Thought Field Therapy—Soothing the BadMoments of Kosovo

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Carl Johnson, Mustafe Shala, Xhevdet Sejdijaj,Robert Odell, and Kadengjika DabishevciGlobal Institute of Thought Field Therapy, Winchester, VA

Trauma in Kosovo was treated with Thought Field Therapy (TFT) duringfive separate trips by members of the Global Institute of Thought FieldTherapy, in the year 2000. Clinicians from Sweden, the United Kingdom,and the United States were joined in Kosovo by four physicians who trans-ported them to remote war-torn villages where patients with severe traumawere treated. Treatment was given to 105 patients with 249 separatetraumas. Total relief was reported by 103 of the patients, and for 247 ofthe separate traumas. Follow-up data averaging five months revealed noinstance of relapse. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Clin Psychol 57:1237–1240, 2001.

Keywords: Thought Field Therapy; TFT; PTSD; trauma; bad moments; Kosovo;ethnic Albanian

In 1999, in the Yugoslavian province of Kosovo, much of the ethnic Albanian majoritywas either massacred or tortured by invading Serbian forces. There was wide-spreadposttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in the society that survived. Some of this stemmedfrom specific methods of torture, which seemed designed to install survivor guilt in the

This article was published as an open review of a published manuscript in this journal. It was not subject to peerreview. The absence of prior peer review of both the research articles and the reviews themselves emanatedfrom concerns expressed by Dr. Roger Callahan that the review process was biased against TFT. This articlewas published as an open review of the original research article of TFT. The reader is encouraged to read theoriginal article, along with this accompanying review, and the final critique of theJournal’s decision to publishthis set of nonreviewed articles to gain a perspective on the issues presented. —Larry E. Beutler, editor.Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to: Carl Johnson, Director, Global Institute ofThought Field Therapy, 100 North Ave., Winchester, VA 22601; e-mail: carl@visuallink.com.We thank Roger Callahan for his discovery of the procedure that brought relief to these people. We applaud theclinicians who, traveling at their own expense, came to an unknown land for one or more trips to relievesuffering. These are: Sweden—Marita Hagegard; United Kingdom—Jo Cooper and Barbara Mitchels; UnitedStates—Lloyd Fellows and Don Walker. Appreciation goes to Agim Belagu and Perparim Hadri, Kosovar-Norwegians whose enthusiasm and escort enabled the mission to begin.

JOURNAL OF CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY, Vol. 57(10), 1237–1240 (2001)© 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

population after the war. We investigated whether the contemporary “power therapy”known as Thought Field Therapy (TFT) could stand up to this process of mental destruc-tion and ease the traumas of the people of Kosovo. TFT was first discovered in 1980 byRoger Callahan, Ph.D. (Callahan 1985). It has been shown to be effective in the treatmentof PTSD (Callahan & Callahan, 2000; Carbonell & Figley, 1999; Edwards, 1999; Wylie,1996). Its nonverbal procedures are an advantage in international projects where transla-tion can be an obstacle (Callahan, 1998).

Methods

Clinicians of the Global Institute of Thought Field Therapy traveled to Kosovo fromSweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States. This team was joined by physiciansalready in Kosovo, whose positive reputation among the people made it possible to accesspatients in the remote villages that had been totally destroyed in the war. Dr. MustafeShala and Dr. Xhevdet Sejdijaj, from the city of Peja, had close ties to the Kosovo Lib-eration Army (KLA). Dr. Shala had served during the war as chief of medicine for theKLA in the heavily assaulted western sector of Kosovo. Robert Odell and KadengjikaDabishevci, now the chief and associate chief of medicine for the U.S. Office (AmericanEmbassy) in the capital city of Pristina, had participated with The Hague War CrimesTribunal in investigations of the atrocities that occurred in these villages.

There were five separate trips to Kosovo in the year 2000—February, May, June,July, October. The duration of each trip was 14 days.

We treated 105 trauma patients. Every patient was an ethnic Albanian resident ofKosovo. Ages ranged from 4 to 78, with nearly equal numbers of males and females.Almost 100 of the patients were referred by their physicians. Many had several traumas;249 separate traumas were treated. These specific traumas were varied and representativeof what was endured by these people. For example, we traveled to remote locations tohelp withdrawn women who had been gang raped after being forced to observe the mur-der of their fathers. There were individuals who had been the survivors of alternate mas-sacre practices. Two chums would be noticed; one would be directed to the building thathoused mass murders, the other politely granted freedom to live—and to suffer foreverwith survivor guilt. Evacuation buses would be annihilated, alternately, while those inline watched.

There were children whose parents or siblings had been slain, adults whose spouseshad been murdered, mothers whose sons were still missing in action. There were KLAsoldiers who had lost comrades in action or who had conducted military actions thatviolated their own consciences. There were families with little children whose cars hadcome within inches of being pushed off the cliffs of the Albanian Alps, used in this wayfor the enemy’s sadistic games. There were women and children who were confined inhouses for hours, led to believe these were chambers of mass murder. There were childrenwhose throats had been slit.

For assessment we chose subjective distress. Due to Albanian taboos against emo-tional suffering, it was not practical to use the Subjective Units of Distress Scale (Wolpe,1969). We, therefore, measured emotional suffering from traumatic events in absoluteterms—its presence or absence. Taboos also ruled out use of the word “trauma,” so wedefined reactions to “bad moments” as the presence of unwelcome emotion and/or somaticdiscomfort when thinking about that moment. Absence of both unwelcome emotion andrelated somatic discomfort, when recalling the bad moment, was the criterion oftreatment success. Patients would say, through translation: “Yes, at this moment it is

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completely gone . . . if the way I feel at this moment becomes all moments, I will beentirely satisfied.”

Treatment was by Thought Field Therapy. This treatment involves individual diag-nosis of required sequences (Callahan, 1998), followed by precision mechanical stimu-lation of points on the body’s energy meridians, plus bilateral optical cortical stimulation(Callahan, 1985).

Results and Conclusions

For 103 of the 105 patients, and for 247 of 249 separate traumas, treatment was success-ful. In addition to the self-report of complete relief, their spontaneous expressions pro-vided confirming clues. People gave that look of astonishment, hugged, put their palms totheir temples, and looked up to the heavens in gratitude—looked up from the very yards,outside the home, where family members had fallen to a firing squad. Also, it was typicalfor them to feel great energy, then disappear long enough to return with a bag full ofpeaches or nuts. A KLA veteran, who had been totally unable to function since thewar, after treatment offered to escort us anywhere necessary, that he might help us treatthe KLA.

There was a woman who was so severely depressed that we had to hold her up whilewe treated her. Finally, at treatments ending, she JOGGED to a shed to find a stool for oneof the doctors who had been sitting on the grass. In another, larger shed off the edge of herproperty, this woman had lost her husband, son, and father to the same mass murder.

Two patients did not benefit. Each of these patients suffered a single trauma.Follow-up data have been obtained from 81 of the 103 success cases. As treatment

took place during 5 different months, length of follow-up varies. It ranges from 1 monthto 9 months. The mean and median are both 5 months. All treatment successes endured,without a single relapse (see Table 1).

These results are significant. Thought Field Therapy was clearly effective in reliev-ing trauma in the people of Kosovo. The results warrant further application and obser-vation of TFT.

Table 1Summary of Cases Treated with TFT

Treatments

Total Successful Failure

Patients 105 103 2Traumas 249 247 2

Follow-up

Mean time 5 monthsMedian time 5 monthsNo. of patients 81Percentage of patients contacted 78%No. of relapses 0

TFT and Kosovo 1239

References

Callahan, R. (1985). The five minute phobia cure. Willmington: Enterprise.

Callahan, R., & Callahan, J. (2000). Stop the nightmares of trauma. Chapel Hill, NC: ProfessionalPress.

Callahan Techniquest. (1998). Causal diagnostic home study course. (Step A). La Quinta, CA:Author.

Callahan, R., & Trubo, R. (2001). Tap the healer within. New York: Contemporary.

Carbonell, J.L., & Figley, C. (1999). A systematic clinical demonstration of promising PTSD treat-ment approaches. Electronic Journal of Traumatology, 5(1).

Edwards, J. (1999). Embassy bombing. The Thought Field, 1(3).

Wolpe, J. (1969). The practice of behavior therapy. New York: Permagon Press.

Wylie, M.S. (1996). Researching PTSD: Going for the cure. Family Therapy Networker, July–August, 21–37.

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