... Energy Psychology

Energy Psychology is the broad academic name for a body of work that includes many models developed over several decades. This article captures some of that history and information, also see the links page!

Excerpted from Dynamic Energetic Healing® for Body, Mind and Soul
(Copyright 2006 Mary Hammond all rights reserved)

Energy Psychology Unfolds

The Thought Field Therapy seminar in Portland in the early nineties was abuzz with the conversation of about thirty therapists, many of whom I recognized, as we anticipated the experience of learning Roger Callahan’s methods from psychologist Helen Tuggy, PhD.

We not only tapped with two fingers on meridian points for specific mental/emotional issues, but also learned how to assess the body/energy field from the body’s own wisdom. I have to admit, we were all fascinated by the process and somewhat self conscious about tapping on ourselves and pressing on one another’s arms as we muscle tested. We alternated between asking scientific questions from our academic minds, and giggling like children with a new game.

Manual Muscle Testing

We witnessed demonstrations of the body’s wisdom with Manual Muscle Testing (MMT), first developed by physical therapists Florence and Henry Kendall to test the function and strength of the body’s systems (Kendall & Kendall, 1949). Later, in 1964, Dr. George Goodheart, chiropractor, observed that a weak muscle could be treated and the strength immediately improved. From this simple observation he began a lifelong search for the treatment methods that could improve muscle strength, viewing muscle strength as an indicator of health. Along the way he discovered many factors, physical, emotional and mental, that could positively or negatively affect muscle strength. He named this area of investigation and discovery applied kinesiology. He chose to use the term kinesiology, as this implies the study of motion, movement, and muscle function. He added the term applied because what he was doing was not the discipline of standard kinesiology. (Goodheart, Frost 2002)

Sharon suffered for years from chronic depression, and was on many medications over a couple of decades. She had arthritis, and fibromyalgia as well. She had to leave a job working for a legislator which she was good at and loved, although her real love was art. Using the process in this book, we detected the origins of her seemingly debilitating depression with manual muscle testing, and with DEH treatment it completely disappeared. She has been free of depression for ten years. A few years later she consulted me again because of an underlying anxiety and compulsivity that was creating discomfort. Again we used manual muscle testing to track the energetic structure of her anxiety and within a few sessions the extremes of her compulsivity disappeared.

Manual muscle testing is the generic term used by those outside the chiropractic field for assessing a person’s symptoms and issues by means of indicator muscles. MMT reflects the assumption in energy psychology, derived from psychiatrist John Diamond’s work with George Goodheart, that “the indicator muscle is reflective of specific information within thought fields when a psychological problem is attuned…” (Gallo 2000)

John Diamond, an Australian psychiatrist, developed Behavioral Kinesiology after studying Applied Kinesiology in the 1970s.

“In 1979, Diamond’s model began to integrate aspects of psychiatry, psychosomatic medicine, kinesiology, preventive medicine, and humanities… Diamond’s earlier approach involved the use of affirmations, the thymus thump, homing thoughts, imagery, and elements of the Alexander Method, a posture therapy, to balance the life energy of Chi after a meridian imbalance was detected through kinesiological tests… Diamond’s work represents the first attempt to integrate Applied Kinesiology and psychotherapy.” (Gallo 2000, p.68)

The Meridian Pathways

While studying Chinese medicine, Goodheart discovered that it was possible to substitute pressure for needles in touching to acupuncture points, as well as percussing or tapping on the points. The interconnection of glands, organs, and meridians is inherent to acupuncture. By bringing knowledge of muscle testing to the arena, Goodheart and his colleagues discovered a relationship between the various muscles and the meridian pathways outlined in Chinese medicine.

In 1979, clinical psychologist Roger J. Callahan began studying Applied Kinesiology with John Diamond. As his interest grew, he went on to attend the 100-hour Applied Kinesiology course and became certified by the International College of Applied Kinesiology. Soon afterwards he developed what was perhaps the first widespread Energy Psychology methodology initially referred to as the Callahan Techniques™ or Thought Field Therapy (TFT). Callahan’s model uses MMT to determine exactly which acupressure points will heal a certain mental/emotional issue, and each client is muscle tested for the specific point for their particular symptoms.

Callahan chooses to keep Thought Field Therapy or Callahan Techniques^TM separate from the mainstream that has become Energy Psychology. Callahan’s students and their proteges became the teachers to the world regarding Energy Psychology. From 1990 to the present, however, there has been a surge of developments in this field. Fred Gallo, PhD, developed Energy Diagnostic and Treatment Methods (EDxTM). He is thus far the major academic author, with Energy Psychology published in 1998 and Energy Diagnostic and Treatment Methods published in 2000, and Energy Psychotherapy in Energy Psychology, in 2002 in which DEH was featured.

Gary Craig, a retired engineer and motivational speaker, has popularized tapping for healing with his simple model, Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT). Larry Nims also developed some simple techniques with his model, Be Set Free Fast, that tailors his techniques for Christian clients. Tapas Fleming discovered the energetic link between trauma and allergies, and was given her technique, Tapas Acupressure Technique, in a dream. Judith Swack, PhD, developed Healing from the Body Level Up (HBLU), combining Neurolinguistic Programming (Grinder & Bandler) with energy work. John Diepold, PhD, developed a gentle offshoot of EFT and TFT with his Touch and Breathe (TAB) methods.

Donna Eden, LMT, and her husband and colleague, David Feinstein, PhD, are bringing Energy Psychology and Energy Medicine together. (Feinstein, Craig, Eden) Chakra balancing has been incorporated in energy psychology by Dorothea Hover-Kramer, Asha Clinton PhD., and from energy medicine by Donna Eden. DEH friends Sharon Rommel and Ruth Crowley have developed elegant chakra classes that enhance DEH and energy psychology work. 

One of my first experiences in Helen Tuggy’s TFT training parallels the field of Energy Psychology, that first gained fame with Callahan’s book The 5 Minute Phobia Cure, by reducing simple phobias quickly. I found that simple phobias could truly be alleviated quickly.

I had been afraid of dogs all of my life and it was getting to the point that I could not walk in my neighborhood without being afraid and returning home prematurely. So when our instructor said, think of something you are phobic about and tap gently on the meridian points, I chose this fear. She asked me to rate this fear on a scale of I-10. It was an easy 10. I tapped for three to four minutes with the guidance of my partner in the training. At the end of the tapping, I rated my fear level at zero. I remembered that I had been afraid, but I was no longer afraid. But, I thought, I was not at my home walking in my neighborhood either. We’ll see, I thought.

Later that week I walked my usual path and saw the usual dogs. I was not afraid as I had been previously. I have remained free of dog phobia or a decade.

Healing From the Body Level Up

Helen Tuggy, PhD, and her colleague, HBLU developer Judith Swack, PhD, became our teachers for several years as we learned to diagnose particular traumas of the energy field and heal their roots. Judith is a botanist and trained in Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP), and Three in One Concepts trainings to bring about HBLU. Helen is a skilled energetic psychologist who enhanced many pieces of HBLU, and now also is a Seemoorg Matrix practitioner (Clinton, 1999) As part of our training we were fortunate to study NLP with Seattle trainer Ragani Michaels, who assisted us in honing our abilities to be sensitive to the many subtle qualities of words and thoughts and their relationship to the conscious and unconscious mind.

Energy Medicine

John Thie, a chiropractor with whom Goodheart worked closely in the 1970s, developed Touch for Health, strategies derived from Applied Kinesiology. He took the work of Applied Kinesiology to healthcare practitioners beyond the chiropractic field. Donna Eden, LMT, and teacher of Energy Medicine trained with Dr. Thie and experienced personal healing and the intuitive ability to develop new strategies and offer healing energy to others. (Eden, Feinstein 1999) While Energy Psychology identifies a person’s mental and emotional material through interview, discussion and muscle testing, and then applies the energy strategies, Energy Medicine accesses a person’s energy through the practitioner’s hands and intuitive system, and then the mental and emotional material emerge.

In 2002, at the International Energy Psychology Conference, I volunteered enthusiastically to be on the table under Donna Eden’s magical hands connected to her abilities to see beyond the body. She swirled my chakras and laid on hands with the sacred touch of a master. She sensed darkness and energetic reversal.

Following this treatment, I did several sessions of DEH with my colleagues. Within a few months of this diagnostic session a lethal hidden cancer was brought to light. Eden’s abilities with diagnosis and my colleagues’ abilities with energy work exposed what had been deeply buried.

Surgery followed, along with a death sentence from an oncologist. “One doesn’t recover from this,“ he said.

“I’m not ready to go,” I said. Using the DEH protocols in this book I intentionally healed a lifetime and karmic pattern of “incurable, hidden, impossible to heal” diseases.

I am still here. 

Dynamic Energetic Healing

While Nancy Gordon and Howard Brockman and I experimented with the strategies we learned from the forementioned teachers, we received profound personal healing, and greater access to enhanced intuition. Each week through these growing intuitive abilities we would discover a new level of healing with our clients and one another, and new strategies for our experiment.

Together, Howard Brockman, Nancy Gordon, and I developed protocols for Creating Sacred Space, a protocol for strengthening the accuracy of MMT, protocols for developing intentions for healing, performance, soul loss, working from the origins, guided imagery particular to DEH, the black hole and other supernatural energies, healing the shattered energy field of chronic mental and emotional illness, soul loss, and combining meridian and chakra work. We expanded and deepened the trauma work we had learned from Tuggy and Swack. We created a tapestry of many energy interventions and processes into an elegant model with endless possibilities for healing and change.

I invite you to work in the great mystery now unraveled, to find healing by working on your body and mind in the intersection of science.  Dynamic Energetic Healing: Soul Work at the Origins was published in Energy Psychology in Psychotherapy by Fred Gallo Ph.D.