Tapas Acupressure Technique (or TAT) is a controversial complementary therapy promoted to clear negative emotions and past traumas. Though the full technique was invented in 1993 by Tapas Fleming, a licensed acupuncturist

Acupuncture

Acupuncture is a type of alternative medicine that treats patients by insertion and manipulation of solid, generally thin needles in the body....

 in California, TAT incorporates elements of and builds on other acupressure techniques. Like other energy therapies

Energy medicine

Energy medicine is one of five domains of "complementary and alternative medicine" identified by the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine in the United States...

, TAT relies on a putative energy for which no scientific basis has been found and no biophysical means of action determined.

History

Invented in 1993 by Ms. Tapas Fleming, a California licensed acupuncturist, TAT is marketed as "an easy process for ending traumatic stress, reducing allergic reactions, and freeing yourself of negative beliefs." The underlying idea claims that unresolved emotional trauma leads to a blockage of the natural flow of putative energy. Practitioners of TAT claim that self application of light pressure to four areas of the head (inner corner of both eyes, one-half-inch above the space between the eyebrows, and the back of head) while placing attention on a series of verbal steps releases this blockage and allows for healing. TAT was originally intended to be an allergy elimination protocol, however the emphasis switched to emotional trauma after the first few patients to experience this technique reported that a resolution of unresolved trauma was more prevalent than allergy relief.

Scientific study

A preliminary unblinded feasibility study comparing Tapas Acupressure Technique to Qigong

Qigong

Qigong or chi kung is a practice of aligning breath, movement, and awareness for exercise, healing, and meditation...

 or self-directed support for weight loss maintenance suggested that TAT might outperform the other methods studied. The results were not statistically significant

Statistical significance

In statistics, a result is called statistically significant if it is unlikely to have occurred by chance. The phrase test of significance was coined by Ronald Fisher....

. A 500-member randomized trial of TAT versus standard weightloss management intervention funded by the NCCAM is slated for completion in 2011.

No scientifically plausible method of action is proposed for Tapas Acupressure Technique, instead relying on unvalidated putative energy and meridian

Meridian (Chinese medicine)

The meridian is a path through which the life-energy known as "qi" is believed to flow, in traditional Chinese medicine. There is no physically verifiable anatomical or histological basis for the existence of acupuncture points or meridians.- Main concepts :...

s with no identified biophysical or histological basis. A 2005 review of so-called "Power Therapies

Power therapies

Power Therapies is a term coined by professor Charles Figley, Florida State University Traumatology Institute, to group several novel treatments of post traumatic stress...

" concluded that TAT and similar techniques "offered no new scientifically valid theories of action, show only non-specific efficacy, show no evidence that they offer substantive improvements to extant psychiatric care, yet display many characteristics consistent with pseudoscience

Pseudoscience

Pseudoscience is a claim, belief, or practice which is presented as scientific, but which does not adhere to a valid scientific method, lacks supporting evidence or plausibility, cannot be reliably tested, or otherwise lacks scientific status...

." TAT also conforms to the "nine practices of pseudoscience" as identified by AR Pratkins.