Allergy Papers: Study of Initial Response and Reversion Rates of Subjects Treated with the Allergy Technique

Section 4 – Discussion

In this two year prospective study of The Allergy Technique1-3 I achieved an initial response rate of 70%. This rate is comparable to the “approximately 80%” rate described by Andreas and Andreas2 and the 90% rate described by Hallbom and Smith1 for cases in which the specific allergen has been identified. This study is the first two year follow-up study published to date, and of the 7 of 10 initial responders, only 4 of 10 maintained the asymptomatic state for over two years suggesting an overall response rate of 40%. Retreatment of non-responders and revertants with the modified technique has increased the initial success rate and the length of time that the change has been maintained.

The belief system of anyone who works with people may affect their results. It is unlikely that practitioner bias has affected the initial response or reversion rate in this study because other practitioners have experienced similar initial response rates1,2. Two other highly skilled NLP practitioners using the published Allergy Technique reported revertants (Martin Lowenthal and Richard Clarke, personal communication).

In addition to the experimental subjects in this study, I have treated 25 other people. Clients with a single or a few (less than 4) specific allergies respond well to the Modified Allergy technique. Most of my paying clients, however, have multiple allergies (12-20 known triggers are not uncommon), and some are multi-allergic with asthma. These clients require several sessions and periodic follow-up to make sure that all the memory imprints, associated negative emotional charge, and limiting beliefs associated with the allergic trigger were cleared. Some of the common patterns that I have observed include:

1. A response to “what is objectionable about X” or “X gives me allergic symptoms” is usually not the root cause of the experience. The person did not already have the symptoms at the time when they decided to become allergic. In cases like this I use Time Line Therapy. I have seen two exceptions:

A. A client, who had symptomatically reverted after having been treated with the Allergy Technique, elaborated on what he objected to about the allergic reaction to cats. He described it as an illness that “snuck up on him”. Using the Modified Allergy Technique, we found that the associated memory involved an illness that “snuck up on him” when he ignored symptoms in the belief that he had to follow school rules. Re-framing and re-imprinting the knowledge that rules are often superseded in matters of health, and that each individual is responsible for decisions about his own health and well being. This allowed clearing of the cat allergy.

B. Another client, allergic to cigarette smoke, said that in the presence of people who smoked, she objected to not being able to breath or see while she sat there trying to be polite. After clearing the negative emotional charge on the symptoms and on belief #2B below, we cleared the cigarette smoke allergy.

2. Multi-allergic clients often have a limiting belief underlying their ability to generate allergies. Some common beliefs are:

A. The world is a dangerous or irritating or frightening or unfriendly place.

B. I can’t escape because I have to be polite (no matter how much it hurts me). Other people or their feelings are more important than I am. This belief is particularly common in women and in more restrained cultures such as British.

C. It is not OK to say I do not like something or I do not want to do something (i.e. my feelings are not important, my opinion does not count).

I clear the overall limiting belief using Time Line Therapy and then track down individual episodes linked to specific allergies.

3. Sometimes clients use their immune systems to deal with life situations that do not require immune intervention.

A client who was allergic to the smells in a garden center told me that many of the items (such as insecticides) were dangerous. I suggested that her nose could tell her when there was something dangerous in the air, and that she could hold her breath and walk away. She did not need an asthma attack for protection.

I informed another client who had been extensively trimming his nose hairs and was allergic to dust that he had biochemical and physical means of disposing of dust. The hairs in his nose, the ciliated cells lining his lungs, and a reflex ability to sneeze out irritating particulate matter were sufficient to deal with dust. As part of the allergy intervention, he decided to stop trimming his nose hairs.

4. A client can invalidate and reverse a change if it violates his/her convincer strategy or if it triggers his/her unconvincer strategy.

I treated a severely asthmatic client by clearing the anger and fear associated with an early event after which his normal wheezing disappeared and he was able to breath easily. With 15 minutes left in the session he told me that nothing ever comes easily for him and regaled me with hard luck stories. Within a week, he had reacquired symptoms and refused to return for further treatment. (Jim Pike, in a personal communication, recommends saying to the client “So, I wonder if it would be OK with your unconscious mind to just allow this process to continue and progress uninterrupted or you could just choose to notice the ease and comfort with which you can breath in a way that would be totally ecological for you, now.”)

Another client who cleared an allergy to dust wondered if he was reverting after he sneezed a couple of times when he went into a dusty storage room. I explained to him that it is the body’s normal reflexive first line of defense to sneeze out irritating particulate matter, and this response does not require immune system participation. He realized that he was asymptomatic after leaving the storage room, and has been free of a dust allergy ever since.

5. Two multi-allergic clients with asthma who did not respond to the Modified Allergy Technique had an immune system part that did not know how to discriminate non-dangerous from dangerous.

The ability to discriminate safe from dangerous existed in another part. We integrated the necessary skills for appropriate immune function by doing a visual squash of 2-3 parts. The clients subsequently responded to re-treatment with the Modified Allergy Technique. The inability of the immune system to distinguish dangerous from non-dangerous may be related to issues of incomplete sense of identity and boundaries.

6. Asthmatic clients are more complicated to treat because they have internal emotional triggers, external allergic substance triggers, and activity triggers (such as exercise).

For example, four of four asthma clients whom I have treated since May, 1991, have been triggered by anger toward their mothers who they felt were not giving them enough or the right kind of attention. Some of the emotional triggers are not associated with a specific event. Thus, I have used both Time Line Therapy and Applied Kinesiology to track down and clear specific emotions which trigger asthma attacks. Jim Pike reports similar experiences with asthmatic clients and recommends clearing all negative emotional charge and limiting decisions using Time Line Therapy (personal communication). (Long term follow-up on the asthma clients is in progress and will be reported at a later date.)

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