David Feinstein Receives ACEP
2012 Outstanding Contribution Award

Dr. David Gruder (ACEP's Founding President) made the following remarks on presenting the award:

'The angel is in the details!' Getting Continuing Education credit for Energy Psychology training means ACEP becomes the premier Energy Psychology Continuing Education provider. Being able to award CE credit for psychologists means that ACEP will be able to create vast new levels of visibility for EP. Creating visibility means far more widespread media coverage than ever before. Media coverage means mainstreaming EP. Mainstreaming means your practices will overfloweth. In order for the APA to allow CE credit to be awarded to psychologists for EP training, the body of research into the efficacy of Energy Psychology methods must first meet APA's criteria for at least "probably efficacious" and hopefully "established method" status.

One member of our ACEP family has done more to make the case over and over, in prestigious peer-reviewed APA journals, that the current body of EP research meets these criteria.

The Review of General Psychology is the APA's own valued source of information about innovative theoretical, conceptual, and methodological articles that cross-cut the traditional subdisciplines of psychology. Its articles focus on advancing theory, evaluating and integrating research literature, providing new historical analyses, and discussing new methodological developments in psychology as a whole.

The winner of ACEP's next award has written a painstakingly detailed review of the current state of EP research. After the many rounds of 'angel is in the details" editing that the journal editors required, his latest article has finally been accepted to be published in APA's prestigious Review of General Psychology.

Why? Because this man knows HOW to present those painstaking details in ways that are credible to the open-minded among the conventional psychologists... AND he had the grit and persistence to keep refining his article until they had no choice but to accept it for publication.

Personally speaking, our next award winner has been a dear friend ever since we first connected 12 years ago. He has not only been a deeply valued colleague, but a precious source of loving support during the lowest point in my adult life a decade ago.

I therefore ask you to rise to your feet as we gratefully give ACEP's 2012 "Contribution to the Field" award to the angel who is the Details King in the Energy Psychology field, my fellow 'David,' Dr. David Feinstein!

David Feinstein's remarks (approximately) on accepting the Award:

Thank you, David. That was a beautiful description of the etiology of the new DSM V diagnosis: 'Acquired Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.'

The Review of General Psychology paper is a follow-up to an earlier research overview that was published in 2008 in the APA journal Psychotherapy. I reviewed the existing literature and made the best case I could that the studies to date suggested that Energy Psychology appeared to be faster and more effective than conventional treatments and that therapists ought to know about it. Shortly after the paper was published, one of the top Energy Psychology researchers, Dawson Church, introduced me at an ACEP Conference before I delivered a talk. After describing the significance of having the paper published in an APA journal, he looked me in the eye in front of everyone, and said: 'David, you have taken a few grains of sand and created a beach.'

To this day I still don't know if this was one of the highest compliments I have ever received for my intellectual pursuits . . . or one of the slickest put-downs.

But when I was writing the recent paper and analyzing the 39 peer-reviewed papers that have appeared since my first survey, a phrase kept going through my head: "Oh my God, it is a beach! It is a beach!!!"

My friends, we are standing on solid empirical ground.

I am happy to receive this award. But I can only accept it in behalf of the dozens of you who recognized the need for research support, rolled up your sleeves, learned how to do research, and produced these 51 papers that make the case for Energy Psychology. The reports and studies I reviewed involved more than 75 authors. All I did, really, was to gather the fruit and put it in a nice basket.

So in behalf of all of us who are committed to using these techniques to reduce suffering and make this a happier, saner world, I thank you!!!