Welcome from the Symposium Coordinator 

Welcome to the Wigwam! We held our annual conference here in 2002, and it’s great to be back here again.

Energy psychology is an international affair. Last year, twenty research studies and eight systematic and comparative reviews from Australia, India, Indonesia, Iran, Korea, Spain, Turkey, the UK and the US, were published in peer-reviewed journals. This year we will hear presentations from Australia, India, Iraq, the UK and the US. 

Our skirmishes with the APA continue. In 2022 David Feinstein wrote a systematic review entitled “Integrating the Manual Stimulation of Acupuncture Points Into Psychotherapy: A Systematic Review With Clinical Recommendations,” which was published in the Journal of Psychotherapy Integration, an APA journal. The article received a critical response from professors Carolyn Boness, Gerald Pfund and David Tolin, the author of the Tolin criteria for Empirically Supported Treatments. In their “blistering critique,” to use David’s words, they called EP “an unsinkable rubber duck,” and stated that “the validity of energy meridians is dubious,” “there is little or no credible evidence of acupressure as an active treatment ingredient,” and “EFT is not in the realm of ethical behavioral health practice.” 

David will discuss his article, the subsequent controversy and his rejoinder in what promises to be a fascinating Keynote.