Correcting Psychological Reversal

Callahan distinguished three grades of reversal, each with its own correction spot: A. Standard Psychological Reversal correction (the everyday move)

1. Notice the block. Either a TFT sequence didn’t lower your SUD by ≥2 points, or you simply feel stuck/self-sabotaging on a goal.
2. Locate the PR spot: the outer edge of the hand, little-finger side, midway between the base of the little finger and the wrist bone — the “karate-chop” spot (small-intestine meridian, SI-3).
3. Tap it firmly for ~20 seconds while thinking about the problem.
4. (Original form) Say the affirmation 3 times: “I deeply and completely accept myself even though I have this problem” (substitute the specific problem). Callahan later found the tapping alone worked and dropped the spoken affirmation in the late 1990s — but the self-acceptance version is the historically important, and arguably the active, ingredient.
5. Re-attempt the main task (the tapping sequence, or the action you were avoiding) and re-check. B. Recurring Psychological Reversal — the “Sore Spot”

If the standard correction doesn’t hold (Callahan attributed this to ingested “energy toxins”):

1. Find the tender area on the upper-left chest, ~1 inch below and 3-4 inches out from the sternal notch (a neuro-lymphatic reflex point, not a meridian point).
2. Rub it in a circular motion for ~20 seconds (direction doesn’t matter). It is often noticeably tender.
3. Re-attempt the task. (In EFT this same spot becomes the alternative to the karate-chop point.) C. Mini Psychological Reversal

Used late in a session, when distress is mostly gone but won’t reach zero. Focus on the remaining fraction of the problem, then tap the side of the hand (or rub the sore spot if that was what worked earlier), and repeat the main sequence.

(Sourcing note: the three reversal grades, the SI-3 karate-chop spot, the upper-left-chest sore spot, the ~20-second timing, and the original self-acceptance affirmation are all documented in Callahan’s manual and book.

The affirmation is quoted verbatim as historically significant; everything else is faithful paraphrase.)

Callahan encountered “reversals” in the late 1970s when some patients stubbornly failed to respond, and devised the self-acceptance affirmation as the fix. The concept descends from applied kinesiology’s idea of reversed muscle/energy polarity (George Goodheart).

Its most durable legacy is downstream: Gary Craig’s EFT “Setup” (“Even though I have [problem], I deeply and completely accept myself”) is the PR correction, lightly reworded, performed at the start of every round.

EFT Setup statement — the direct descendant; PR correction promoted to a fixed opening step.

• Radical / self-acceptance work — “I accept myself even though…” is the same therapeutic move found in ACT, self-compassion, and Rogerian unconditional positive regard.
• Affirmation / autosuggestion — a spoken acceptance formula impressed while in a focused state.,
• Applied kinesiology — the “reversed polarity” parent concept (unsupported).
• Surrender / acceptance practices — naming the block and ceasing to fight oneself. → other entries in.

Dropping the self-acceptance words. Callahan removed them; the evidence suggests they were the strongest ingredient. Keep the affirmation if you want the benefit.

• Vague affirmation. Name the actual problem (“…even though I keep avoiding this call”), not a generic one.
• Saying it through gritted teeth. Acceptance, not willpower. If you’re forcing belief, you’ve slipped into “reversed effort” — soften it.
• Treating the sore spot as diagnostic of “toxins.” That inference is unsupported; the tender point may simply be a sensitive reflex area.
• Using it once and quitting. Reversal can recur within a session — that’s why there’s a “mini” version for the home stretch.