variability in the heart rate thus suggests that underlying the known danger of this
condition, lies a fundamental problem in vital information processing. Thus when we see a
poor variability improve with TFT intervention, it suggests a greater degree of information
processing is taking place.
HRV: A Measure of Health?
Dardik (1996) asks: “Why does HRV emerge as a single common risk factor for virtually all
chronic diseases at all ages? … The finding of one single risk factor for such a wide variety of
problems is unexpected” (p.67). Some of the problems associated with HRV and altered
autonomic function that Dardik documents are: behavioural disorders; in utero and infant
mortality; sudden infant death (SID) syndrome; HIV/AIDS infection; drug addiction; juvenile
delinquency; death from cancer and cardiovascular disease; progression of coronary artery disease;
multiple sclerosis; diabetes mellitus; obesity; adult criminal behaviour; brain injury; neurological
disorders such as Guillain-Barre syndrome; and orthostatic hypotension of the Shy-Drager type.
The Task Force of the European Society of Cardiology and the North American Society of Pacing
and Electrophysiology (1996) adds that HRV “may be useful in quantitating the rate of disease
progression and/or the efficacy of therapeutic interventions (my emphasis)” (p. 1060).
Dekker et al. (2000) followed 14,672 men and women without cardiac problems and found HRV
was a predictor of death. “The increased risk of death could not be attributed to a specific cause
and could not be explained by other risk factors” (p1239). Of interest to one of my theses,
Dekker et al. (2000) observe “It may be hypothesized that low HRV is an indicator of poor health
(my emphasis) (p. 1244).” HRV may reveal sub-clinical conditions and hence could become
important in preventive approaches.
TFT has been shown to help a number of medical and other conditions that were non-responsive to
conventional intervention. Problems such as intractable pain, stroke recovery, tremors, paranoid
symptoms, auditory hallucinations, lupus, anorexia nervosa, chronic depression, anxiety
disorders, phobias, traumas, addictions, OCD, atrial fibrillation, and tremors of Parkinson (after a
decade of medication have lost their capacity to help), have been helped with TFT.
HRV can show the effects of toxins, as demonstrated above. TFT helps reduce the impact of toxins
on the individual. TFT can improve HRV. My hypothesis (and that of the pioneers mentioned
above) is that most of the conditions mentioned by Dardik (1996) are at root due to, or influenced
by, toxins. If this is correct, and our evidence suggests that it may be, then this could explain why
TFT is helpful for a great variety of conditions since TFT, among other things, demonstrably
reduces the impact of toxins through activating the healing system.
Hardware and Software
As mentioned, the concern with information is properly considered a concern about what may be
called software as opposed to hardware. The molecular biologists have pioneered the issue of
software (information) beginning with the understanding and the cracking of, the DNA code
(Judson, 1979). The amount of information contained in DNA is “an information complex the
equivalent of 20,000 long books” (Foster, 1985, p160). Prior to the recent advent of computers, the
idea of software might have sounded like a mystical notion.
Friedman & Thayer (1998) in their article on anxiety and autonomic flexibility, suggest a
nonlinear dynamics model that has been applied to psychopathology (Globus & Arpaia, 1992).
Friedman & Thayer (1998) define “attractors” as states “… that have a relatively high
probability of occurrence in the overall psychobiological topography of an individual” . . . “Panic
may be viewed as an attractor with a ‘wide basin’ of attraction” (p. 317).
Health an Attractor
As a result of TFT, it may now be observed that when an effective therapy is administered that the
attractor of health has a very wide basin (Callahan & Callahan, 2000; Callahan, in press; Sakai et
al, in press; Pignotti & Steinberg, in press). Carl Rogers (1957) and A.H. Maslow (1954)
emphasized the drive to health or maturity, which suggests a wide basin. When considering the
basin of attraction of what we call health, as indicated by improved HRV, the inordinate speed and
the magnitude of the transformation after therapy for both the SUD as well as HRV should be kept
in mind.
Richard Suinn (in press), President of the American Psychological Association, has urged
psychologists to take an active part in primary health care. The results presented here, and
elsewhere (Callahan, in press; Sakai et al, in press; Pignotti & Steinberg, in press) suggest that
psychologists adequately trained in TFT might have a lot to offer primary medical care, not only in
effectiveness but also in alacrity.
Acknowledgments
I want to thank Joanne Callahan, MBA (Health Care), the TFT trainees who made contributions to
this paper, Ian Graham, Cbiol. MIBiol, Victoria Danzig, LCSW, Jenny Edwards, PhD, Father Luis
Jorge Gonzalez, ocd, PhD, Anu de Monterice, MD, Monica Pignotti, CSW, Mark Steinberg, PhD,
Yoshinori Takasaki, MD, and Joel Wade, PhD. Many thanks go to Fuller Royal, MD who first
discovered the impact of TFT on HRV.
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