Cognitive Therapy = emotions are created by beliefs - thoughts. Catharsis based psychology = negatively charged emotional memories and their
Robert Elias Najemy
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Remove Pain – Physical and Emotional
Chapter 30
A Unifying Theory
Thought Field Therapy Emotional Freedom Techniques Psychoanalysis, Cognitive Psychology,
Healing the Inner Child, Catharsis and EMDR
I am writing this more for myself than for anyone else as I seek to develop a basic model which will
formulate a unified understanding of how the above mentioned various psychological disciplines
work. I have found them all useful and have employed them on myself in addition to sharing
them with around 150,000 others through lectures, seminars, books and cassettes
throughout the last 35 years.
The Apparent Conflict
TFT Thought Field Therapy by Dr. Roger Callahan and its offshoots such as EFT
Emotional Freedom Techniques by Callahan’s student Gary Craig seem to apparently conflict
with the premises of Cognitive Therapy concerning whether our emotions are caused by
our beliefs or a disturbed energy field created when we think of the stimulus. The word
apparently is in quotation marks because what is apparent is often not true.
We have a similar apparent conflict with cathartic psychological approaches, which heal by
bringing hidden pain, anger or guilt to the surface so that it can be released through some form of
catharsis. After its release, we can install a new alternative, more objective and positive
perception of ourselves and reality.
Without catharsis, psychotherapy or cognitive therapy can be like trying to record new music or
information beliefs on a prerecorded cassette, which we have not yet erased. We will hear two
recordings - two simultaneous belief systems - subconscious and conscious.
No matter how much we strengthen our affirmations or new positive beliefs, if the old ones
are still there, they will overpower our new intellectually based perceptions. Intellectual
conscious understanding and spiritual beliefs are usually weaker than automatic unconscious
experience-based emotional reactions. TFT and EFT, on the other hand, demonstrate
daily that most often neither analysis nor catharsis is necessary in order to eliminate
not suppress unwanted emotions.
New Discoveries Often Encompass Previous Conceptions
Science often evolves in ways so that new discoveries do not actually reject previous
perceptions but often encompass them while describing greater realties, which include and also
transcend our previous conceptions.
An example is that of Einstein’s law of relativity which does not negate Newton’s laws of motion
but simply explains that for objects with sufficient mass larger than atoms moving considerably
slower than the speed of light, Newton’s and Einstein’s laws give essentially the same
results.
So now with Thought Field Therapy, in my opinion, we are moving on to an understanding
that includes, validates and also transcends the hypotheses of: