Time Line Therapy is an excellent form of Brief Therapy since it offers a fast and effective means for changing the chain of events leading to a certain set of unwanted behaviours or internal states.

Inappropriate emotional reactions, such as outbursts of anger, periods of apathy, depression, sadness, guilt, anxiety and chronic fear, are responsible for preventing you from achieving the quality of life you deserve.

These outbursts are often more about what happened in the past that is unfinished, than about what is happening in the present. These past Negative Emotions, which I like to call Limiting Emotions as they limit your fully experiencing your life in the present, and Limiting Beliefs, such as “I’m not good enough,” “I’ll never be rich,” or “I don’t deserve a great marriage,” create limitations and hamper your ability to create reachable and attainable goals and outcomes.

Limiting Decisions, the behaviours that result from your Limiting Beliefs, such as overeating or under eating, gambling or having extra-marital affairs also have their rationalization in past events.

Through Time Line Therapy these are simply eliminated. Created by Dr Tad James, Time Line Therapy techniques enable you to remove many issues from your past, thus allowing you to move forward towards your goals and desires to ensure decisions made in the future are made in the reality of the current circumstances not on baggage held onto from the past.

Throughout history, humankind has been aware of the passage of time. Aristotle was the first to mention the “stream of time” in his book ‘Physics IV’. William Hames spoke of linear memory storage as early as 1890. Finally, the concept, nearly forgotten, was revived in the late 1970’s with the advent of Neuro Linguistic Programming. The Time Line Therapy technique in use today is a consequence of that revival.


Demonstration of Working With Time Line Therapy – Tad James With Client Emma James

Time Line Therapy is a process that assists us:

  • To let go of Negative or Limiting Emotions from the past.
  • To let go of Limiting Beliefs from the past.
  • To let go of Limiting Decisions from the past.
  • To create our future the way we want it. 

These are the four major techniques that comprise Time Line Therapy. They are easy to do and make considerable change possible in a person’s life.

Negative or Limiting Emotions: Time Line Therapy frees you from unwanted emotions from your past. These include anger, sadness, fear and guilt, to name the “Big Four”. This is done through a visualisation process by releasing these emotions from the memories that produce them. You are then able to react freely to current and future situations without being influenced by the emotional baggage of the past.

Limiting Beliefs and Decisions: Limiting Beliefs and Decisions prevent you from achieving your potential. These decisions and beliefs have come about as a consequence of past experiences but may have stayed with you ’til today and have limited your life in many ways.

Creating your future: Finally, having resolved the unresolved issues in the past, Time Line Therapy gives you a specific technique for creating your future dreams and goals in a simple process that produces results. The process involves using our imagination in visualisation to create a compelling future that is truly inspirational and which brings about the desired outcomes.