Roger Callahan was presented with the Association for Comprehensive Energy Psychology’s (ACEP) lifetime achievement award. Since Callahan invented the tapping therapy that virtually started all of Energy Psychology this comes as no surprise. The only question some people may have is, what took them so long? As a former insider, I was privy to a back story that explains things.
While the old timers (people who have been around more than 10 years) are aware of this history, what many of the more recent devotees are not aware of is that the person who presented Callahan with the award, ACEP’s current President, clinical psychologist Gregory Nicosia, PhD, was sued by Roger Callahan approximately 13 years ago after quite an acrimonious split. Nicosia was one of the first people to train in Callahan’s TFT Diagnosis (TFTDx) course. At the time, the training cost $10,000 (or $5,000 for those who got a special early discount deal) and everyone who took the course was required to sign a confidentiality agreement that they could not reveal to anyone else what the secret of TFTDx was. In fact, the secret was already in the public domain as the applied kinesiology muscle testing procedure was shown in chiropractor James Durlacher’s book, Freedom from Fear Forever, with a Foreword by Roger Callahan himself. Click here to see Durlacher demonstrating the technique, which, although not mentioned on this particular video, was actually invented by Callahan, derived from George Goodheart’s applied kinesiology. [what is not mentioned on the video is that what he was essentially doing was providing these people with phobias with exposure to what they are afraid of (heights) and that is the most likely explanation for the success, not the tapping]
Nevertheless, although the essence of the “trade secret” was already in the public domain, when the Callahans began to market the TFTDx course, they sold it to their trainees as a “trade secret”. Trainees also had to sign an agreement that they would not teach TFTDx. At the time, TFTDx was being taught exclusively by the Callahan’s company, Callahan Techniques, Ltd. Although Nicosia has denied signing such a contract, most of the trainees did sign such a contract.
In 1997, Nicosia, who had trained with Callahan, split from Callahan and began to teach TFTDx on his own. Roger Callahan sued Nicosia for violation of the agreement, but Callahan lost. The decision was that TFT could not be trademarked. Since after that, people were legally free to teach TFTDx, in 1998, the Callahans discontinued the confidentiality agreement for TFTDx, and split the course up into three sections, which made it cheaper. I was involved with that reorganization and the development of the new training manual.
At that point, a number of other early students of Callahan had also split with him including Fred Gallo and Gary Craig (now retired), who was the first person ever to train in his Voice Technology. These people, along with some others who were interested in tapping therapies but did not want to abide by the Callahans rules and wanted a more open, flexible atmosphere free of secrecy, formed ACEP (this is very similar to what happened when Independent/Freezone Scientologists left the organization and began practicing Scientology outside the main organization and many people in ACEP, even the ones who split directly with Callahan revere him in a similar way to the way Freezoners revere L. Ron Hubbard, although, of course, LRH never attended any FZ gatherings).
The Callahans, until this year, have stayed completely away from ACEP conferences, as they had had quite acrimonious splits with several people involved, although ACEP repeatedly tried to make him feel he would be welcome. In 2000, ACEP also presented him with an award, but he declined attending the conference and had me go in his place and I accepted the award for him. Every year, during the time I knew him, Roger Callahan was invited to attend, but he declined. Since I have not spoken to the Callahans since early 2004, I have no way of knowing what lead to his change of heart and subsequent attendance at the 2010 ACEP conference and acceptance of the award, but it definitely represents a dramatic change that Callahan accepted an award from someone who he once had sued.
Dr. Monica Pignotti Refutes Thought Field Therapy 