About Thought Field Therapy Center
TFT Center is dedicated to preserving, teaching, and advancing Thought Field Therapy (TFT)—the original tapping methodology developed by clinical psychologist Dr. Roger Callahan and an important foundation of the modern tapping approaches practiced today.
Led by clinical psychologist, researcher, author, and longtime TFT trainer Dr. Caroline Sakai, TFT Center provides education and professional training in both the foundational and advanced methods of Thought Field Therapy.
Our purpose goes beyond teaching people where to tap.
Thought Field Therapy includes the fundamental practice many people now recognize as tapping: focusing on a particular problem while gently tapping specific points on the body. But the original TFT methodology goes further, with problem-specific algorithms, prescribed sequences, methods for evaluating response, corrective procedures, and advanced diagnostic methods for determining individualized treatment sequences.
TFT Center exists to keep that broader methodology alive, understandable, and available to a new generation.
Thought Field Therapy: The Original Method Behind Modern Tapping
Long before tapping became widely known through Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) and other approaches, Dr. Roger Callahan was developing Thought Field Therapy.
Callahan’s work combined focused attention on an emotional or psychological problem with stimulation of specific points on the body in prescribed sequences. Over time, he developed a much broader system that included established algorithms as well as advanced diagnostic procedures for determining individualized treatment sequences.
Gary Craig later studied Thought Field Therapy with Callahan before developing EFT. As EFT grew in popularity, it helped introduce the fundamental idea of tapping to a much larger audience.
TFT and EFT therefore share an important historical foundation. Both involve focusing on an issue while tapping specific points on the body.
But TFT contains additional layers of methodology for determining what to do, in what sequence, and what to investigate when the initial intervention doesn’t resolve the problem.
For people who already know EFT or another form of tapping, learning TFT can provide an opportunity to explore the broader methodology from which modern tapping developed.
Carrying Forward the Work of Dr. Roger Callahan
TFT Center is led by Dr. Caroline Sakai, an authorized trainer of Callahan Techniques Thought Field Therapy and one of the clinicians who worked directly with TFT founder Dr. Roger Callahan.
Dr. Sakai encountered Callahan and Thought Field Therapy while working at Kaiser Behavioral Health Services, where she served as Chief Psychologist.
By that point, she was already an experienced clinical psychologist. She had been practicing as a clinical therapist since 1966 and had earned master’s degrees in Social Work and Psychology as well as a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology.
Her experience with TFT led her to work closely with Callahan and become deeply involved with the methodology he had developed.
What followed was not simply the adoption of another therapeutic technique. TFT became an important part of decades of Dr. Sakai’s clinical practice, research, professional education, and humanitarian trauma-relief work.
That direct connection between Callahan’s development of Thought Field Therapy and Sakai’s decades of clinical application, research, and teaching is at the heart of TFT Center today.
From Clinical Psychology to Thought Field Therapy
Dr. Sakai brought an extensive clinical background to her work with TFT.
During her career at Kaiser Behavioral Health Services, she developed an intensive outpatient program and several group programs, including programs addressing anxiety and depression, groups for teens and children, and couples workshops. She also instituted Behavioral Medicine Services within Kaiser’s primary care clinics.
Her professional experience has included work with adults, children and adolescents, couples, and families, as well as training and experience with other therapeutic approaches. She has also served as an EMDR consultant and facilitator.
Throughout her career, Dr. Sakai has been particularly interested in approaches that help people improve their functioning while giving them practical tools they can learn and use themselves.
That interest became one of the driving forces behind her work with Thought Field Therapy.
Taking TFT Into Clinical Practice
Dr. Sakai was also involved in bringing Thought Field Therapy into established behavioral health environments.
In 2001, she was lead author of “Thought Field Therapy Clinical Applications: Utilization in an HMO in Behavioral Medicine and Behavioral Health Services,” published in the Journal of Clinical Psychology.
The paper reported on 1,594 applications of TFT involving 714 patients in behavioral medicine and behavioral health settings. The cases involved a broad range of presenting concerns, including anxiety, anger, acute stress, bereavement, chronic pain, cravings, depression, panic, phobias, post-traumatic stress, relationship stress, and work stress.
The uncontrolled study reported statistically significant pre- to post-session reductions in self-reported distress and described the findings as preliminary, calling for further controlled research.
This work represented an important part of Dr. Sakai’s continuing exploration of how TFT could be applied beyond the work of its founder and within everyday clinical practice.
TFT and Humanitarian Trauma Relief
Dr. Sakai’s work with Thought Field Therapy eventually extended far beyond the clinical office.
She has led and participated in volunteer clinical teams working with people affected by genocide, natural disasters, violence, and other severe traumatic experiences.
In Rwanda, she worked with survivors of the 1994 genocide and participated in efforts to train local community leaders to use TFT. Her work there also contributed to published research examining TFT with genocide survivors experiencing symptoms associated with post-traumatic stress.
She also led volunteer clinical teams to New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina, working with first responders and survivors, and has worked with military personnel experiencing post-traumatic stress.
A central idea behind this work has remained consistent: help people address immediate emotional distress while also teaching practical techniques that can continue to be used after the clinician or trauma-relief team is gone.
Research, Education and Professional Training
Dr. Sakai has practiced Thought Field Therapy and conducted professional TFT courses for health professionals since 1998.
She has presented on TFT, stress, anxiety, trauma, Energy Psychology, and related subjects at national and international professional conferences.
Her presentations have included the World Congress on Psychosomatic Medicine, International Energy Psychology conferences, the Association for Thought Field Therapy Conference, the International Congress on Ericksonian Approaches to Hypnosis and Psychotherapy, and conferences of the Association for Comprehensive Energy Psychology.
Her published work includes research and articles on Thought Field Therapy, EMDR, domestic abuse, major depression, personality disorders, anxiety, panic disorder, trauma, and related areas of clinical psychology.
She is also the author of Overcoming Adversity: How Energy Tapping Transforms Your Life’s Worst Experiences—A Primer for Post-Traumatic Growth, which explores adversity, tapping, resilience, and post-traumatic growth.
Learning Thought Field Therapy at TFT Center
TFT Center teaches Thought Field Therapy as more than a single tapping sequence.
Students can begin with foundational techniques and progress into the broader methodology developed by Dr. Callahan.
TFT Algorithm Training
TFT Algorithm Training teaches established tapping sequences and foundational procedures that can be applied to a range of common emotional, stress-related, behavioral, and performance concerns.
The Algorithm approach provides a practical way to begin using TFT without first learning the advanced diagnostic methodology.
TFT Diagnostic Training
TFT Diagnostic Training goes beyond predetermined algorithms into the advanced methodology of TFT.
Students learn Causal Diagnosis and methods for determining individualized treatment sequences, along with procedures for investigating difficult, complex, chronic, or recurring problems and situations in which an initial intervention does not produce the expected response.
This progression—from established algorithms to individualized diagnosis—is an important part of what distinguishes the broader TFT methodology from tapping alone.
More Than Tapping
Tapping is considerably better known today than when Dr. Roger Callahan began developing Thought Field Therapy.
That is a good thing.
More people than ever are exploring the relationship between focused attention, the body, emotional responses, and tapping.
But there is a much deeper history and methodology behind the practice.
TFT Center exists to help preserve and teach that knowledge.
Through Dr. Caroline Sakai’s direct experience with Dr. Callahan, decades of clinical practice, published research, humanitarian trauma-relief work, and professional training, students have an opportunity to learn not only how to tap, but also the broader Thought Field Therapy methodology behind modern tapping.
If you already know tapping, TFT can show you where it came from and what lies beyond the tapping sequence itself.
In the gut-wrenching stories of patients told by psychologist Dr. Caroline Sakai in this riveting book, you’ll see the full range of human misery and how Thought Field Therapy has helped in their recoveries.
Stories range from that of Josh, suicidal after fighting depression for years to Angelique, whose entire village was slaughtered during the Rwandan genocide. Yet both Josh and Angelique, as well as two dozen others whose cases are told in fascinating detail, recovered completely.
The remarkable cure that worked so well for them is called Thought Field Therapy or TFT. It’s often called “tapping” since it involves tapping with the fingertips on acupuncture points. A recent group of studies has shown that TFT is phenomenally effective at treating the symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder, as well as anxiety, depression, and other mental health conditions.
Dr. Sakai has conducted much research into TFT, including several randomized controlled trials. She provides an expert introduction to tapping for beginners, as well as concluding with a section that shows professionals how to get the best results from TFT. It shows how TFT can promote post traumatic growth, the personal transformation that can result from traumatic experiences. It also shows how TFT can be used to promote resilience, the qualities that enable us to recover from life’s inevitable challenges.
