Gary's letter to Dawson via David McKay (October 2011)

David,

I read with dismay Dawson Church’s comments in your 10/19/11 newsletter regarding EFT Universe trainings and their reliance on my work. They were misleading on many fronts and thus I’m hoping you will print this response verbatim so the public will be properly informed.

He defines his Clinical EFT as “EFT just as founder Gary Craig taught it” from various sources. This is false.   The curriculum is in the hands of many students and trainers and thus I have seen a recent version of it. It adds some of his own concepts (with which I disagree) and dilutes some of mine while often skewing the ideas I taught. In short, it is not as advertised and is being promoted in a way that seems like I am endorsing it.

Here are some quotes on this “endorsing” topic from my past emails to Dawson:

(1) “Along these lines, some people have mistakenly assumed that I am endorsing the EFTUniverse.com <http://EFTUniverse.com>;   website, its certification program, etc. This is not so.”

(2) “Anyone using my name as any kind of endorsement or support for their position, product, etc. is doing so erroneously and without my permission.”

(3) “Accordingly, I will not name you or anyone else as “heir apparent.””

(4) “Further, any certification you choose to do should not use our program or represent that you are offering “official Gary Craig Training.””

(5) “I write because our efforts regarding my non-endorsement of your website and activities still need some work.   I continue to get feedback from EFT’ers that you and EFTuniverse.com <http://EFTuniverse.com>;   are giving the impression that I am actively behind the scenes influencing how EFT is promoted through EFTuniverse.com.”

The proper way for Dawson Church to portray his Clinical EFT is as follows: “Clinical EFT is Dawson Church’s compilation of his EFT understandings from a variety of sources. It is neither endorsed nor supported by EFT founder Gary Craig.”

Hope this clarifies matters.

With Great Respect, Gary

Dawson's reply:-

Dear Gary,

I'm responding to your open letter to me of the week before last. I want to say up front that I love and respect you, and I believe you've given the world a great gift in the form of EFT. Though none of us are perfect human beings, since you retired and transferred the EFT archives to me two years ago, I've done my best to carry EFT forward in a stable, professional, consistent, and joyful way, and below I will respond in detail to the points you raise.

In your letter, you say that I'm "skewing the ideas" you taught, and expressing dismay that I'm promoting Clinical EFT "in a way that seems like I [Gary] am endorsing it." As proof of your position, you quote 5 passages from emails you've sent me.

The words in those emails are your words, not my words. In your open letter you don't quote anything that I've actually said. The reason you're unable to quote me on the topic, is that I have never actually said any such thing. Quite the opposite; every page on the EFT Universe web site contains this disclaimer: "Although Gary Craig has allowed EFTuniverse.com to house his former EFT website archives and related material, he has not appointed EFTuniverse.com, or anyone else, as his heir apparent or designated successor."

What I indeed do, in my lectures and writings, is attribute the EFT methods you've developed to you, and I praise you wholeheartedly for developing them. Anyone who teaches EFT is bound to talk about you a great deal, and appreciate you a great deal. As good ethical practice, I also acknowledge Pat Carrington, Roger Callahan, AAMET, ACEP, and the other professionals and organizations that have contributed to EFT.

I am completely committed to EFT. When I look into the eyes of people who are suffering from emotional pain, I am moved to the core of my soul. When I see the pain in their eyes vanish after EFT, I am awed by the miracle I see, even though I've seen in thousands of times. In my lectures, I sometimes liken EFT to the fire that Prometheus brought from the Gods in ancient Greek mythology. I believe that EFT has the power to alleviate human suffering on a global scale. EFT is to healing what fire was to civilization. I am passionate in my desire to bring EFT to millions of people every year.

I believe in EFT so strongly that for most of the past decade, I have donated more than half my time, without compensation, to validating EFT through research. With the help of scores of selfless volunteers, EFT has been established as an "evidence-based" practice. We are now devoting ourselves to establishing EFT in the institutions that treat millions of people a day, like Veterans Administration centers, Britain's National Health Service, and Kaiser Permanente.

In 2010 I created a public letter wherein I put the term EFT in the public domain so that it would be available to everyone.

The fractured history of EFT training and certification does not inspire confidence in these organizations. A decade ago our mutual friend Pat Carrington offered the first certifications, EFT-CC and EFT-ADV, based on your early videos. The need for hands-on training was soon apparent, and you wrote excellent guidelines for Level 1, 2 and 3 classes and published them on emofree. Dozens of EFT practitioners began to offer classes, with students drawn from your training schedule pages on emofree. When quality control problems became apparent a few years later, you abruptly stopped promoting the trainings on the web site, and withdrew the "Gary Craig Approved" seal.

You set up the EFT Master's Program in 2004. After you identified major problems with the program in 2007, you sent out an email and made announcement in the emofree newsletter, terminating it. Then, in June of 2008, you announced the Cert-I and II certification programs, and hundreds of practitioners began their candidacies. You announced on Feb 25, 2010 that the Cert-I program would expire in three days, and Cert-II shortly thereafter.

So when the EFT Universe certification and training team began designing our program two years ago, I was very conscious of the fact that EFT had passed through four aborted training and certification programs in a decade.

In 2007 you and I signed an author-publisher agreement under which I published The EFT Manual and your other EFT books. We've had a very successful and cordial five-year collaboration, with over 50,000 books sold, and with you earning very substantial royalties from the contract. As part of that contract, you licensed to me your trademarked terms "EFT" and "Emotional Freedom Techniques."

In November of 2009 you announced your retirement, and you and I collaborated on the transfer of your emofree archives to EFT Universe. The creation of a new, modern site was an enormous amount of work for me and the transition team. It took many months and cost over $100,000, which I paid so that the benefits of EFT could continue to flow to the many people whose lives can be greatly improved by the method.

At the time, I urged you to keep your existing Cert-I and II program in existence, arguing that EFT needed stability after all the turmoil of the previous decade. These new certifications were less than 2 years old, and another about-face would do nothing to bolster EFTs credibility. Yet given the problems of running an organization, and your fragile health, I completely sympathize with your decision to terminate them.

In April 2011 you phoned and told me that you were working on a new online EFT tutorial, to be offered as a link on your new Course in Miracles (ACIM) website, and that it would make very substantial changes to the EFT routine. I agreed to revise The EFT Manual to align with your changes, and sent you a draft revision in June.

You then changed your position, and required that I take The EFT Manual and other books you'd written out of print completely. This would leave your forthcoming online tutorial as the sole source through which EFT could be learned from you.

I explained that I could not discontinue publication, because accepted research guidelines require a manual. I sent you a paper from American Psychologist journal written by Martin Seligman, PhD, former APA (American Psychological Association) president, demonstrating the necessity of a manual for research. A manual allows research to be replicated, and allows practitioners to be trained consistently, as they are through the EFT Universe certification program.

I also cautioned you about changing the EFT method too radically. When Francine Shapiro, the developer of EMDR, naively made substantial changes to the method, critics argued that her flip-flops invalidated earlier research. This impeded the adoption of EMDR in large institutions. I sent you a second paper from a peer-reviewed journal, that details how inconsistency, and poorly-conceived changes to the method, hurt EMDR. It concluded that EMDRs efficacy could not be settled by "scientific investigation due to the rapid and constant reshaping of what constitutes EMDR." In a landmark 2007 US government report, EMDR was not included on the official list of effective treatments for posttraumatic stress. The tragic result was that tens of thousands of patients, who might have received EMDR, were left to suffer instead. Right now I'm working with offices of 11 US senators and congressmen to press for the inclusion of EFT in the next government report, and I'm determined that we not be similarly disqualified.

Your position presented me with a dilemma. What formula could I find that would allow you reshape EFT, without opening the door to critics? How could I keep EFT credible in scientific and medical circles, and forge ahead with my campaign to bring the healing power of EFT to suffering patients? How could I continue delivering a rock-solid, stable, enduring certification through EFT Universe? My solution, which I explained to you, was to title the existing method "Clinical EFT," a term which I'd begun using a couple of years earlier in scientific presentations.

It describes the method as taught between your first online publication of The EFT Manual, and your retirement announcement in November 2009. I've done a huge amount of research to establish EFT as an "evidence-based" method. Drawing the bright line of Clinical EFT around this body of work, and the EFT Universe training and certification program, provides continuity, stability, and scientific credibility to EFT. It allows you to innovate as much as you like, without critics being able to use your changes to invalidate the whole EFT method.

You'll find Clinical EFT as defined on the EFT Universe web site to be a compilation of the methods you teach in The EFT Manual, DVDs, and supporting materials. I have nothing against innovation, however I've found that it's essential that practitioners first learn the essentials of EFT as you developed it. As you said in your January 2010 update to your retirement announcement, "I have yet to see any of those different versions, even the creative ones, consistently outperform the original EFT," (the original EFT which I term Clinical EFT), and you advised practitioners to, "thoroughly learn the original EFT and branch out from there to explore the different versions." So I would respectfully request that when you use the term "Clinical EFT" in future, you include a link to the definition, so that readers can form their own judgments about its authenticity.

Your new open letter to me has generated a great deal of concern among EFT practitioners and candidates. I've fielded questions like, "Will Gary be able to invalidate my EFT Universe certification the way he pulled the plug on the Master's program and Cert I and II?" and "Is my certification really based on EFT as Gary taught it?" and "Could Gary sue me for using the term EFT?"

I encourage people in the EFT community to trust you, and your statements such as the one from your retirement announcement that you are contributing "the trademarked names (EFT and Emotional Freedom Techniques) to the public domain so that you can decide for yourselves how best to use them. Different countries and cultures can establish their own organizations and rules without having to go through me." I assure people I believe you were sincere in saying that you would not reactivate emofree as a site for EFT instruction, and, in your words, that: "… I gave EFT to the world and chose not to endorse anyone's website or EFT efforts…" That your words, "the solution is for me to get out of the way and turn the EFT name over to you" should be taken at face value.

The Ethics Manual required for EFT Universe certification counsels against using public forums for airing professional differences; I'm sending you this open letter only because you used this same forum for your open letter to me. I'm always happy to hear from you privately about any questions or concerns you might have.

Gary, I deeply respect you, and honor you for developing EFT, and then doing so much to make it available to millions of people. At EFT Universe, hundreds of dedicated people carry EFT forward with high professional and ethical standards. You can be very proud of what you've built. I wish you nothing but joy and satisfaction in your retirement, and look forward to seeing the new ACIM site that you tell us that you and Tina are building, whenever it is that it goes live. I will be delighted to link to it from EFT Universe. As the Course tells us, "I am at home. Fear is the stranger here"…. "Give faith to one another, for faith and hope and mercy are yours to give." From now on, let's keep faithful to our primary focus of touching the world with EFT.

All the best,

Dawson