Rapid Recovery: Accelerated Information Processing & Healing

By Stephen P. King

It only took eight years in the making, but I have finally completed my book on a variety of rapid recovery and healing techniques that I use in my counselling practice and with athletes. Many workshop attendees had asked that I put these techniques in an easy-to-follow format, with an explanation as to why certain things work the way they do. I believe I have now achieved that goal. These methods are helpful for maximising mind/body maintenance by clearing fears, phobias, addictions, obsessions, compulsions, traumas and all forms of self-sabotage. They can help optimize all aspects of our lives and open us to the fullness of life's possibilities.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: Dec 13, 2006
• ISBN: 9781412218931

Stephen P. King

Stephen (Steve) King has a B.Sc. degree in Health & Human Services and is a Registered Clinical Counsellor. He is an avid runner and triathelete who holds national age group running records, has raced at Ironman and Ultraman triathlon distances and has been a member of Canada's national 200km team. In 2001 he completed the arduous 135 miles Badwater Death Valley run. He was the publisher of "Tri-Fit Quarterly", a national triathlon magazine, author of a triathlon training log, and CBC's colour commentator for the sport of triathlon. He is also the race announcer for numerous sports events, including Ironman Canada. His work history includes stockbroking, private investigation, well-drilling, child care, and hospitality management. He is presently a Justice of the Peace, and since 1989 has been an outpatient addictions counsellor at Pathways Addictions Resource centre. He has an avid interest is healthy balance and wholism and lives with his wife Jean in the beautiful British Columbia city of Penticton.

Book preview

RAPID

RECOVERY:

ACCELERATED INFORMATION PROCESSING & HEALING

STEPHEN P. KING

TRAFFORD

© Copyright 2004 Stephen P. King.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author.

Note for Librarians: A cataloguing record for this book is available from Library and Archives Canada at www.collectionscanada.ca/amicus/index-e.html

ISBN 1-4120-1646-0

ISBN 978-1-4122-1893-1 (eBook)

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DEDICATION

I will forever be indebted to my own Higher Power for the gift of the very significant women in my life. My Grandmother (Nan), Rose Anne Howell who, despite her own significant losses, displayed great dignity and independence. she let me know it was okay to just be, and showed me what unconditional love is, through bus-spotting, soccer and comics, and sometimes just being peacefully warm, having tea and toast together. She made possible my first flight, and is a constant source of guidance, compassion, and reverence for loving congruency.

My Mother, Joyce Kathleen King whose emotional pain and neurosis underlied her desire to see us get out from under—she knew there were other possibilities and, despite the costs, gave me freedom when I most needed it. She let me discover who I was and encouraged me to follow my dreams. On our final time together she allowed me to see past incidents through her own loving lens. She’s still cheering me on, and no doubt taking delight in dancing and giving me ‘the look’ that always made me think twice and check my guilt index before making a decision.

My Wife, Jean Kathryn King who has shown a wonderful capacity to risk, in support of my sometimes ‘out there’ time-consuming goals. She took a chance and a leap of faith that has led us to many adventures, countries and challenges. She is talented, hard working, puts up with my idiosyncracies and demands on her patience and tolerance levels, and most of all brings beauty and harmony into my life.

My Family—for the memories that are and the ones that will be. In what seemed like my ‘abandonment’ of them—I found myself, and all of our horizons have broadened, which allows us to take pride in the spirited lives of my nieces and nephews. How nice it is to love your siblings!

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Charles & Margaret Hayes—whose stories and storybook lives led us to dream and see the reality go beyond what our imagination could ever conjure up. Dr. Alex & Margaret Mazurin—two pilgrims who share their tremendous gifts of healing and humor. H. Jane Wakefield—who has the willingness, resourcefulness, and abilities to work on the most complex of issues. Dr. Roger Callahan—whose courage and foresight has put him ‘out on a limb’. His unorthodoxy makes him truly an original. Gary Craig—who opened the door even further and recognizes the genomic possibilities. Neil Solomon—who allowed me to observe and partake in the reframing family solutions that opened the gate for me. Carol Zumpano—who went looking for what works. Jamie Marshall—whose leadership and guidance demonstrated that effectiveness and critical analysis can go hand-in-hand. Donna Martin—for the discussions, the gentleness and grounded, loving intentionality. Bill O’Hanlon—a true pied-piper of the palace of possibilitities. Dr. Lee Pulos—a visionary of visualization from spaghetti to sports. Dr. Marlene Hunter—a true champion in the field of dissociative disorders and treatment tools. Carolyn Reimer—whose altruistic hands of health bring balance and healing. Tony Davies and Jane Fernyhough—for the unconditional friendship and the power of truth. Berend and Sarah Henckel—who, with global compassion have demonstrated the results of resilience, resolution, and regeneration. Rich Benyo, Rhonda Provost, Murray Coates, Sandra McCallum and Vern Nielsen—the ‘team’ who led the way and shared my spiritual journey through Death Valley. Finally to family, friends, and clients—for their willingness to humor, challenge, and observe me and bring joy into my continually blessed life.

THE GOLDEN EAGLE

A man found an eagle’s egg and put it in the nest of a backyard hen.

The eaglet hatched with the brood of chicks and grew up with them.

All his life the eagle did what the backyard chickens did, thinking he was a backyard chicken.

He scratched the earth for worms and insects. He clucked and cackled. And he would thrash his wings and fly a few feet into the air like the chickens. After all, that is how a chicken is supposed to fly, isn’t it?

Years passed and the eagle grew very old. One day he saw a magnificent bird far above him in the cloudless sky.

It floated in graceful majesty among the powerful wind currents, with scarcely a beat of its strong golden wings.

The old eagle looked up in awe. Who’s that? he said to his neighbor.

That’s the eagle, the king of the birds, said his neighbor. "But don’t give it another thought.

You and I are different from him."

So the eagle never gave it another thought. He died thinking he was a backyard chicken.

Anthony de Mello, The Song of the Bird.

Contents

PREFACE

CHAPTER ONE

WHAT IS HEALING?

CHAPTER TWO

THE CALLAHAN TECHNIQUE: Thought Field Therapy

CHAPTER THREE

APPLIED KINESIOLOGY

CHAPTER FOUR

THE SCOPE OF USEFULNESS

CHAPTER FIVE

THE BODY ELECTROMAGNETIC

CHAPTER SIX

THE BODY CHEMICAL

CHAPTER SEVEN

THE BODY LIGHT, SIGHT, SOUND & SENSES

CHAPTER EIGHT

WHY THE NEED FOR TUNING IN?

CHAPTER NINE

TAPPING POINTS & THEIR ROLES

CHAPTER TEN

THE GAMUT TREATMENTS

CHAPTER ELEVEN

REVERSALS, NEUROLOGICAL DISORGANIZATION & CORRECTION

CHAPTER TWELVE

COMPLEMENTARY AIPs: TAT & EFT

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

FURTHER THERAPEUTIC TOOLS

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

INSIGHTS & APPLICATIONS

THE EAGLE AND THE WOLF

EPILOGUE

The Guardian Dog

LIST OF INTERNET RESOURCES

BIBLIOGRAPHY & REFERENCES

PREFACE

All truth goes through three stages. First it is ridiculed. Then it is violently opposed. Finally, it is accepted as self-evident.

(Schopenhauer)

Since 1980 I have attended numerous workshops and seminars for the purpose of refining my counseling skills, or acquiring different skills that are designed to provide options for the resolution and treatment of clients’ addictions and emotional and physical ailments. I always considered my attendance to be worthwhile if I could leave with some new level of understanding or a concept that allows me to help facilitate some further healthy shift in either my own, or a client’s perception or action.

One of the tools that I was comfortable with, and would use when appropriate, was hypnotherapy. However, as I work for an agency that is contracted, our resources in terms of counselor-to-client ratio, together with time limitations, meant that it was prudent for us to look at various options for brief therapy. There are a number of assessment instruments and specific counseling skills that fall under the heading of brief therapy. However, due to the often extreme and debilitating nature of many of our clients" issues, these techniques appeared to fall somewhat short of helping to attain a full dissolution of the negative effects of our client-identified issues.

In March of 1993, the British Columbia chapter of the Canadian Society of Clinical Hypnosis presented a workshop by Dr. Roger Callahan. The attendant material suggested that Dr. Callahan had devised a technique for the rapid elimination of phobias, anxiety, addictions, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). I had previously read an article on these claims in the Brain/Mind Bulletin (March 1991), but it was not very detailed and only suggested that these were Dr. Callahan’s claims and that the technique had not been scientifically verified. He had also authored a book entitled The

Five Minute Phobia Cure, which, given the justifiable cynicism that other cure-all opportunists have reaped, did not endear him or his views to the establishment. The fact that the workshop was being endorsed by Dr. Lee Pulos, a well-respected hypnotherapist from Vancouver, B.C., was sufficient to guarantee a good turnout of attendees, including many general practitioners. Our own agency’s sessional physician was among those attending.

During the course of the workshop there were videos showing the technique being used and demonstrated on various TV programs, including the Phil Donahue and Tom Snyder shows. Members of the TV audience were invited to go on stage and have their phobias worked on. Self-identified phobic student volunteers from the University of B.C. had been invited to come along just for a demonstration of how the technique could work on the fear of public speaking. Following treatment everyone reported feeling much more at ease with their respective issues, and certainly the students appeared to have little anxiety when standing in front of all the attendees and verbalizing their experience.

Dr. Callahan explained that the reason he had called his book The Five Minute Phobia Cure was so that he would be challenged to prove and demonstrate his claims by various segments of the psychology establishment. This appeared at some level to have backfired however, as many luminaries merely scoffed at the apparently simple method, despite the claims of many phobic subjects who were supposedly randomly selected without Dr. Callahan’s knowledge.

Roger Callahan is a clinical psychologist who received his Ph.D. from Syracuse University. He is the past president of the American Academy of Psychologists in Marital and Family Therapy and the Michigan Society of School Psychologists, and he has taught at the University of Michigan and Syracuse University. Dr. Callahan has also received endorsements for his technique from leaders in the field of anxiety, phobias, and traumas such as Dr. Nathaniel Branden, author of The Psychology of Self-Esteem, Dr. Martin F. Schwartz, research associate professor at the New York University Medical Center, and Dr. Gary Emery who co-authored Anxiety Disorders and Phobias: A Cognitive Perspective.

One would have thought that, with these credentials, endorsements, demonstrations, and apparently positive and successful outcomes, the Callahan Techniques would have been speedily researched, tested, and embraced by the psychology community. During the workshop breaks it became apparent, in the conversations between attendees, that there were tremendous rifts between those who were willing to accept that there might be something in this that deserved further investigation, and those that were too skeptical to give it any more time or consideration. Many were concerned with the

apparent lack of proof, research, double-blind experiments etc., or felt that it was just too simple and too quick and could be just a placebo. Some felt that Dr. Callahan’s suggestion that it could virtually dissolve all problems was too outlandish, and still others felt that something so easy somehow diminished or made light of their years of study and medical practice—almost as if it were an insult to the field of recognized psychology. This could, in part, have been because Dr. Callahan also told those assembled that he was attaining some remarkable successes by directing the technique to clients at the other end of a phone line—no small claim!

I have always subscribed to the paraphrased Huna philosophy that suggests that Effectiveness is the measure of truth (King 1985, p. 11), and I’m also much more of a right-brained individual than many of my fellow attendees appeared to be. That is not meant to be a condemnation, only an acceptance of my own intuition, which told me that there was something in this that felt very comfortable to me, and was at least worthy of some practical follow-up. Besides if it didn’t work or if I got mocked for applying it, I could always say that some crazy Californian doctor had suggested it, and we all know how weird those Californians can be!

Not long afterwards, I contacted Dr. Callahan who forwarded audio and video tapes to me, that were of actual phone conversations with clients. Being armed with the three page step-by-step method for applying the technique, I set about testing and using it on any family, friends, acquaintances and co-workers who claimed to have some identified issue and were willing to give it a try.

Following what appeared to be some amazing successes, I began to cautiously apply it in some sessions with those clients who I felt really meant it when they stated that they were willing to try anything that might work, and had felt that they’d tried everything and nothing had improved. It also helped that the sessional physician, who had attended the workshop with me, was having some surprising success with the technique, though he agreed that he had some underlying fears of being mocked by his fellow physicians, especially after all the years of medical training. Nothing was meant to be this easy!

The techniques detailed herein may also provide some side benefits to the counselor or therapist. I had not even thought of doing any conscious work on the Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) that had dogged me for years, but it appears that it has just fizzled away, and I was not even really aware of this until a client mentioned their own difficulty with SAD. As I reflected on this personal shift, I realized I constantly do energy work, whether my own daily routine or demonstrating for clients, and that I was now so comfortable with the winter that it was hard for me to remember how bad it had

been at times. This may be as a result of the Apex phenomenon, which is discussed in chapter 13. The other benefit has been the ability to deal with death in such a way that I have been able to process the loss and the pain it has brought, in a manner and time frame that has speedily allowed for the sense of celebration of a person’s life.

The Program Director of our agency adopted the technique into his own repertoire and, having now used it with numerous clients for a multitude of problems, I fully endorse it and believe that it is one of the most valuable treatment tools that I’ve ever used. I have modified it and added some extra components to it that seem to assist in collapsing any roadblocks to success.

We invited Dr. Callahan to make a presentation in our community and a couple of weeks later I ran into a local doctor who told me how pleased he was to attend because it had been responsible for healing a big issue in his marriage. Apparently the fear of flying had been so intense that he refused to travel by plane, and the couple had children living abroad. He stated that after a TFT session the fear was dissipated and he’d flown with none of the pre-existing anxiety.

I have made a number of presentations of the technique, yet, despite the successes, I have found that only a small percentage of those who attended Dr. Callahan’s workshop, or our own follow-ups, have actively been using the techniques in their practice. This may be partly due to personal fears of ridicule and/or to a perceived lack of validation and explanation as to why it does work. My hope is that what follows will provide a valid and acceptable explanation as to the technique’s various applications and a layman’s answers to the whys regarding its efficacy.

There has been an ongoing active search for a cure for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) by Dr. Charles Figley, Professor and Director of the Interdivisional Ph.D. Program in Family Therapy at Florida State University. He and Professor Joyce Carbonell and their team produced A Systematic Clinical Demonstration Study of Brief Approaches in the Treatment of PTSD: The Active Ingredient Project. This study began in September of 1994 and four treatment teams were videotaped and observed using Trauma Incident Reduction (TIR), NeuroLinguistic Programming (NLP), Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) and Thought Field Therapy (TFT). The provisional findings led Dr. Figley to state, Let me just say that as a research project, our quest for a possible cure for PTSD and related anxiety disorders has led to investigations of every kind of talk oriented therapy. From our preliminary findings TFT appears to be that cure. Congratulations for such a significant contribution to humanity.

In the year 2000 five separate trips to Kosovo were made by members of the Global Institute of

Thought Field Therapy for the purpose of treating physician-referred severely traumatized patients. Overseen and observed by four skeptical Albanian physicians, 105 patients were referred and 249 separate traumas were identified. The ages of the patients ranged from 4 to 78 years, with nearly equal numbers of males and females. Cultural differences were taken into account, e.g. Albanian taboos against emotional suffering made it impractical to use the SUD’s scale, so absolutes were used, i.e. present or absent. Also the word trauma was also taboo so reactions were defined by bad moments, being the presence of unwelcome emotion and/or somatic discomfort when thinking about that moment. The end result was that total relief was reported by 103 of the 105 patients, and for 247 of the 249 separate traumas. (‘ Thought Field Therapy—Soothing the Bad Moments of Kosovo’. Johnson, Shala, Sejdijaj, Odell, Dabishevci. Journal of Clinical Psychology. Vol. 57(10), pps. 12371240)

Despite their understandable initial skepticism, on April 2nd 2001, the Albanian doctors opened an office in Kosovo for the practice of TFT. (ibid. p. 1258)

In the last four decades, however, changes in the structure of

scientific institutions have produced a situation so heavily weighted

in favor of the establishment that it impedes progress in health

care and prevents truly new ideas from getting a fair hearing in

almost all circumstances. The present system is in effect a dogmatic

religion with a self-perpetuating priesthood dedicated only to

preserving the current orthodoxies. The system rewards the

sycophant and punishes the visionary to a degree unparalleled

in the four-hundred-year history of modern science.

(Becker/Selden pps. 331-332)

CHAPTER ONE

WHAT IS HEALING?

’The quintessential possibility of regressive therapy is spiritual opening and the emergence of a volitional relationship with one’s higher Self.

(Emerson p. 28)

In order to establish exactly what healing means, it is necessary to understand the basic human needs and the multi-faceted nature of the wounds that can afflict us.

Charles Whitfield has developed a more thorough list of the hierarchy of human needs than the oft-quoted Maslow’s list, and it’s based on the work of a number of researchers (Maslow, 1962; Miller, 1981; Weil, 1973; Glasser, 1985).

•   Survival

•   Safety

•   Touching, skin contact

•   Attention

•   Mirroring and echoing

•   Guidance

•   Listening

•   Being real

•   Participating

•   Acceptance: i.e. Others are aware of and take seriously and admire the Real You—Freedom to be the Real You—Tolerance of your feelings—Validation—Respect—Belonging and love.

•   Opportunity to grieve losses and to grow

•   Support

•   Loyalty and trust

•   Accomplishment: i.e., Mastery—Power—Control—Creativity—

Having a sense of completion—Making a contribution.

•   Altering one’s state of consciousness, transcending the ordinary.

•   Sexuality

•   Enjoyment or fun

•   Freedom

•   Nurturing

•   Unconditional love (including connection with a Higher Power) (Whitfield p. 18)

If this unified model is recognized as being acceptable for understanding our personal needs, it becomes quite apparent that very few people would get all of these needs met in their childhood. Parents or significant adults may not have the knowledge, tools, or wherewithal to accommodate these needs in the best of circumstances. If there were abuses or traumas that were never fully and healthily attended to in the formative years, then it likely falls to the individual to resolve the issues. The most devastating result of childhood abuse and trauma is the loss of the ‘true’ self. The major goal for many can therefore be viewed as attaining a state of unconditional Self-acceptance.

Even if one were to arrive at such a healthy state of being, the more left-brained amongst us would want to know, before undertaking the journey, just what that might look and feel like. Some of the signs of inner peace are:

•   Tendency to think and act spontaneously rather than from fear based on past experiences.

•   An unmistakable ability to enjoy each moment.

•   Loss of interest in judging other people.

•   Loss of interest in judging self.

•   Loss of interest in interpreting the actions of others.

•   Loss of interest in conflict.

•   Loss of ability to worry (a very serious symptom)

•   Frequent, overwhelming episodes of appreciation.

•   Contented feelings of connectedness with nature and others.

•   Frequent attacks of smiling through the eyes from the heart.

•   Increased tendency to let things happen rather than make them happen.

•   Increased susceptibility to Love extended by others, as well as the uncontrollable urge to extend it.

(Olympia Fellowship of Reconciliation Newsletter. Issue 63, 1986)

Both Scott Peck and Dr. Bernie Siegel have suggested that we are born with a belief that we deserve to be loved. This makes a lot of sense to me as we have to question why it would be that we would have low self-esteem or emotional turmoil ‘simply’ because we lived in a non-welcoming environment-after all what’s to lose or feel bad about if there were no preconceived expectation?

Joan Borysenko wrote about a documentary on Mother Teresa and her visit to a home for spastic children in Lebanon in which the children appeared small for their ages and of stunted stature. They were suffering from an illness known as hospitalism, or failure to thrive, that occurs often in group homes for infants. Although the children are fed and changed their needs are met on schedule with little chance for the give and take that is natural between infant and caretaker. The pituitary glands of these unloved children fail to put out enough growth hormone. In effect, the baby gives itself a die message since there is no one to receive. (p. 17)

Others, such as Stanislav Grof, Arthur Janov, and Dr. William Emerson have provided evidence which demonstrates that pre-birth trauma can create a life-long negative impact.

A Mother is able, via hormones carried in the blood, to transmit emotions through the umbilical cord to her fetus. Because they are present in the ever-changing composition of the amniotic fluid, the fetus is literally marinating in any stressors taking place in its family or environment during the prenatal period.

It has been established that there are major differences between trauma and shock. Shock has the ability to obstruct our access to some of the deepest aspects of the Self——resulting in difficulties with intimacy, self-esteem, connection to one’s sense of purpose and meaning, and spirituality. Shock is stored in

the body and reactivated by events in daily life until it is resolved. It is mediated by unconscious rather than conscious aspects of the personality. Unlike trauma, it is activated not only by stimuli resembling the original trauma, but also by many apparently unrelated triggers. Where trauma maximizes and hones physiological functioning, shock minimizes and impairs physiological functioning. Trauma still allows intimacy, while shock blocks intimacy. Emerson’s work in explicating the differences between shock and trauma has made it clear that, along with appropriate psychotherapy protocols for treating shock, the physiological shock response requires treatment or it keeps the individual in a constant state of ‘red alert’ that eventually leads to adrenal fatigue and finally, adrenal exhaustion.

Traumatized individuals have had some sense of control and efficacy while their traumatization is in process—fight or flight are successful to some degree in defending against or ameliorating the effects of the traumatizing agents. In shock, neither fight nor flight is successful. Overwhelm is what

separates shock from trauma. (Insights Magazine—B.C. Ass. Of Clinical Counsellors—’Pre-and Peri-natal Shock: Considerations for Psychotherapy’ by Claire Winstone, pps. 8-24)

Shock will have major impact on both the psychological and physiological levels, including hormonal production such as adrenals and thyroid. Being in the aforementioned state of red alert, or hypervigilance, over an extended period of time can have a devastating effect on the adrenals and lead to a state which is now commonly referred to as chronic fatigue.

Dr. Emmerson has also broken down shock into classifications of commission (event) or omission (need). There can be the single incident events such as abortion attempt, an epidural, c-section, physical or sexual abuse, sudden loss etc. or multiple incidents of not having basic needs met, i.e. neglect, indifference, lack of touch or comfort. Damage of this sort will often make it difficult for a person to take in love and compassion when it is healthily available to them. A distrusting belief system can govern a lifetime of unhealthy relationships and potentially self-sabotaging actions.

There are few people who would suggest that they have an alcohol problem as a result of excessive thirst! In fact, as with most addictive behaviors, clients tend to recognize that they use mood-altering substances or processes for exactly that reason—to alter their mood or the way they feel.

The first three items of the Suicide Status Form (SSF) that was derived from a theoretical model presented by E. S. Schneidman (Definition of Suicide. New York: Wiley. 1985) were pain, press, and perturbation. Schneidman’s model of suicide conceptualizes the acute suicidal moment as a convergence of these three major dimensions. Psychic pain is defined as an unbearable level