A state or condition which blocks natural healing and prevents otherwise effective treatments from working.
Evidence for the state of PR is revealed when an otherwise effective treatment does nothing - then after
the PR is corrected the same treatment, which did nothing the moment before, suddenly works. A person
may be fine in most domains of his life and be PR in just one or a selected few. The PR state is usually accompanied
by negative attitudes and self-sabotaging behavior. A most interesting symptom of PR is that
concepts are reversed 180 degrees; e.g., a person will say South when they mean North, but will not say East
or West when they mean North. The implication of this reversal of concepts is quite profound and is in need
of investigation. It seems to relate to a fundamental aspect of direction (chirality, polarized light, etc.) in
elemental reality. A similar and related symptom of PR is getting numbers or letters out of order; a special
proof reader’s mark exists for this type of error which illustrates how common it is. The upside down and
backward writing of dyslexia is due to the PR. PR in most of us is a temporary condition and when we are
PR and reverse concepts, letters and numbers, PR may be viewed as a kind of temporary “dyslexia”. Interestingly,
a form of speed is sometimes given to hyperactive youngsters to slow them down. The paradoxical
effect may be due to this reversal phenomenon. A research study (Blaich) showed that of a number of rather
complicated and specialized treatments designed to improve human performance; the rapid (10 seconds)
and simple treatment for PR was by far the most effective in improving performance in reading speed and
comprehension. We find the presence of PR on treatment effect to be quite lawful and predictable. We have
found a high correlation between presence of cancer and PR. In a highly significant study done at New York
University back in the 1940’s it was found that cancer patients had an overwhelming disposition to show a
literal polarity reversal (as compared to normals) as measured by a sensitive instrument that measured body
polarity (see Harold Saxton Burr, Blueprint for Immortality: The electric patterns of life; Neville Spearman,
London, 1972). The concept of PR is relevant to all applied fields. PR is a vital phenomenon to successful
treatment. The treatments would be significantly less successful (by 30 to 60%) if we could not correct this
condition. MASSIVE PR is a reversal in most areas of life. MINI-PR is a block which kicks in during treatment
and prevents the treatment from being complete. RECURRING PR is a reversal which returns as soon
as it is corrected. Each of these variations of PR require their own special treatment.
The following has been slightly modified and is taken from
Callahan and Callahan STOP THE
NIGHTMARES OF TRAUMA.
PSYCHOLOGICAL REVERSAL (PR)
“We have met the enemy and he is us.”
Pogo (by Walt Kelly)
Revised 2006
What is Psychological Reversal (PR)? Psychological reversal (PR) is the single most important fundamental
dynamic concept for health, human progress, happiness, and success that one may ever encounter.
PR also blocks an otherwise powerful treatment from working. It is easy to learn how to treat for PR and
to understand it. We also find that it is easy to take it for granted and to lose sight of its dynamic import for
natural healing and for all kinds of various treatments. If it were not for the discovery of the PR, and how
to correct the condition, in 1979, the success rate of TFT would be reduced by as much as 40 to 50%. Many
people today who are quickly cured of intense psychological and other problems would be completely untreatable
if we did not understand and know how to correct the important but seemingly simple phenomenon
of psychological reversal.
Psychological reversal was the first discovery I made among the numerous discoveries that constitute
TFT. Many people think of TFT as a unitary therapy but it consists of many quite separate parts, each one of
which I proved to be effective and significant in helping people. The nine gamut treatments, for example,
are nine separate treatments that I eventually combined into one since they were all treated on what has
become the ubiquitous gamut point. In my first book, Five Minute Phobia Cure, these treatments were all
listed separately and were not joined until later.
I knew and I know there is a terrible penalty for making radical revolutionary discoveries. I have sometimes
thought, if I had quit with PR it would have been easy for conventional therapists to incorporate a
simple procedure that would increase their success rate and I would have avoided a lot of the pain and difficulty
I had to go through. For example, Dr Gary Emery, a prominent clinical psychologist who co-authored
a book on Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy with Professor Aaron Beck, quickly saw and publicly proclaimed
the value of my discovery of PR, calling it “one of the most important discoveries in clinical psychology.”
However, I would have missed the fun of it all and the fun and pleasure of discovery far out weighs the
pain! I was reminded of this recently when I read the recent issue of the very interesting cancer newsletter
(news@cancerdecisions.com) by Ralph Moss, PhD. One of Dr Moss’s mentors was the brilliant Albert
Szent-Gyorgyi who was quoted as saying “It is fine to be one step ahead of everyone else – just don’t be two
steps ahead.” Of course, he did not follow his own advice.
I first discovered PR as a real phenomenon before I found a way to treat it. Not until a number of months
later, after intensive searching and clinical research, did I discover a therapy for correcting PR; as you may see, in my original article on PR I found several ways to correct it. Prior to the discovery of the treatment
for PR, it was clear that PR was an undesirable state; it was also clear that it was associated with chronic
problems and that it carried with it a disposition toward destructive and self-destructive behavior.
Psychological reversal is a state of being which is caused by a simple polarity reversal within a system .
All of us at times can be and are in this state. When we are in a bad, destructive mood, this is almost always
a sign that the PR state predominates.
When a new discovery is made it is a formidable problem to select a name for it that will likely endure
into the unknown future as further discoveries are made. The name “psychological reversal” was first chosen
because the state appeared to reverse the usual motivational state of the person. PR appeared to turn the
person against self-interest and toward self-defeat. I first viewed PR as a reward-punishment system that resulted
in stress if the person wished to do good and no stress if harm or a self-destructive path was followed.
This would be an obvious perversion within a system.
The term PR was first viewed as a metaphor. Years later it was exciting to find and discover that
the term is much more than just a metaphor and actually refers to a concrete literal reversal of polarity.
This was shown through the use of batteries and the hand on the head test – back vs palm. During
the state of PR there is a literal reversal of polarity involved (see the work of Professor Harold Saxton
Burr of Yale) who measured literal polarity in living things with a special voltmeter (Burr, H.S., 1972
Blueprint for immortality: the electric patterns of life, London, Neville Spearman. He points out that every
cell is polarized and that the sperm polarizes the egg.
Once one grasps the fact of a literal reversal, I am sometimes asked, “Since the PR is literally a polarity
block in a particular system, why do you still use the term psychological, why not just reversal?” This is a
sophisticated question but the psychological part is an intrinsic factor when we wish to diagnose and or treat
the PR. Having the person think of the problem is absolutely crucial in both diagnosis and in treatment.
Tuning the problem is, of course, a psychological process and is an essential element in both the diagnosis
(see Causal Diagnosis) and the treatment of the condition.
Types of PR
Specific PR is the most common form and is limited to a specific area or areas of a person’s life. For instance,
a person who has a mental block to learning computers might be reversed only in the area of computers.
This condition will make him appear inadequate in this one domain while in other pursuits he may
be quite accomplished.
Massive PR is a reversal that affects most of a person’s entire life, rather than just one specific area. A
person who is massively reversed needs to be treated for this condition in order for any treatment to work.
Such people are often in a chronic bad mood and exhibit a negative attitude towards life. [I have found that
not all systems are reversed even in what I call a massive pr, just most or many.]
Mini PR occurs when a treatment is partially, but not completely successful. For example, in doing the
trauma treatment, the person’s level of upset goes from a SUD of 9 to a 4, but does not go any lower (without
PR treatment). Several years after discovering how to correct for PR, I identified this partial PR.
Recurring PR is a psychological reversal that tends to return as soon as it is corrected. We have found that
this is most often due to toxins (see ”Cure and Time” chapter).
Behavioral Signs Which Reveal That PR is Present Here are some common signs in everyday life that a
PR is present: Client shows no improvement after a usually effective treatment is administered. PR is corrected
and then dramatic improvement takes place after a repeat of the very same treatment that a moment
prior to the PR correction did absolutely nothing. This is a highly robust predictable observation and will be easily observable if you refrain from correcting PR routinely prior to treatment.
Person reverses the correct order of letters or numbers. This effect is so commonplace that
proofreaders have a special sign to indicate it. Whenever I find this or any other signs of PR in myself, I immediately
correct my pr.
Person reverses directional concepts when in the PR state. For example, he will say “up” when meaning
“down” or “right” when meaning “up” or “left;” “North” when “South” is intended. Interestingly, they will
not say “West” or “East” when they mean “North” but only the opposite, “South.” Actions can be reversed
also when in the PR state; e.g., person puts a cooked turkey in the oven instead of refrigerator that was
intended or vice-versa. I find these reversals, correlated as they are to what I call PR, to be most interesting
from a theoretical standpoint.
Some Examples of Quotations Which Feature Some Aspect of What I Call PR The phenomenon of psychological
reversal can be readily inferred as expressed in the following quotes:
“Did you ever feel that life is an obstacle course and you are the biggest obstacle?”
Jack Paar, Original Tonight Show host
“It’s a pleasure to be here on the Larry Queen show. ”
Jerry Spence, Notable defense attorney, Guest host on the Larry King show
For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do...s
I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me.
For I delight in the law of God after the inward man:
But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.
Saint Paul, Romans 7:18; 20; 22; 23
An Incident of a Child’s PR A beautiful young 4-year-old girl whom we shall call Judy had
spent a long day with her parents riding on a boat, mixing and playing with a number of older relatives. Unexplainably,
she suddenly began crying intensely kicking and screaming. Surprisingly, nothing seemed to be
able to relieve Judy’s apparent agony, not to mention the agony of everyone in her presence.
Her mother reported that Judy had been screaming and carrying on for almost a straight hour, for no
known reason. Mother looked over at me and asked, “Is there anything I can do?” I suggested that she do
the simple PR treatment. With nothing to lose, her mother gently tapped the side of her hand.treatment and
Judy suddenly became transformed. She abruptly stopped crying and began observing her surroundings and
interacting with the dozen or so people present in the large summer cottage living room.
PR as a Block to Healing:The following is typical of the kinds of stories we hear all the time. I received
a letter from Dr. John T. Hughes of Ashland Kentucky, a chiropractor and member of the International College
of Applied Kinesiology. Dr. Hughes stated that in the 1980s, he was teaching a class of doctors and
wanted to show them the phenomenon of PR that he learned from an article I had written (Callahan, 1981b).
He used the TFT diagnostic procedure for PR with a volunteer, a wife of one of the doctors.
The diagnostic test for massive reversal showed that she had no reversal (see Callahan Techniques® Causal
Diagnosis Home Study Course). Her husband, who had heard of my notion of pr, asked Dr. Hughes to ask
her specifically about her jaw. Dr Hughes then checked for specific reversal on her jaw by having her say:
“I want my jaw to be healthy.” She then showed that she had a specific reversal that was mainly responsible
for preventing an infection, as described below, from healing.
She had had a root canal performed on one of her teeth and developed a hole in her lower right jaw. This
had continued to produce an exudate of pus for about a year and a half. She consulted another dentist but
the condition continued for they did not know why she didn’t heal. Dr. Hughes then used my simple procedure
for correcting reversal.
The treatment for PR occurred on a weekend and Dr. Hughes saw the doctor and his wife the following
Thursday at a meeting. The doctor said, “I want to tell you what happened to my wife after you corrected
her . That very evening the hole in her jaw really started to run and produce more exudate than ever
before. Then it just stopped. They had the dentist examine the area and he said all the tissue appeared
clear and healthy.”
Dr. Hughes saw the couple a few months later and she said, “Do you want to see my scar?” The jaw was
totally healed. This story fits many experiences of many doctors. A PR can prevent normal healing and the
simple correction can often bring about dramatic changes.
A Recent Experience I(RC) was flying home from the East Coast and I fell asleep with my right arm in
a peculiar position. I awakened and the fingers in my right hand were all cramped. Rubbing the hand and
arm and waiting for a time did nothing for this recalcitrant cramp. I tapped the PR point on the side of the
hand, and immediately the fingers all relaxed and went to normal.
Fractures: It is well known among those who work in the field of orthopedics that a person may
break a leg and have it set, but in a small number of cases the fracture will not heal. This is quite serious
for the unhealed leg may need to be surgically removed. Interestingly, experienced orthopedic surgeons will
sometimes put a battery or a magnet on the site of the fracture and in some cases; this will result in healing.
When this works it would seem that the battery or magnet does something that corrects the literal polarity
reversal in the healing system associated with the fractured leg (see Robert O. Becker; and Basset, Pawluk,
and Pila; and also Nordenstrom).
My theory is that a psychological reversal is responsible for the lack of healing just as in the case of the
jaw, and of course this is an easily testable notion. The PR treatment takes but seconds as you will see, and
it would be easy to check out the theory on this. If the leg still does not begin healing immediately then we
suggest that a diagnostically trained TFT therapist be brought in to investigate why the PR was not correctable,
which is a rare event but has a known cause for one properly trained in TFT. Often, in such cases, a
knowledgeable TFT therapist can find the precise reason for the difficulty and once found the PR is usually
corrected.
Incident: A young man recovering from a severe case of paranoia for which he had been hospitalized is a
member of a therapy group. His example is instructive because whenever he was psychologically reversed,
it was obvious to all present from the expression on his face—this is not true of most people. When it is
obvious, it is like neon sign reading—“I am psychologically reversed!” Members of the group would immediately
urge him to correct his pr. The moment he did this, his face changed dramatically.
Evidence For PR In addition to the observations noted above, there are a number of different types of
evidence supporting the concept of psychological reversal.
Dr. Robert Blaich is a leading Applied Kinesiologist (AK) practitioner. Applied Kinesiology is a method
of diagnosis for chiropractic problems, which involves testing various muscles. AK was discovered and
developed by Dr. George Goodheart, a genius chiropractor from Detroit. Dr. Blaich and his colleague, Dr.
David Walther, jointly taught the 100 hour course in AK that I attended. I had discovered PR prior to taking
the course. Drs Blaich and Walther were the first health care professionals to see the value of my discovery
of psychological reversal.
In his superb presentation of Applied Kinesiology, Walther (1988) states:
“Most practicing physicians can recognize psychologically reversed individuals in their practices. These
are often the individuals who respond poorly to treatment: when there is some improvement in a condition,
they will dwell on the negative aspects. Even when the improvement is pointed out, they will immediately
change the subject back to the negative aspects.”
Dr. Blaich, also an outstanding chiropractor, specializes in high level human performances and works with
a number of elite world class athletes. He told me he found the PR correction to be invaluable in helping
these athletes to break their own and other records.
Dr. Blaich (1988) did a most interesting research project wherein he attempted to improve the reading
speed and comprehension of a group of professionals. The study used various treatment methods that might
aid people, who were already high achievers, to improve their performances even more. He measured and
demonstrated performance by using reading and comprehension skills. He found that the treatment for PR
(which was by far, the most rapid and simple of the various treatments used) was the most effective of all
the therapy methods used. Some required very high professional skills in order to carry the complex procedure.
He states:
“Reading #4, which provided a 45% improvement over reading #3 and a 119% improvement over reading
#1, followed the treatment for Psychological Reversal and exhibited the greatest single change in reading
rate of any of the steps done. Dr. Callahan’s procedure seems to have a very significant impact on human
performance as evaluated here” (p12, my emphasis).
[The PR treatment as now used , takes less than five seconds; and although other treatments were used,
the PR treatment was the only TFT treatment used in this study.
PR and Cancer
Soon after I discovered psychological reversal I observed something interesting.
My clients came to me because they had various psychological problems. During the period of
1981-83, I saw 8 clients who also happened to have cancer. I noticed that each of these clients showed
massive PR. I thought this was an interesting finding but did not make much of it since the number of
individuals was so small.
Around this time I gave a training on my procedures to some interested psychologists. One of these psychologists,
Dr. Lee Shulman, specialized in working with cancer patients. When I reported my finding about
cancer and psychological reversal he decided to check out my finding with his larger group of cancer clients.
He was seeing more than 35 cancer patients at the time. Upon checking them for PR he reported that every one of these clients also showed the presence of pr. Over a longer period of time, Dr. Shulman reported that he continued to find this relationship between cancer and PR.
What does this mean? I am no expert in cancer and I know that there are numerous people who show PR
who do not have cancer. Nevertheless, this seemed a rather curious finding. No other diagnostic category
stood out so emphatically as far as the presence of psychological reversal is concerned.
A few cancer clients appeared to surprisingly recover from their cancer but there was no way to know if
any part of their recovery was helped by our treatments or not. It would make some sense if the treatments,
including the treatments for PR, did help eliminate their cancer but there is insufficient evidence at this time.
Professor Harold Saxton Burr A few years ago, I was able to track down a book I had been searching for
by Harold Saxton Burr. Professor Burr was a biologist at Yale University in the 1940’s and did some very
interesting work with a sensitive voltmeter. He demonstrated that all living things, even leaves, showed that
they possessed a polarity on this meter (Burr).
In the Appendix of Burr’s book, is a most interesting report of the findings of Louis Langman, MD, who
had been a student of Dr. Burr. Dr. Louis Langman was a professor of gynecology at New York University
and carried out a most remarkable study. He hypothesized that cancer is fundamentally an alteration
of field forces in the body. To check this idea he examined cellular diagnosed cases of cancer under blind
conditions; that is, the pathologist and Dr. Langman did not know who was who. He compared these cases
(in measurements of body polarity by Burr’s method, i.e., with a voltmeter) to normal individuals. [The
measurement of polarity was done with a sensitive voltmeter placing the electrodes on different parts of the
body.]
The startling results were (briefly) as follows:
Those with no malignant condition
Positive polarity 74
Negative polarity 4
95% of the normal group showed the measured polarity to be positive.
Those with malignancy
Positive polarity 5
Negative polarity 118
96% of this group showed polarity to be negative.
The cancer group has a striking preponderance of women showing a reversal of normal polarity. This
appears to correlate dramatically with what I found and was later found by Dr. Shulman with what I call
psychological reversal which is a reversal of polarity measured with a muscle test.
Dr. Langman then studied an additional 737 patients who had a benign gynecological condition. He found
that in this group 611 showed a positive polarity and 126 were negative; i.e., 83% positive and 17% negative.
A further strong confirmation of Langman’s relationship between polarity and cancer received very strong
support from the fact that when cancerous tumors were surgically removed the polarity changed from negative
to positive (Langman, in Burr 1972, p144)
Statistical tests of significance are obviously not needed with differences as great as these.
Which comes first, cancer or PR? Langman believes cancer is caused by an alteration of field forces in
the body. If future evidence supports this then it seems that PR, or the polarity reversal is primary in some
important respect. We typically find that most chronic conditions, physical or psychological, have a PR associated
with them. We know that most people who have a PR, we all do at times, do not have cancer but
nevertheless the findings are strongly suggestive. More than this cannot be said with great confidence at this
time. If any published researcher with access to cancer patients would like to investigate this I would be
happy to contribute my understandings and experience to the research.
Since we find that psychological problems cannot be successfully treated when there is a PR, (the perturbations,
p’s simply will not show) perhaps something similar exists with at least some cases of cancer. If
there is a PR then healing may be unable to take place. This may make the cancer more strongly established
in the system insulated from the ordinary healing sytem.
Control System and Direction Burr (1972, p58) points out that “In the growth and development of every
living system there is obviously some kind of control of the processes.” He elaborates that control requires
direction and points out that one of the few things in the universe, which possesses direction, is the electrical
property of things. He elaborates that even atypical growth (e.g., cancer) requires direction.
Burr (1972, p 58) elaborates that life requires energy but energy has no direction. What I call the PR and
what Burr called the reversals of polarity appear to make sense from the standpoint of control forces operating
within life.
Sleep, Anesthesia, and PR
Robert O. Becker reports a very interesting finding and that is
living creatures show a polarity reversal when they sleep and also when they are under anesthesia. I know
from long experience with PR that a condition cannot heal if there is a PR present. Sleep and anesthesia
represent two different degrees of lack of general awareness. It has been shown that some people show
evidence of awareness even under anesthesia; this has been known for many years and has prompted those
in the operating room to be careful of what they say in the presence of an anesthetized patient.
On this basis, I would predict that patients in a coma would also show a general PR but this has not been
tested as far as I know.
It is interesting that the PR is an electrical, and, more precisely, a polarity phenomenon. Many systems in
the body take advantage of polarities in order to operate effectively. If the proper polarity is incorrect then
there is a blockage of flow (just like two north poles on a magnet repel each other, instead of attraction there is repulsion. When such is the case in a healing system then we run into potentially serious problems. But
remember many of the serious problems are quite correctable with the simple correction of the PR that will
then allow healing to properly begin.
The anesthesiologist, Stuart Hameroff, of Arizona State University, who along with the mathematical
physicist Roger Penrose are major contributors to theories of understanding consciousness. Hameroff has
pointed out the interesting fact that the gases used in anesthesia’s are not from a common chemical category
but rather seem similar in their electric effects on the system.
I find it especially relevant in this context that recent discoveries of the process of inebriation show that it
is not the chemical effect of alcohol which results in drunkeness –the chemical effect is relevant, however,
in understanding cell damage – but rather it is the electric effect of alcohol on the brain cells which causes
drunkenness.
Alcohol’s Electric Effects No one has understood how intoxication takes place. It is known that ethanol
does not appear to affect brain cells until the concentration is deadly and begins to destroy cells. It has been
found that the body begins breaking ethanol down into fatty acid ethyl esters, these changes, it is reported,
results in changes in calcium which in turn affects the electric activity of the cells.
This landmark finding is reported in a Science News article which states that “In the Dec 20, 1996, J of
Biological Chemistry, Richard Gross and Rose A. Gubatosi-Klug, of Washington University, School of
Medicine, Gross says: Our report is the first to show ... these profound changes in the electrical functions of
a [brain cell] at concentrations of alcohol which are present after people drink,”
For many years I have observed that it is difficult or impossible to treat someone who is inebriated. In
the light of these recent reports, it seems that not only is such a person not in very high state of awareness,
but it now seems that the electric effects of alcohol may render them somewhat “asleep” and the PR may be
mainly responsible for the lack of responsiveness to treatments.
Taking a cue from this, I (RJC) have speculated that any system in a state of psychological reversal may
be considered non-functional or even “dead.” When I told this view to Joanne, my wife and co-author, she
said, “No, it is more like the system is in a coma.” I believe that this is a more precise expression of the
condition.
The important news about the PR correction is that it will revive the system to proper functioning so that
healing may begin.
Dr Werner Loewenstein, Director of the Laboratory of Cell Communication at the Marine Biological
laboratory, Woods Hole, Mass has recently published some very important findings on the communication
of cells. [The maintenance of life requires enormous constant communication within the living body.] All of
Loewenstein’s work is interesting and I recommend this work highly to scholars in this area, but one of his
findings appears to cohere with my discovery of the effects of PR, which I found years ago.
Loewenstein says (p, 194-195):
“Let us check briefly on the performance of [these units of information reception and transmission]
to see how well they measure up to that promise. First, their directionality. To get a message through a
communication channel, the information flowing through it must have a direction (see Burr above). In of our technology, the direction is given by irreversible (one way) transmission stations. This is also true for the intercellular channels, though there may be an occasional reversible demon too along the
line. But it’s the irreversible ones who bring home the bacon – they are the ones who get the message
through” (my emphasis).
[James Clerk Maxwell proposed the demon as an entity, which (in imagination) might overturn the most
sanctified law of modern science, The Second Law of Thermodynamics. The demon was proposed as a
device to help Maxwell understand the Second Law (Von Baeyer author of Maxwell’s Demon). Maxwell,
in the 1860’s) is the famous scientist who created the theory of electromagnetism and Maxwell’s equations,
among other things.
I am suggest that PR may well be another meaningful name for a significant collection of “reversible
demons.” When the PR is corrected , with my simple treatment, we then are in a position to witness the
reversal being corrected and “the bacon being brought home.” Or, in other words, the healing system can
now deliver the information required to heal a particular system.
Please do not allow the simplicity and ease of the PR correction mislead you to underrate its relevance and
importance in all kinds of healing. Correcting PR can add to the success of any treatment that is generally
successful.
Evidence for the state of PR is revealed when an otherwise effective treatment does nothing - then after
the PR is corrected the same treatment, which did nothing the moment before, suddenly works. A person
may be fine in most domains of his life and be PR in just one or a selected few. The PR state is usually accompanied
by negative attitudes and self-sabotaging behavior. A most interesting symptom of PR is that
concepts are reversed 180 degrees; e.g., a person will say South when they mean North, but will not say East
or West when they mean North. The implication of this reversal of concepts is quite profound and is in need
of investigation. It seems to relate to a fundamental aspect of direction (chirality, polarized light, etc.) in
elemental reality. A similar and related symptom of PR is getting numbers or letters out of order; a special
proof reader’s mark exists for this type of error which illustrates how common it is. The upside down and
backward writing of dyslexia is due to the PR. PR in most of us is a temporary condition and when we are
PR and reverse concepts, letters and numbers, PR may be viewed as a kind of temporary “dyslexia”. Interestingly,
a form of speed is sometimes given to hyperactive youngsters to slow them down. The paradoxical
effect may be due to this reversal phenomenon. A research study (Blaich) showed that of a number of rather
complicated and specialized treatments designed to improve human performance; the rapid (10 seconds)
and simple treatment for PR was by far the most effective in improving performance in reading speed and
comprehension. We find the presence of PR on treatment effect to be quite lawful and predictable. We have
found a high correlation between presence of cancer and PR. In a highly significant study done at New York
University back in the 1940’s it was found that cancer patients had an overwhelming disposition to show a
literal polarity reversal (as compared to normals) as measured by a sensitive instrument that measured body
polarity (see Harold Saxton Burr, Blueprint for Immortality: The electric patterns of life; Neville Spearman,
London, 1972). The concept of PR is relevant to all applied fields. PR is a vital phenomenon to successful
treatment. The treatments would be significantly less successful (by 30 to 60%) if we could not correct this
condition. MASSIVE PR is a reversal in most areas of life. MINI-PR is a block which kicks in during treatment
and prevents the treatment from being complete. RECURRING PR is a reversal which returns as soon
as it is corrected. Each of these variations of PR require their own special treatment.
The following has been slightly modified and is taken from
Callahan and Callahan STOP THE
NIGHTMARES OF TRAUMA.
PSYCHOLOGICAL REVERSAL (PR)
“We have met the enemy and he is us.”
Pogo (by Walt Kelly)
Revised 2006
What is Psychological Reversal (PR)? Psychological reversal (PR) is the single most important fundamental
dynamic concept for health, human progress, happiness, and success that one may ever encounter.
PR also blocks an otherwise powerful treatment from working. It is easy to learn how to treat for PR and
to understand it. We also find that it is easy to take it for granted and to lose sight of its dynamic import for
natural healing and for all kinds of various treatments. If it were not for the discovery of the PR, and how
to correct the condition, in 1979, the success rate of TFT would be reduced by as much as 40 to 50%. Many
people today who are quickly cured of intense psychological and other problems would be completely untreatable
if we did not understand and know how to correct the important but seemingly simple phenomenon
of psychological reversal.
Psychological reversal was the first discovery I made among the numerous discoveries that constitute
TFT. Many people think of TFT as a unitary therapy but it consists of many quite separate parts, each one of
which I proved to be effective and significant in helping people. The nine gamut treatments, for example,
are nine separate treatments that I eventually combined into one since they were all treated on what has
become the ubiquitous gamut point. In my first book, Five Minute Phobia Cure, these treatments were all
listed separately and were not joined until later.
I knew and I know there is a terrible penalty for making radical revolutionary discoveries. I have sometimes
thought, if I had quit with PR it would have been easy for conventional therapists to incorporate a
simple procedure that would increase their success rate and I would have avoided a lot of the pain and difficulty
I had to go through. For example, Dr Gary Emery, a prominent clinical psychologist who co-authored
a book on Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy with Professor Aaron Beck, quickly saw and publicly proclaimed
the value of my discovery of PR, calling it “one of the most important discoveries in clinical psychology.”
However, I would have missed the fun of it all and the fun and pleasure of discovery far out weighs the
pain! I was reminded of this recently when I read the recent issue of the very interesting cancer newsletter
(news@cancerdecisions.com) by Ralph Moss, PhD. One of Dr Moss’s mentors was the brilliant Albert
Szent-Gyorgyi who was quoted as saying “It is fine to be one step ahead of everyone else – just don’t be two
steps ahead.” Of course, he did not follow his own advice.
I first discovered PR as a real phenomenon before I found a way to treat it. Not until a number of months
later, after intensive searching and clinical research, did I discover a therapy for correcting PR; as you may see, in my original article on PR I found several ways to correct it. Prior to the discovery of the treatment
for PR, it was clear that PR was an undesirable state; it was also clear that it was associated with chronic
problems and that it carried with it a disposition toward destructive and self-destructive behavior.
Psychological reversal is a state of being which is caused by a simple polarity reversal within a system .
All of us at times can be and are in this state. When we are in a bad, destructive mood, this is almost always
a sign that the PR state predominates.
When a new discovery is made it is a formidable problem to select a name for it that will likely endure
into the unknown future as further discoveries are made. The name “psychological reversal” was first chosen
because the state appeared to reverse the usual motivational state of the person. PR appeared to turn the
person against self-interest and toward self-defeat. I first viewed PR as a reward-punishment system that resulted
in stress if the person wished to do good and no stress if harm or a self-destructive path was followed.
This would be an obvious perversion within a system.
The term PR was first viewed as a metaphor. Years later it was exciting to find and discover that
the term is much more than just a metaphor and actually refers to a concrete literal reversal of polarity.
This was shown through the use of batteries and the hand on the head test – back vs palm. During
the state of PR there is a literal reversal of polarity involved (see the work of Professor Harold Saxton
Burr of Yale) who measured literal polarity in living things with a special voltmeter (Burr, H.S., 1972
Blueprint for immortality: the electric patterns of life, London, Neville Spearman. He points out that every
cell is polarized and that the sperm polarizes the egg.
Once one grasps the fact of a literal reversal, I am sometimes asked, “Since the PR is literally a polarity
block in a particular system, why do you still use the term psychological, why not just reversal?” This is a
sophisticated question but the psychological part is an intrinsic factor when we wish to diagnose and or treat
the PR. Having the person think of the problem is absolutely crucial in both diagnosis and in treatment.
Tuning the problem is, of course, a psychological process and is an essential element in both the diagnosis
(see Causal Diagnosis) and the treatment of the condition.
Types of PR
Specific PR is the most common form and is limited to a specific area or areas of a person’s life. For instance,
a person who has a mental block to learning computers might be reversed only in the area of computers.
This condition will make him appear inadequate in this one domain while in other pursuits he may
be quite accomplished.
Massive PR is a reversal that affects most of a person’s entire life, rather than just one specific area. A
person who is massively reversed needs to be treated for this condition in order for any treatment to work.
Such people are often in a chronic bad mood and exhibit a negative attitude towards life. [I have found that
not all systems are reversed even in what I call a massive pr, just most or many.]
Mini PR occurs when a treatment is partially, but not completely successful. For example, in doing the
trauma treatment, the person’s level of upset goes from a SUD of 9 to a 4, but does not go any lower (without
PR treatment). Several years after discovering how to correct for PR, I identified this partial PR.
Recurring PR is a psychological reversal that tends to return as soon as it is corrected. We have found that
this is most often due to toxins (see ”Cure and Time” chapter).
Behavioral Signs Which Reveal That PR is Present Here are some common signs in everyday life that a
PR is present: Client shows no improvement after a usually effective treatment is administered. PR is corrected
and then dramatic improvement takes place after a repeat of the very same treatment that a moment
prior to the PR correction did absolutely nothing. This is a highly robust predictable observation and will be easily observable if you refrain from correcting PR routinely prior to treatment.
Person reverses the correct order of letters or numbers. This effect is so commonplace that
proofreaders have a special sign to indicate it. Whenever I find this or any other signs of PR in myself, I immediately
correct my pr.
Person reverses directional concepts when in the PR state. For example, he will say “up” when meaning
“down” or “right” when meaning “up” or “left;” “North” when “South” is intended. Interestingly, they will
not say “West” or “East” when they mean “North” but only the opposite, “South.” Actions can be reversed
also when in the PR state; e.g., person puts a cooked turkey in the oven instead of refrigerator that was
intended or vice-versa. I find these reversals, correlated as they are to what I call PR, to be most interesting
from a theoretical standpoint.
Some Examples of Quotations Which Feature Some Aspect of What I Call PR The phenomenon of psychological
reversal can be readily inferred as expressed in the following quotes:
“Did you ever feel that life is an obstacle course and you are the biggest obstacle?”
Jack Paar, Original Tonight Show host
“It’s a pleasure to be here on the Larry Queen show. ”
Jerry Spence, Notable defense attorney, Guest host on the Larry King show
For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do...s
I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me.
For I delight in the law of God after the inward man:
But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.
Saint Paul, Romans 7:18; 20; 22; 23
An Incident of a Child’s PR A beautiful young 4-year-old girl whom we shall call Judy had
spent a long day with her parents riding on a boat, mixing and playing with a number of older relatives. Unexplainably,
she suddenly began crying intensely kicking and screaming. Surprisingly, nothing seemed to be
able to relieve Judy’s apparent agony, not to mention the agony of everyone in her presence.
Her mother reported that Judy had been screaming and carrying on for almost a straight hour, for no
known reason. Mother looked over at me and asked, “Is there anything I can do?” I suggested that she do
the simple PR treatment. With nothing to lose, her mother gently tapped the side of her hand.treatment and
Judy suddenly became transformed. She abruptly stopped crying and began observing her surroundings and
interacting with the dozen or so people present in the large summer cottage living room.
PR as a Block to Healing:The following is typical of the kinds of stories we hear all the time. I received
a letter from Dr. John T. Hughes of Ashland Kentucky, a chiropractor and member of the International College
of Applied Kinesiology. Dr. Hughes stated that in the 1980s, he was teaching a class of doctors and
wanted to show them the phenomenon of PR that he learned from an article I had written (Callahan, 1981b).
He used the TFT diagnostic procedure for PR with a volunteer, a wife of one of the doctors.
The diagnostic test for massive reversal showed that she had no reversal (see Callahan Techniques® Causal
Diagnosis Home Study Course). Her husband, who had heard of my notion of pr, asked Dr. Hughes to ask
her specifically about her jaw. Dr Hughes then checked for specific reversal on her jaw by having her say:
“I want my jaw to be healthy.” She then showed that she had a specific reversal that was mainly responsible
for preventing an infection, as described below, from healing.
She had had a root canal performed on one of her teeth and developed a hole in her lower right jaw. This
had continued to produce an exudate of pus for about a year and a half. She consulted another dentist but
the condition continued for they did not know why she didn’t heal. Dr. Hughes then used my simple procedure
for correcting reversal.
The treatment for PR occurred on a weekend and Dr. Hughes saw the doctor and his wife the following
Thursday at a meeting. The doctor said, “I want to tell you what happened to my wife after you corrected
her . That very evening the hole in her jaw really started to run and produce more exudate than ever
before. Then it just stopped. They had the dentist examine the area and he said all the tissue appeared
clear and healthy.”
Dr. Hughes saw the couple a few months later and she said, “Do you want to see my scar?” The jaw was
totally healed. This story fits many experiences of many doctors. A PR can prevent normal healing and the
simple correction can often bring about dramatic changes.
A Recent Experience I(RC) was flying home from the East Coast and I fell asleep with my right arm in
a peculiar position. I awakened and the fingers in my right hand were all cramped. Rubbing the hand and
arm and waiting for a time did nothing for this recalcitrant cramp. I tapped the PR point on the side of the
hand, and immediately the fingers all relaxed and went to normal.
Fractures: It is well known among those who work in the field of orthopedics that a person may
break a leg and have it set, but in a small number of cases the fracture will not heal. This is quite serious
for the unhealed leg may need to be surgically removed. Interestingly, experienced orthopedic surgeons will
sometimes put a battery or a magnet on the site of the fracture and in some cases; this will result in healing.
When this works it would seem that the battery or magnet does something that corrects the literal polarity
reversal in the healing system associated with the fractured leg (see Robert O. Becker; and Basset, Pawluk,
and Pila; and also Nordenstrom).
My theory is that a psychological reversal is responsible for the lack of healing just as in the case of the
jaw, and of course this is an easily testable notion. The PR treatment takes but seconds as you will see, and
it would be easy to check out the theory on this. If the leg still does not begin healing immediately then we
suggest that a diagnostically trained TFT therapist be brought in to investigate why the PR was not correctable,
which is a rare event but has a known cause for one properly trained in TFT. Often, in such cases, a
knowledgeable TFT therapist can find the precise reason for the difficulty and once found the PR is usually
corrected.
Incident: A young man recovering from a severe case of paranoia for which he had been hospitalized is a
member of a therapy group. His example is instructive because whenever he was psychologically reversed,
it was obvious to all present from the expression on his face—this is not true of most people. When it is
obvious, it is like neon sign reading—“I am psychologically reversed!” Members of the group would immediately
urge him to correct his pr. The moment he did this, his face changed dramatically.
Evidence For PR In addition to the observations noted above, there are a number of different types of
evidence supporting the concept of psychological reversal.
Dr. Robert Blaich is a leading Applied Kinesiologist (AK) practitioner. Applied Kinesiology is a method
of diagnosis for chiropractic problems, which involves testing various muscles. AK was discovered and
developed by Dr. George Goodheart, a genius chiropractor from Detroit. Dr. Blaich and his colleague, Dr.
David Walther, jointly taught the 100 hour course in AK that I attended. I had discovered PR prior to taking
the course. Drs Blaich and Walther were the first health care professionals to see the value of my discovery
of psychological reversal.
In his superb presentation of Applied Kinesiology, Walther (1988) states:
“Most practicing physicians can recognize psychologically reversed individuals in their practices. These
are often the individuals who respond poorly to treatment: when there is some improvement in a condition,
they will dwell on the negative aspects. Even when the improvement is pointed out, they will immediately
change the subject back to the negative aspects.”
Dr. Blaich, also an outstanding chiropractor, specializes in high level human performances and works with
a number of elite world class athletes. He told me he found the PR correction to be invaluable in helping
these athletes to break their own and other records.
Dr. Blaich (1988) did a most interesting research project wherein he attempted to improve the reading
speed and comprehension of a group of professionals. The study used various treatment methods that might
aid people, who were already high achievers, to improve their performances even more. He measured and
demonstrated performance by using reading and comprehension skills. He found that the treatment for PR
(which was by far, the most rapid and simple of the various treatments used) was the most effective of all
the therapy methods used. Some required very high professional skills in order to carry the complex procedure.
He states:
“Reading #4, which provided a 45% improvement over reading #3 and a 119% improvement over reading
#1, followed the treatment for Psychological Reversal and exhibited the greatest single change in reading
rate of any of the steps done. Dr. Callahan’s procedure seems to have a very significant impact on human
performance as evaluated here” (p12, my emphasis).
[The PR treatment as now used , takes less than five seconds; and although other treatments were used,
the PR treatment was the only TFT treatment used in this study.
PR and Cancer
Soon after I discovered psychological reversal I observed something interesting.
My clients came to me because they had various psychological problems. During the period of
1981-83, I saw 8 clients who also happened to have cancer. I noticed that each of these clients showed
massive PR. I thought this was an interesting finding but did not make much of it since the number of
individuals was so small.
Around this time I gave a training on my procedures to some interested psychologists. One of these psychologists,
Dr. Lee Shulman, specialized in working with cancer patients. When I reported my finding about
cancer and psychological reversal he decided to check out my finding with his larger group of cancer clients.
He was seeing more than 35 cancer patients at the time. Upon checking them for PR he reported that every one of these clients also showed the presence of pr. Over a longer period of time, Dr. Shulman reported that he continued to find this relationship between cancer and PR.
What does this mean? I am no expert in cancer and I know that there are numerous people who show PR
who do not have cancer. Nevertheless, this seemed a rather curious finding. No other diagnostic category
stood out so emphatically as far as the presence of psychological reversal is concerned.
A few cancer clients appeared to surprisingly recover from their cancer but there was no way to know if
any part of their recovery was helped by our treatments or not. It would make some sense if the treatments,
including the treatments for PR, did help eliminate their cancer but there is insufficient evidence at this time.
Professor Harold Saxton Burr A few years ago, I was able to track down a book I had been searching for
by Harold Saxton Burr. Professor Burr was a biologist at Yale University in the 1940’s and did some very
interesting work with a sensitive voltmeter. He demonstrated that all living things, even leaves, showed that
they possessed a polarity on this meter (Burr).
In the Appendix of Burr’s book, is a most interesting report of the findings of Louis Langman, MD, who
had been a student of Dr. Burr. Dr. Louis Langman was a professor of gynecology at New York University
and carried out a most remarkable study. He hypothesized that cancer is fundamentally an alteration
of field forces in the body. To check this idea he examined cellular diagnosed cases of cancer under blind
conditions; that is, the pathologist and Dr. Langman did not know who was who. He compared these cases
(in measurements of body polarity by Burr’s method, i.e., with a voltmeter) to normal individuals. [The
measurement of polarity was done with a sensitive voltmeter placing the electrodes on different parts of the
body.]
The startling results were (briefly) as follows:
Those with no malignant condition
Positive polarity 74
Negative polarity 4
95% of the normal group showed the measured polarity to be positive.
Those with malignancy
Positive polarity 5
Negative polarity 118
96% of this group showed polarity to be negative.
The cancer group has a striking preponderance of women showing a reversal of normal polarity. This
appears to correlate dramatically with what I found and was later found by Dr. Shulman with what I call
psychological reversal which is a reversal of polarity measured with a muscle test.
Dr. Langman then studied an additional 737 patients who had a benign gynecological condition. He found
that in this group 611 showed a positive polarity and 126 were negative; i.e., 83% positive and 17% negative.
A further strong confirmation of Langman’s relationship between polarity and cancer received very strong
support from the fact that when cancerous tumors were surgically removed the polarity changed from negative
to positive (Langman, in Burr 1972, p144)
Statistical tests of significance are obviously not needed with differences as great as these.
Which comes first, cancer or PR? Langman believes cancer is caused by an alteration of field forces in
the body. If future evidence supports this then it seems that PR, or the polarity reversal is primary in some
important respect. We typically find that most chronic conditions, physical or psychological, have a PR associated
with them. We know that most people who have a PR, we all do at times, do not have cancer but
nevertheless the findings are strongly suggestive. More than this cannot be said with great confidence at this
time. If any published researcher with access to cancer patients would like to investigate this I would be
happy to contribute my understandings and experience to the research.
Since we find that psychological problems cannot be successfully treated when there is a PR, (the perturbations,
p’s simply will not show) perhaps something similar exists with at least some cases of cancer. If
there is a PR then healing may be unable to take place. This may make the cancer more strongly established
in the system insulated from the ordinary healing sytem.
Control System and Direction Burr (1972, p58) points out that “In the growth and development of every
living system there is obviously some kind of control of the processes.” He elaborates that control requires
direction and points out that one of the few things in the universe, which possesses direction, is the electrical
property of things. He elaborates that even atypical growth (e.g., cancer) requires direction.
Burr (1972, p 58) elaborates that life requires energy but energy has no direction. What I call the PR and
what Burr called the reversals of polarity appear to make sense from the standpoint of control forces operating
within life.
Sleep, Anesthesia, and PR
Robert O. Becker reports a very interesting finding and that is
living creatures show a polarity reversal when they sleep and also when they are under anesthesia. I know
from long experience with PR that a condition cannot heal if there is a PR present. Sleep and anesthesia
represent two different degrees of lack of general awareness. It has been shown that some people show
evidence of awareness even under anesthesia; this has been known for many years and has prompted those
in the operating room to be careful of what they say in the presence of an anesthetized patient.
On this basis, I would predict that patients in a coma would also show a general PR but this has not been
tested as far as I know.
It is interesting that the PR is an electrical, and, more precisely, a polarity phenomenon. Many systems in
the body take advantage of polarities in order to operate effectively. If the proper polarity is incorrect then
there is a blockage of flow (just like two north poles on a magnet repel each other, instead of attraction there is repulsion. When such is the case in a healing system then we run into potentially serious problems. But
remember many of the serious problems are quite correctable with the simple correction of the PR that will
then allow healing to properly begin.
The anesthesiologist, Stuart Hameroff, of Arizona State University, who along with the mathematical
physicist Roger Penrose are major contributors to theories of understanding consciousness. Hameroff has
pointed out the interesting fact that the gases used in anesthesia’s are not from a common chemical category
but rather seem similar in their electric effects on the system.
I find it especially relevant in this context that recent discoveries of the process of inebriation show that it
is not the chemical effect of alcohol which results in drunkeness –the chemical effect is relevant, however,
in understanding cell damage – but rather it is the electric effect of alcohol on the brain cells which causes
drunkenness.
Alcohol’s Electric Effects No one has understood how intoxication takes place. It is known that ethanol
does not appear to affect brain cells until the concentration is deadly and begins to destroy cells. It has been
found that the body begins breaking ethanol down into fatty acid ethyl esters, these changes, it is reported,
results in changes in calcium which in turn affects the electric activity of the cells.
This landmark finding is reported in a Science News article which states that “In the Dec 20, 1996, J of
Biological Chemistry, Richard Gross and Rose A. Gubatosi-Klug, of Washington University, School of
Medicine, Gross says: Our report is the first to show ... these profound changes in the electrical functions of
a [brain cell] at concentrations of alcohol which are present after people drink,”
For many years I have observed that it is difficult or impossible to treat someone who is inebriated. In
the light of these recent reports, it seems that not only is such a person not in very high state of awareness,
but it now seems that the electric effects of alcohol may render them somewhat “asleep” and the PR may be
mainly responsible for the lack of responsiveness to treatments.
Taking a cue from this, I (RJC) have speculated that any system in a state of psychological reversal may
be considered non-functional or even “dead.” When I told this view to Joanne, my wife and co-author, she
said, “No, it is more like the system is in a coma.” I believe that this is a more precise expression of the
condition.
The important news about the PR correction is that it will revive the system to proper functioning so that
healing may begin.
Dr Werner Loewenstein, Director of the Laboratory of Cell Communication at the Marine Biological
laboratory, Woods Hole, Mass has recently published some very important findings on the communication
of cells. [The maintenance of life requires enormous constant communication within the living body.] All of
Loewenstein’s work is interesting and I recommend this work highly to scholars in this area, but one of his
findings appears to cohere with my discovery of the effects of PR, which I found years ago.
Loewenstein says (p, 194-195):
“Let us check briefly on the performance of [these units of information reception and transmission]
to see how well they measure up to that promise. First, their directionality. To get a message through a
communication channel, the information flowing through it must have a direction (see Burr above). In of our technology, the direction is given by irreversible (one way) transmission stations. This is also true for the intercellular channels, though there may be an occasional reversible demon too along the
line. But it’s the irreversible ones who bring home the bacon – they are the ones who get the message
through” (my emphasis).
[James Clerk Maxwell proposed the demon as an entity, which (in imagination) might overturn the most
sanctified law of modern science, The Second Law of Thermodynamics. The demon was proposed as a
device to help Maxwell understand the Second Law (Von Baeyer author of Maxwell’s Demon). Maxwell,
in the 1860’s) is the famous scientist who created the theory of electromagnetism and Maxwell’s equations,
among other things.
I am suggest that PR may well be another meaningful name for a significant collection of “reversible
demons.” When the PR is corrected , with my simple treatment, we then are in a position to witness the
reversal being corrected and “the bacon being brought home.” Or, in other words, the healing system can
now deliver the information required to heal a particular system.
Please do not allow the simplicity and ease of the PR correction mislead you to underrate its relevance and
importance in all kinds of healing. Correcting PR can add to the success of any treatment that is generally
successful.
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