Monica Pignotti, MSW

VT Trade Secret to be Revealed

I've just gotten word that another VT practitioner, Chris Milbank, resigned from the Association for Thought Field Therapy. Chris isn't going to be joining any skeptic camps, though. He is joining many others who have left the Callahans and have formed offshoots of TFT, only what's different about Chris is that he is advertising a course in Voice Technology! Further investigation revealed that he has set up a new website:

http://www.infinite-mind.co.uk/courses.html

He is offering a combined TFT Diagnosis and Voice Technology course. He is the first person who has explicitly dared to violate Roger's VT contract which forbids people to teach VT and if he's teaching VT presumably he's going to reveal the trade secret. It's going to be very interesting to see if the Callahans actually try to sue him. He is essentially calling their bluff. It had to happen sooner or later.

On the website, I signed up for and just received their Newsletter and in it they announce

"In the next few days, Infinite Mind will be going through some exciting changes. The website will look different, there will be new training courses and events available, and together with a leading therapist and trainer, Infinite Mind will be revealing a secret or two.

"In the past, some of the most successful ways to transform a persons health and life have been hidden from the world, kept secret, and only made available to a small minority who could afford excessive fees. THIS IS ABOUT TO CHANGE!

"Although these secrets will originally be taught to other therapists, everything that we do will be available to everybody. We want more people to know what is possible. It is OK if you do not want to train in these techniques, you can benefit from them all the same. Infinite Mind will be making these secrets available to you at the lowest prices in the world! "

How Thought Field Therapy Proponents Evade Media Questions

There's a very revealing article in the current issue of the Association for Thought Field Therapy's newsletter, ATFT Update (Issue 8, Spring, 2008) on pp. 14-16 entitled "Being Interviewed about TFT on Television and Radio" by Colin Barron, MD. Dr. Barron, advising people on how to answer media questions gives the following advice (p. 15):

"There are occasions when giving a straight answer could lead you down a very dangerous path to an area you do not want to go." He then proceeds to given two hypothetical examples of how to respond to the following question: "Dr. Barron, the Sceptics Association has claimed that there is no scientific evidence that TFT works. What do you have to say about that?"

He then gives an example of a wrong way to respond that includes the statement "But we say that double-blind controlled studies are not needed". This is the truth [about the position of TFT proponents]. I have personally heard Roger Callahan say this repeatedly. However, Barron notes the following (p. 16):

"If this imaginary interview had continued it would have dug up a lot of negative stuff resulting in a derogatory feature about TFT. As you can see, I have dug my own grave here." He then gives an example of how to answer the same question:

"They would say that wouldn't they! That lot talks a lot of nonsense! In fact TFT has been used with great success in Kosovo and in treating thousands of victims of 9/11 and it is used in the British Health Services."

In other words, he is ignoring questions about research and responding instead with anecdotes told by TFT proponents. He suggests that TFT proponents steer the discussion "away from negative areas and towards positive subjects that you want to talk about further" [the "negative" areas being the lack of research and the "positive" areas being more anecdotes. He goes on to advise:

"So if your interviewer susprises you with some negative revelation about TFT, you should immediately change the subject and start talking about something positive about TFT such as its use in the British NHS or its endorsement by high-profile celebrities."

That pretty much says it all when it comes to an explicitly stated intention to evade. Once again, the lesson is buyer beware and if you are an individual seeking services of a TFT therapist, make sure they don't try this trick with you and insist that they answer your question rather than going off onto an anecdotal tangent.

The content of this article didn't surprise me at all. Barron is only conveying some well-known PR tactics groups use when dealing with the media, but what did surprise me is that they would so blatantly admit to how they intend to evade questions posed by the media.

As an aside, I also have to wonder about the letter from a Dr. Shkelzen Syla, who is (or was at the time) supposedly the top physician who claimed to have full authority of medical decisions in Kosovo.

http://thoughtfieldtherapy.net/travels/kosova.html

When I Google his name, all I get are links to TFT websites or articles where TFT proponents made this claim. Now it's possible that Kosovo doesn't have good connections to the internet, but still, I have to wonder that why such an important person's name would only be linked with TFT. If anyone has other information about mental health decisions that are being made in Kosovo, I'd appreciate hearing from you.