Sunday, 16 January 2005 - 10:15 AM

This presentation is part of: New Areas in Social Work Research

Thought field therapy voice technology vs. random meridian point sequences: a single-blind controlled experiment

Purpose: The Thought Field Therapy Voice Technology (TFT VT) is a proprietary procedure, claimed by it’s originator, psychologist Roger Callahan, to be the most effective form of therapy ever known to mankind, due to its putative ability to "diagnose" through the voice over the telephone, precise, individualized sequences of acupressure points at various locations on the body, which the individual is then instructed to stimulate, usually by finger tapping. Training in VT costs $100,000 and trainees are required to sign a confidentiality agreement. Callahan charges his own clients $600 per hour, claiming that VT has a 97% success rate. The studies adduced in support of this claim are from radio show appearances and practitioner trainings, none of which utilized control groups. The purpose of this study was to replicate as closely as possible, the conditions of previous studies, with the addition of a control group, in order to determine if Callahan’s theories about the uniqueness of the VT could be falsified.

Methods: This single-blind controlled study randomly assigned 66 subjects from practitioner trainings to TFT VT treatment (n=33) or to a control group (n=33), which received a randomly-selected sequence of acupressure points. The differences between the two groups’ subjective units of distress (SUD) levels, pre and post treatment were analyzed using a 2-way ANOVA and a chi square test on a dichotomized variable of treatment successful or not.

Results: The 2-way ANOVA revealed were no significant differences between the two groups. Thus, the results of the proprietary VT procedure are no different from random stimulation of acupressure points. Although there were significant differences in pre and post SUD for both groups, because this study was purposely designed to replicate earlier unpublished studies adduced in support of VT as closely as possible, this study should not be interpreted as claiming support for therapies utilizing acupressure points, due to the serious methodological weaknesses and flaws which included: failure to control for placebo effect with sham meridian points, failure to control for demand characteristics and expectancy; treatment for a vast array of different types of symptoms; failure to use valid assessment measures; and failure to follow up on subjects.

Implications for Practice and Policy: The use of non-empirically validated, pseudoscientific therapies such as TFT is becoming an increasing problem amongst a certain segment of clinical social workers. TFT is being favorably featured in major social work publications and licensed social clinical workers are making presentations at social work conferences, in spite of the fact that there are no published controlled studies validating the tremendous claims being made. The trade secrecy of VT presents further problems, making it impossible for independent verification of the claims being made. The possibility of amending the NASW code of ethics to forbid practitioners from using proprietary trade secrets in their practices ought, therefore, to be seriously considered.

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