NLPers often talk to me about "alternative therapies" - I regularly have crystals thrust into my hands so I can feel their "energy" and recently had the strange experience of one person enthusiastically tapping their face whilst apparently doing "surrogate EFT" asking me, "Can you feel that?" All i could answer was that, no, as she was tapping her face and not mine, i couldn't feel the tapping. I learned that i didn't "get it" and that it's all about the energies, apparently. And guys, I ought to add that anyone who tries to sneak up on me and tap my face is likely to get my thumb in their eye.

Anyway, I am increasingly being told about "Dolphin Assisted Therapy", something that sounds quite ridiculous to me. "They sense your energies" I was told, "and they have sonar and everything." My bullshitometer went off the scale at this, but everyone else in the room enthused at how amaaaaazing dolphins were and exchanged anecdotes about the `friend of a friend` they knew who went and was cured of something and had such an amaaaaazing experience and everything.

I was pitied for my skepticism. Personally, when I see a dolphin imprisoned in a swimming pool, it makes me want to drown the person that put it there.

So, it is partly in response to this that I post a link:

Dolphin 'Therapy' A Dangerous Fad, Emory Researchers Warn

""Dolphin-assisted therapy is not a valid treatment for any disorder," says Marino, a leading dolphin and whale researcher. "We want to get the word out that it's a lose-lose situation - for people and for dolphins."

While swimming with dolphins may be a fun, novel experience, no scientific evidence exists for any long-term benefit from DAT, Marino says. She adds that people who spend thousands of dollars for DAT don't just lose out financially - they put themselves, and the dolphin, at risk of injury or infection. And they are supporting an industry that - outside of the United States - takes dolphins from the wild in a brutal process that often leaves several dolphins dead for every surviving captive...."

I reccommend reading the full article, and for those with a suitable disposition, watching this video:

Watch the brutal capture of "the Taiji Twelve"

Added: 16 January 2007

Watch the brutal capture of "the Taiji Twelve", twelve dolphins culled from the annual Japanese dolphin slaughter who are being sold to the Dominican Republic for "swim with dolphins" programs. Amidst the bloody slaughter of 200 dolphins, these twelve were selected and kept alive as they watched their families, their calves and their pods beaten, stabbed and drowned to death.

There is another highly distressing and graphic video on youtube about the dolphin slaughter that many may wish to avoid viewing.

Regards,

Andrew "full of Christmas cheer" Austin
Integral Eye Movement Therapy Training with Andrew T. Austin