Dimitri Crouchez MD, TFT-VT

Dimitri CROUCHEZ graduated as medical doctor at the Paris School of Medicine (Paris VI Broussais) in 1973 and took the specialization course in psychiatry which he completed in 1976.

Psychiatry has just evolved as a full-fledged specialty. Before there were only a small number of physicians specialized both in neurology and mental health. Psychotropic drugs had just been introduced.

I was privileged to be able to work for a full year in Saint Annea’s Hospital in Paris in the service of Professors Delay and Deniker, who were the first to study the effects of such drugs on patients with mental illnesses.

Popular treatments were electric shock therapy for depression and insulin shock therapies for schizophrenia, which, in their principle, were direct continuations of shock treatments such as brutal exposure to cold water inherited from the 18th century.

I also had the privilege to attend all the seminars conducted by ‘Cause Freudienne’ psychoanalyst Dr Jacques Lacan in another part of the same hospital, with ‘live’ demonstrations on ‘voluntary’ patients.

The underlying philosophy of psychiatry, still valid today, is to sedate the patient first to establish communication, in order to find the root of his problems in his past, in his infancy. I have never seen anybody who was cured with these methods: at best, after years of medication, they would go on with a very long psychoanalysis.

I was quite dismayed by the contradiction between concerns expressed by my colleagues at ‘the suffering of the patient’ and the hardness and cruelty of the treatment. Blatant side effects of such treatments often seemed to be destructive to the body, with important weight gains, addiction to tobacco or pharmaceutical drugs or dysfunction of the endocrine system transforming people into zombies, or causing the loss of their self-image, and not infrequently driving them to despair and suicide…

If people have trouble accepting their body image, is it a cure to neutralize the effects to the point that they don’t care anymore about their body image?”

As I also witnessed the ease with which one could be drawn into the psychiatric system against one’s own will, for the pettiest of reasons, and be crushed by it, I became interested in the British ‘anti-psychiatric’ movement animated by Laing and Cooper, and founded the ‘Asylums Information Group’ modeled after the ‘Prisons Information Group’ of philosopher Michel Foucault, whom I had occasion to meet.

We wanted to bring to the public’s attention the harsh conditions of internment, and with the help of former patients I authored a little user’s booklet on how to talk to the psychiatrist in order to get less medication, what the drugs’ side-effects were, and how to get out of hospital using existing laws. Then I heard about Bateson’s research in Palo Alto and discovered Milton Erickson’s Hypnosis, and Bandler and Grinder NLP…and for the first time I knew that I could really do effective therapy using language effectiveness and systemic goal-oriented strategies.

“It was as though I felt there was something to be found, and this feeling was the stimulus for my curiosity. This was why I also took EMDR training.

“But the real revolution came after I heard of Roger Callahan’s Thoughtfield Therapy. At the beginning I was very hesitant in applying it because of its weirdness, but patient and after patient I had to recognize that Roger was right! After all these years, here was a very simple and efficacious method that could cure!

“Now, not only can we offer people a sure way to get self-treatment and heal themselves, we can also prove our case, the physiological changes brought about by the treatment, through HRV monitoring. I am currently writing a book on these very exciting years when I first experienced CT-TFTDx and VT”.

After more than thirty years of clinical practice with medicinal prescriptions spiraling down to zero over the years Dr CROUCHEZ is now attached to the International Institute for Self-help Holistic Therapies Ltd. to bring as a consultant, coach and VT practitioner his unique experience in language techniques and alternative holistic medicine to corporations, to the world of sport and music, and more generally to people desirous to have a different approach to their problems.

It has to be underlined that NLP originated from the hypnotic language patterns of Dr Milton Erickson.

Those patterns revealed themselves so effective that they have been taught since 25 years to publicists, HRD and other top-level executives in corporations.

Teaching influential language and goal oriented strategies is the specific assignment of a corporate psychiatrist.

Conjugating the incredible effectiveness of VT to individual coaching allows results that are fast and brilliant. The practice of VT doesn’t require the coach to know about the inside story: it suffices that the client “attunes to his problem” while saying a simple phrase that will be used as vocal sample for analysis.

Because of that incredible specificity of VT and as a seasoned professional I can guarantee the utmost confidentiality to my clients.

*Dr CROUCHEZ does not engage in any medical act and does not provide any personal medical advice.