Note: about 3 months after this interviewed was recorded, I (Peta) received news that Phil had passed. He was still seeing clients from his nursing home and positively impacting the lives of those he touched. I was quietly devastated but eternally grateful I was able to have this conversation and record Phil's journey through the decades. 

In this conversation, Dr. Philip Friedman discusses his journey in the field of therapy and the integration of various modalities. He shares his experiences with cognitive behavior therapy, energy psychology, spirituality, and forgiveness. Dr. Friedman emphasizes the importance of curiosity and staying on the cutting edge of therapy techniques. He also discusses the role of self-compassion and the positive changes that can occur during therapy. Additionally, Dr. Friedman introduces the Legacy Scale and the Cognitive Affective Balance Scale as tools for assessing client progress.

Takeaways

• Curiosity and staying on the cutting edge of therapy techniques are important for therapists.
• Self-compassion and forgiveness are key aspects of therapy.
• Positive changes can occur during therapy, leading to a shift in cognitive affective balance.
• Assessment measures, such as the Legacy Scale and the Cognitive Affective Balance Scale, can be valuable tools for tracking client progress.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction and Background

03:20 The Role of Curiosity in Therapy

08:29 The Power of Self-Compassion and Forgiveness

19:51 The Journey of Personal and Professional Growth

25:18 The Legacy Scale and Assessing Client Progress

32:27 The Flash Technique and Cognitive Affective Balance

39:15 The Importance of Journaling and Homework

 

Keywords: therapy, modalities, integration, cognitive behavior therapy, energy psychology, spirituality, forgiveness, curiosity, self-compassion, assessment measures

This is unedited.

0:06 Hello everyone, I'm thrilled to be chatting here on screen with a long time colleague, Doctor Philip Friedman, who is absolutely we were just saying off air has been at the cutting edge of the 4th wave of therapy for decades, many decades by just brief way of introduction and Phillip's details are all below.

0:27 Phillip is a licenced psychologist and director of the Foundation for Well being in Pennsylvania in the US.

0:33 He's the author of the Forgiveness Solution and the Creating Well Being book, as well as the Friedman assessment scales on Well being, and I'm going to actually give you the links for those below.

0:47 Phil's also been an adjunct professor.

0:49 You may currently still be that Sophia University and has been trained and using what we call the 4th wave therapies for many, many decades.

0:59 These include EFT, accelerated resolution to therapy, of course, CBTEMDR, hypnosis and many other things.

1:08 And I am going to have a chat to Philip today about all of this and more.

1:13 So Philip, welcome to the podcast and thank you for your time today.

1:17 Well, sure, thank you, Peta.

1:19 I've been looking forward to it for a while now.

1:21 This is, it's, it's such an exciting place to be in the current time using lots of these techniques and things with clients because we see such positive change.

1:33 But when did the journey start for you?

1:36 Like you, you've been leading many of the field, not only in developing assessment tools in this space, particularly around forgiveness and well being, but when did you start looking for things outside maybe cognitive or talk therapies?

1:53 Well, I came to Philadelphia in 1968 on a postdoctoral fellowship to study with Lazarus and Wolpe, cognitive Behaviour and behaviour therapy.

2:05 Believe it or not, back then they were on the fringe.

2:08 Can you believe it?

2:09
I can't.

2:10
I can't believe that.

2:11
And I hold hope for EFT because, you know, they were fighting the establishment, which at the time was psychodynamic and psychoanalytic therapy.

2:21
So I came here to study with both of them, only to discover that they were feuding intensely.

2:28
They made, I like to say they made Freud and Jung look like they were lovers.

2:33
That's how intense.

2:35
So I got a quick learning that things are not always the way they appear, you know, So, and in fact, after three months, I was forced to choose, Can you believe that, choose between the two of them?

2:49
Now, I, I chose Lazarus because he was much more out on the cutting edge of things at the time, although eventually he drew the line with energy therapy.

3:02
He was not a big fan.

3:03
So there's always, there's always someone further out on the curb.

3:09
Yes, it turns out so.

3:12
And he wasn't a big fan of spiritual aspects of therapy, which I eventually became interested in and certainly influenced my work on forgiveness.

3:23
So it goes back along, you know, really a long time.

3:28
And you were obviously, and you rightly say at the cutting edge.

3:34
And that was the cognitive therapies back then.

3:36
You know, I do know David Byrne wrote in a book that CBT was considered a form of quackery.

3:43
Like back in the early 70s.

3:44
They were like, what's this cognitive behavioural therapy kind of thing, Let alone where we're at these days, you know, in 2024.

3:52
But where was the journey for you from then?

3:55
I guess into energy psychology or even spirituality techniques?

3:59
Cause was it EFT came along first for you or some other?

4:03
No, no, no, that didn't come across first.

4:06
It was 1977 that I got involved in a bunch of spiritual things, A Course in Miracles and City Yoga, and they changed my perspective on things quite a bit and LED to my.

4:23
It really added to my interest in well being and forgiveness.

4:27
And I think indirectly my led to my interest in assessment.

4:33
Strangely enough.

4:34
Doesn't sound like it.

4:36
I mean, I've always been after X number of years studying something, I've always gotten restless for something else.

4:43
Doesn't matter how effective it is, I get restless.

4:47
My curiosity says you need to to move on.

4:51
Well, not, not abandoned what you'd been doing, but explore something new.

4:56
You know, like we've both been exploring accelerated resolution therapy.

5:04
It wasn't that we weren't getting good results with what we were doing.

5:07
It's just if there's a new kid on the block, I want to find out what it has to offer.

5:12
And therefore I didn't.

5:15
That was in 77.

5:17
It wasn't until, I think 77, wasn't really until 95 when I took a seminar with Fred Gallo on tapping.

5:31
Really.

5:32
So that was already, what is that?

5:34
18 years later after my involvement with With Forgiveness, I got really into that.

5:43
Well, I'm still into that.

5:44
So, you know, it's sort of like one thing leads to another, but I always think it is, you know, you're standing on the shoulders of giants, so to speak.

5:55
You know, it's not like I've learned something new and discard just because I've learned ART.

6:00
It's not like I'm going to give up tapping and and energy therapy.

6:05
No way.

6:06
I'm just going to practise that in addition to what I'm doing.

6:10
Yeah.

6:11
And like you and I chatted by email for many years now just about how lots of these modalities can blend together.

6:20
And even though they might distinctly have their own protocol like ART or even EFT, the combination sometimes of those together for a client just adds another option, doesn't it?

6:35
It adds another option to the client, but it also adds another option to me as a therapist because I like to be doing something new every so often.

6:44
So, and who knows how much that's affecting the therapy is my enthusiasm for something new.

6:51
You know, actually I was thinking 1993 is when I developed my first scale and that was the Friedman Well being Scale.

6:59
See, so that that came before, before energy therapy or tapping.

7:05
But you know, I've been able to use that plus all the other subsequent ones to measure and assess change irrespective of what tool or technique I'm using.

7:16
That also gives me idea a good sense of are things working, you know, because by now I'm pretty familiar with the change curve and you can see pretty, you know, within 5 sessions.

7:31
Is this working?

7:34
So all that was developing in the in the 90s really a lot of things happened in the 90s for me anyway, it seemed to be a shift in time.

7:44
I think just at a therapy level, if you look back historically as well with, you know, even thought field therapy coming into EFT to other kind of modalities and all the assessment tools you're mentioning, we're going to make sure there's links below.

7:57
So people can absolutely use those assessment measures because you're right.

8:02
How do we know change is happening unless we're asking those questions of the client and is it independent of maybe the the therapist, you know, technique that's being used or the therapist warmth and relationship?

8:16
Is change happening?

8:18
But do you, what is it that you think might be contributing maybe at a body or a somatic level for these clients when we're using tools or modalities that seem to be, I don't, I guess, more embracing of the mind, body space rather than just talking about it.

8:40
Well, you know, one thing, well, you know, the tapping therapies are working specifically on somatic issues, you know, when you're tapping on the body.

8:51
And then of course, accelerated resolution therapy works a lot with sensations and feelings.

8:58
But you know, way back in the days when I came here to study with Lazarus, Lazarus had this model.

9:06
What did he call it?

9:08
The basic ID model behaviour, affix sensations, imagery, BASIC cognitions.

9:19
So he already was focused in on bodily and and non bodily things.

9:26
And he said everybody had a different firing hierarchy.

9:31
One person might be an affix person, followed by cognition, followed by sensations.

9:37
Someone else might be completely the opposite.

9:40
And so I was attuned to to those different levels early on, actually, even as I was exploring these other things.

9:49
And the body was just part of that, you know, I mean, you can't really, and I was into yoga early on.

9:57
You can't be into yoga and not be interested in the body, you know, breathing in the body and all the different contortions of yoga, so to speak.

10:07
So you know, it's true that there's with the cognitive therapy.

10:14
By the way, you know, I came to Philadelphia.

10:16
Well, Burns and Beck are both from Philadelphia.

10:20
They're still in Philadelphia.

10:21
So they always had a strong emphasis.

10:24
Of course, that was cognitive.

10:26
Oh, it's another thing.

10:27
Way back in the beginning, I was on a, was it a post doc maybe?

10:35
I don't know.

10:36
Anyway, there was Albert Peso was a psycho energetic therapist.

10:43
He used to be a dancer and he developed psycho energetic and he happened to run seminars in the facility that I worked in C and I took some of those and that was all body and it was very powerful.

10:58
I thought it was hard.

10:59
It was kind of a group thing, so it's hard to introduce it directly sometimes into client, but it taught me early on the power of the body and it has a lot to do with psychodrama in coming from the body point of view.

11:17
So, you know, I was open to a lot of things and I never gave up on something and just took being that open.

11:28
Philip has been the thing that's brought so many things your way.

11:33
Exactly.

11:33
And I haven't even mentioned the fact the 1st 10 years of my career, I was director of training in marital and family therapy.

11:42
So early on, in addition to all the things we're talking about, was the whole idea of systematic interactions in relationships was, and I studied with a couple of The Pioneers in marital and family therapy, See, So I haven't really given up on that.

12:01
It's just that in private practise, it's harder to do it than it is if you're working in an institution.

12:07
But I had that background early on and I was doing a lot of that for a long time.

12:13
So there's just been so many things out there, you know, And if you're curious, I say curiosity has driven me.

12:25
You know, being on the cutting edge is true, but it's really curiosity that drove that.

12:32
Yeah.

12:32
And to see what what's possible.

12:34
And you've got such a bird's eye view of even the cognitive field starting to kind of change the psychodynamic way back when, right through to where we are with perhaps energy psychology, EMDR being accepted IRT now.

12:50
I mean, how long do you think that change takes?

12:54
Like you've, you saw that kind of CBT was on the fringe and how long do you think, you know, these things take before they become a bit more mainstream?

13:05
Well, I had some exposure to Jay Haley.

13:10
I'm going to answer a question.

13:11
Jay Haley in the early days, he was in the Maryland family therapy and he would kind of come around to the places that I worked in.

13:21
And Jay used to say it takes 20 years for a good idea to get into a university and probably another 20 years for it to be, except you know this better than me because you're in a a university environment.

13:35
So you're talking anywhere between 20 and 40 years to get something that's a lawn.

13:40
It's a lawn.

13:42
Half a century.

13:46
Yeah, half a century starting with a good idea and you don't even know where it's going to go.

13:52
It's like a seed that starts to grow and not every seed blossoms.

13:56
So I'd say at least 20 years, maybe 40 years.

14:00
Yeah, that's a lot.

14:01
That's a lot.

14:02
I mean, you're you can do a whole career in a way you have on that, right.

14:07
Yeah, 100%.

14:08
And even like we're seeing trauma informed yoga being tested as as a therapy technique, you know, now in the last couple of years and you were talking about being exposed to yoga and we know how long yoga's been around, but now being tested as some sort of therapy modality and movement and, you know, counselling alongside it.

14:30
So yeah, it is.

14:32
Yeah.

14:32
Look, in medicine they say 17 to 20 years.

14:35
Look, it probably is more than more than that.

14:38
And maybe I need 20% crossover into that.

14:42
And I used to take my son when he was young to these yoga ashrams or places like that and introduce him to things, you know, and he would say, dad, this stuff is so far out.

14:57
But 20 years later, he said that all that stuff there was far out.

15:01
It's gone all mainstream, mainstream now.

15:05
Yes, it's this, it's just so we had a lot, a lot of patience and, and persistence, you know, So by the way, I wasn't a big fan of it.

15:17
I took EMDR and TFTEFG both in the middle 90s and I was actually not a big EMDR fan.

15:28
I for two reasons.

15:29
One is, you know, you learn something new and then you go out and practise it.

15:33
If you get good results right away, then you're a fan.

15:37
But for some reason you don't, you maybe, you know, for whatever reason you don't, then you can lose enthusiasm and all of this moving in the arm back and forth, It killed my shoulders, See.

15:50
So I lost interest in EMDR and the bilateral eye stimulation that we have in ART until for some reason in the last few years, you know, there are similarities between EMDR, obviously, and accelerated resolution therapy.

16:09
But it doesn't seem to mind me.

16:11
Why where is my little have you got a chart that you use?

16:18
I'm looking for a dish.

16:19
Maybe because my trainer, unlike yours.

16:22
Oh, so she gave me this this little instrument.

16:30
Yes, yes, that was so much better than than just doing it with my hand.

16:35
And what is this the cost less than a dollar.

16:38
But for some reason I, well, the other reason of course is I'm doing it on the tube here or on the computer.

16:45
Whereas when I first learned EMDR, I was doing it in person and it really hurt my shoulder.

16:51
And of course they didn't have light bars and all that stuff back then.

16:54
So I didn't mind it when I learned ART, but I didn't mind it when I was doing EMDR curiously.

17:04
And it, it might be, well, sometimes it's the same if for me, if I pick up a book and I read it and I read the first few chapters and I'm like, oh, it's not grabbing me.

17:13
But then five years later I might pick the same book up and go, why didn't I read this five years ago?

17:19
You know, there's something in it.

17:21
And it's where we're at too, with our journeys.

17:24
And I know that's happened to me with books over over the decades as well.

17:28
Philip, can I ask where does the role of spirituality fit into this, Like it that came into your counselling and therapy journey early because you've written books on this and it's been woven in.

17:43
But where do you think that plays a role for people in their recovery, whether that's from trauma or something else or in the marriage space?

17:53
Well, some of the key teaching, like in city yoga, the key teaching is see God in each other, see God in yourself.

18:06
2 simple statements, but very powerful.

18:09
Or where there's darkness, see the light, see.

18:12
So it's you have to look.

18:14
It's like a high level reframing you see cause a lot of you know, I teach my clients where there's anger, there's hurt, where there's a hurt, there's a call for love.

18:24
Always look for the love see and you know, especially when you do couple therapy.

18:29
So that's a that's a spiritual idea.

18:32
Now the forgiveness idea, it happens that I came across a course in miracles, which is main teaching is forgiveness is the key to happiness.

18:42
1977 But the personal story there was I had had AI had a boss.

18:50
I was director of training, marital family therapy and I had a boss, a young psychiatrist I really liked.

18:57
We had met at a previous institution.

18:59
We got along really well.

19:01
And then after six months, mysteriously he got ill or and he went on short term leave, then long term leave, then permanent leave and he was replaced.

19:12
I won't mention her name by this anthropologist who I hated.

19:18
So, so here I've got forgiveness on one hand and anger, hate on the other.

19:25
I had lots of practise, Lots of practise.

19:28
It was an opportunity, right?

19:30
An opportunity.

19:31
Every single day I had the opportunity.

19:33
I could have left a job, but I like being director of training.

19:37
So every single day I had someone to practise on.

19:40
This went on for seven years until she was fired.

19:43
Wow, seven years that that's, that's a lot of practise, that's a lot of practise.

19:49
So I improved a little bit over those over that seven years, you see.

19:54
So the universe kind of provided me with these two opportunities that seemed like they clashed, except I got a Now in retrospect, with the, with the 2540 years history, it was probably a great gift.

20:09
I didn't feel like a gift at the time I I could tell you that, but it did help me strengthen.

20:16
My ability to forgive, you know, and to learn the principles that are taught in the course of miracles.

20:23
So now how did I even get into that?

20:28
Let's see, that was 77.

20:30
But earlier than that, oh, I guess in the early 70s, I had some stressful life experiences that became kind of mystical.

20:41
And the mystical part opened me up to a whole different dimension of life.

20:45
That's what led me to that was actually in 72.

20:49
So it led me to these other experiences in 77.

20:53
So there's constant interweave between the personal and the professional, I would say for me and probably for most people, yeah.

21:01
So it's not like it's separate.

21:06
It's like something happens personally, then you transpose it into something professionally and vice versa, you know.

21:14
So that was 72.

21:17
It was, that was only, let's see, I got did my postdoctoral fellowship in 69.

21:25
So 72 was only a few years after that.

21:28
And interestingly, I did my, no, I did my PhD thesis on the effects of modelling and role playing on assertive behaviour.

21:40
So sometimes I like to say my whole journey, 50 years from assertiveness to forgiveness.

21:46
Now I'm trying, now I'm trying to integrate it.

21:49
Oh, we'll talk about integration.

21:53
I wrote my first article on, I wrote an article on integrative psychotherapy back in, I think it was in the 70s, see.

22:03
And then I wrote some articles, integrative marital therapy, family therapy, etcetera, etcetera.

22:10
So I, I think that I think that was a result of the spiritual teaching, which were basically very integrated.

22:18
You know, I mean, it just kind of seeped in, you might say, you know, and, and the one thing that strikes me about lots of these modality and therapy choices, perhaps we might call them the 4th wave is even though we might work, be working on the here and now issue or even, you know, an event or a memory in the past, a byproduct does seem to occur, even if we're not looking for it of self compassion, forgiveness of, you know, someone that might be a transgressor from that memory or event in the past.

22:56
And even though we're not trying to get a client or a patient to that, lots of these modalities appear to end up in that where if someone might then declare at the end of a tapping session or an EMDR or an ART session, I can I've got a different perspective now.

23:12
I might even feel sorry for that person.

23:14
Is that, do you see that as that integration too, that we ultimately when we might process and let go of distress or anger or trauma, we seem to somehow end up in this space?

23:29
Well, you know, self compassion is very big in the field and justifiably, because self compassion is very strong, correlates with all measures of happiness and well being, for example.

23:44
And yeah, and I think that's integrative.

23:48
You know, if you if you have more compassion for yourself, more forgiveness for yourself, you're going to be more compassionate and forgiving to other people and loving to other people.

23:58
You know, it's no coincidence they say the highest teaching is, is love.

24:03
You know, in fact, I have a sign back here that says teach only love for that is what you are.

24:09
See, so when you see someone new, like I have someone new that's probably coming into treatment, you know, he's got a, you know, the usual whole long story of, of grievances and grudges and anger and hurt and insecurity, the whole 9 yards.

24:28
But from the perspective I've learned, that's just fear calling for love.

24:33
See, it boils down or lack of self compassion, calling for compassion, that type of thing.

24:41
So I think I've been able to zone in on a few key variables.

24:46
And they have, you know, they just have implications for people's lives.

24:53
And even, you know, if you're working with one person, it has a ripple effect, you know, because, you know, people come in and they said, well, I was telling my my spouse, my kid, my in laws about this.

25:06
I gave them a copy of your book or whatever.

25:08
It is.

25:09
A ripple effect.

25:10
Yeah.

25:11
And who knows how many people it has a ripple effect is.

25:15
Yeah.

25:15
It's a true freedom, isn't it?

25:17
And paying it forward almost.

25:21
Phil, this is pure curiosity on my behalf.

25:24
I know you've recently trained in accelerated resolution therapy.

25:27
And you and I have been chatting about that because we, we've done the same here in Australia.

25:31
Is there something else on your radar at the moment?

25:34
Are you curious about anything out there that you might have heard about or that you're exploring?

25:42
Well, yes, but maybe not what you would think 'cause I sent you some material on the on the Friedman legacy scale.

25:52
See, now this is an interesting story about 2016.

26:00
I had this young, very aggressive lawyer that I liked.

26:03
And at the end of the session one day, she says, I remember it was September of 2016 because I was about to turn 75.

26:13
So she says to me, can I ask you a friend, a question, Doctor Friedman?

26:17
I said sure, not knowing what was coming, of course.

26:19
So she said, what would you like people to say about you after you've died?

26:26
Start going by That caught my attention.

26:31
No one had ever asked me that question before.

26:34
So I I said I don't know, but I'm going to try to find out 'cause I had this 75th birthday party coming up at my place.

26:43
So I constructed a series of questions.

26:48
I actually had my sister who was there pass out five by 8 cards.

26:54
Please write down.

26:55
I figured at my memorial service people were not going to say negative things about me.

27:00
I hope so I, I said please write down the five most positive things you could, you would like to you'd say about Phil after he died.

27:10
See, this is what the question was.

27:12
See.

27:13
So I got 68 different adjectives basically, you see.

27:18
So being who I am, I then constructed a scale that I called the Legacy Scare.

27:24
At first, I still have those cards, believe it or not, I still have those cards.

27:30
But I constructed the scare and then I gave it to all my clients, you see.

27:35
And then I got all this feedback and then I gave it again in 2018.

27:42
And I was taking this course recently and the instructors gave a similar assignment.

27:48
What would you like people to say about you if you died three years from now?

27:53
So I looked to see if I still had this legacy on my computer, which I did, and then I readministered it.

28:01
Now, how does that relate?

28:03
Because, you know, we talk a lot about all these techniques and tools, but this is not a technique or tool device.

28:11
It's basically what do what do people think about you see now I don't think what I'm going to say next.

28:18
I don't believe that this findings showed up then, or at least I didn't notice it.

28:26
But I, I'm semi retired, you know, so I only have 9 clients.

28:32
So I gave it to all nine clients and all of the females outscored all of the males.

28:37
Wow, wow.

28:40
That caught my that caught my attention.

28:42
I wasn't trying to do anything differently, but I'm doing all of the interventions that I'm used to, having them read my book, blah, blah, blah.

28:52
But they filled out these 60 adjectives and I added up the scores and lo and behold, there was no overlap.

28:59
See, now that got my attention.

29:02
Now, in general, the scores were high.

29:04
I shouldn't say it wasn't like I had low scores.

29:08
They all were generally pretty high, but why would the females all score higher than male?

29:14
I suppose the reasonable hypothesis is at some level I related better or differently to the females than the male.

29:23
So it makes you wonder how much does the personality or the relational style of the therapist, no matter what technique you're doing, you know, ART tapping therapy, this or that.

29:39
Another thing is a little aside that I discovered, you think that, you know, let's say tapping's your favourite therapy.

29:46
So you think, oh, all my clients are going to think more highly of tapping therapy than say guided imagery that's been around a long time.

29:55
See, but it doesn't.

29:56
Or writing essays or something else.

29:59
So I discovered, no, it wasn't, that wasn't true, that a lot of them like things differently than I thought they should.

30:10
Like, you know, and I get a lot of feedback on what people like.

30:15
So right now I'm trying to tease out if there's any way to do it.

30:19
How much does the approach, not the approach, the personality, the enthusiasm, the intention.

30:27
Oh, by the way, one of the side effects of giving all these scales to clients, because I do digital assessment every single week, you know, but I have high standards for myself and my clients and I don't just like them to get up to the mean of a of a scale.

30:44
I like them to go 10%, twenty percent, 30% above that.

30:48
That's my goal.

30:49
I don't tell them that, but my goal is to jump the biggest bar you can, so to speak.

30:55
So that's consciousness is in the back of my mind and with with weekly digital assessments, I can see how close I am to that where they are really.

31:05
But you know, it's reflecting the work that I'm doing with them.

31:09
If they're below average, which is rare, although I, you know, what does happen, you have to ask yourself what's different about about this therapist.

31:20
So at the moment, I would say the last few weeks, what I'm excited about is not the therapeutic techniques, it's the effect of the therapist.

31:30
Now, is that a 5%, one percent, 20% effect?

31:35
I don't know at this point.

31:36
I mean, I could go back into the literature and see what they say, but right now, because I've been playing with it, that's where my excitement is at the moment.

31:47
Now, you know, next week I could hear about a new tool or technique that's hot and you'll be on it.

31:54
I'll be on it.

31:56
Well, like we both did.

31:57
What was that one?

31:58
What's that short one that we both learned?

32:02
ARTART.

32:03
No, not ART.

32:05
It's how did we learn the flash, the flash technique, yes, in the EMDL, the flash technique, yes, Flash technique, right.

32:12
So, so that, you know, that kind of startled me and one of the things that startles me about the flash technique is how incredibly positive is right from the start.

32:25
You know, it makes you wonder whether you have to focus on anything negative at all.

32:30
Yeah, because it works.

32:32
It seems to get that reduction.

32:34
And I'll put a link below if anyone's like, what's the flash technique?

32:36
I'll make sure the link is there for the training.

32:39
You're right.

32:40
You don't even have to process the actual trauma in that particular technique.

32:44
It's all about a counter positive imagery or sensation state that's being held at the same time.

32:54
So you're right, you know, do we need to actually unpack and process?

33:00
And that kind of leads into the discussion of what I've been saying lately in my articles is the key variable is cognitive affective balance.

33:10
C Usually you, you focus on the negative, you try to erase that you hope that the positive surfaces.

33:18
But in the flash technique, you pretty much ignore, not 100%, but you ignore a lot of the negativity.

33:25
You just go for high level positive affect and surprisingly it seems to work.

33:33
Now if you're going to measure that, you know, cognitive affective balance basically says positive cognitions minus negative cognition or positive affect minus negative affect.

33:44
And when therapy is working, you get a fairly rapid shift.

33:49
Now we've been, and this is, you know, we've been focusing on suds, subjective units of distress.

33:58
That's about the negative aspects decreasing, you know, zero to 10.

34:04
But you know, that measure came from Wolpe really.

34:09
You know, I was, I was around what, back in the 60s, right?

34:15
Over a long time ago, 60 years ago.

34:19
So Wolpe was using that.

34:21
Lazarus picked up on it and you know, we've been using it in energy therapy or tapping therapies for the last 60 years.

34:29
Doesn't get enough.

34:29
They don't get enough credit.

34:31
But the truth is that's the in session measure anyway, right?

34:35
Yeah, yeah.

34:37
So I'm I've come recently to say, OK, what's your CAP?

34:42
What's your CAP score?

34:44
See zero to 10.

34:46
What's your CAP score?

34:48
Now, it doesn't sound like it's a big difference, but I've also been using the life balance scale X number of years ago, not that long ago really, I was looking over, oh, at the end of treatment, I have everybody fill out a termination essay and basically three questions.

35:11
What was troubling?

35:13
What brought you in for therapy?

35:15
Question one, question three, what positive changes took place?

35:19
I elaborate and question 2, what did you find most helpful and benefit during the course of therapy?

35:26
So this is like they do in the second to last session.

35:30
See we go over, but one day I was looking over them on the computer 1st and I started underlying, printing them out and started underlying.

35:40
What did clients actually say?

35:42
Not what we clinicians think it's important.

35:45
What did they actually say?

35:47
So I had, I don't know, I'm going to guess 20 that I printed out and I underlined what they said.

35:53
See.

35:53
So I got, was it 25 or fifty?

35:59
Maybe it was 50 different statements, but some number I can't remember.

36:03
And of course, in my typical style, I created a questionnaire about it.

36:08
So then I, I had a colleague in Texas who's a real researcher like you are, but I'm, and more on personality variables and spiritual variables.

36:22
I asked him if he would give my new found questionnaire 3 actually three of them to a large number of people as part of a larger study.

36:32
He was done.

36:33
So knock on wood, he agreed to it.

36:35
So we got norms on like 2500 people, see.

36:39
And then I have another colleague who's also, oh, I know both of these colleagues from my forgiveness work, but they're more, they're more researchers and, and teachers.

36:50
They're not clinician, but this other colleague is a super expert on statistic.

36:55
So I asked him if he would do a factor analysis of this 2500 people.

37:00
And we narrowed that scale down to, I think 12 vitamin C with different fact with a few factors.

37:10
And now I have this really empirically divide scale.

37:16
So I use that along with the cognitive affective balance scale and this scale, because it's very empirically derived, you see now a lot of the items you wouldn't be surprised at, but maybe the emphasis on what people say shows up in the scale.

37:36
So again, it's following your curiosity, you know, and you have to network with people who have skills that you know, that's another thing of course, network with people who have skills that you don't have.

37:47
Like I'm sure all the brain stuff you do, you know, you have to develop relationships with those people, etcetera, etcetera.

37:54
Right.

37:55
Yeah.

37:55
And and it is how you spread the word.

37:57
Like even the neurologist who analysed our functional MRI scans for the EFT trial said, what intervention did you do on these patients?

38:08
Because he's looking at six weeks earlier and, you know, then the post scans.

38:12
So they ask they're like, what did you do?

38:15
There's such a difference.

38:16
And that was the chronic pain research.

38:18
So we get to share then in other fields what it is that we've done.

38:24
So Phil, this has been an incredible conversation and I hope that anyone listening in goes and looks at the scales and the measures that you've developed.

38:34
And I've got all the links below in the show notes because that's, that's legacy as well.

38:40
That is something you've been contributing to the field, no matter what modality you might have been using.

38:45
It's like, well, how can we really get the client's information back here, not just what we think as the clinician did that work?

38:52
Did I feel good after the session?

38:55
What did they think?

38:56
I love that termination essay might be something I suggest to my students that we're still teaching to become psychologists that that that might be a really nice thing to do with them at the end of it's actually quite fascinating.

39:10
Actually.

39:10
One other side thing, all through my book, there's a lot of exercises.

39:15
I have clients do the exercises from 1-2 or three chapters every week and write out their answers.

39:23
Basically they're journaling every single week and then I have them read the answers at the beginning of the therapy session.

39:30
So I didn't realise till it took quite a while there how important the journaling factor was.

39:37
See, you do these techniques, but now inadvertently, I have them write out the answers and well, and I have them type it out.

39:46
Can you believe asking everyone to type it out?

39:50
No one escapes homework, right?

39:53
Exactly.

39:54
No one takes homework and so I have this whole journaling component that's been built into it, which I think is more important than I thought initially.

40:05
It was just a way to provide feedback, but it makes them very active and engaged.

40:10
Absolutely, Phil, thank you for your time.

40:13
This has been a 1 ocean ocean.

40:15
It's I could just we could just talk for another couple of hours about right, I'm sure did we go next and you know what's and even just to hear that journey of.

40:24
Where you started when the cognitive, you know, which now is gold standard, was emerging out of the psychodynamic era and the challenges that it faced as well, you know, let alone where we're at in the energy psychology field.

40:40
So all of those links are going to be below.

40:42
Thank you so much for your wisdom and just your curiosity for actually pursuing all of these different things and contributing in such a big way.

40:51
And I know your legacy is going to be those assessment measures, let alone, you know, who you were as a therapist.

40:58
But what you're leaving that we're able to use moving forward.

41:01
And I hope anyone listening in that seeing clients starts to use all of those measures.

41:06
Thanks so much for your time.

41:08
Oh, you're welcome.

41:09
And it's been very enjoyable and well, just very enjoyable.

41:14
Thanks so much.

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Permission is granted to use the scales free of charge for all non-commercial use provided that they are reproduced exactly as written here, without changing any words and without leaving out any subscales or questions. If used in a foreign language the translation needs to be approved by the author, Philip H. Friedman, Ph.D or if he is not available the Foundation for Well-Being. Please feel free to use them for research and clinical/psychotherapy situations.