I write this letter in my capacity as President of SAAP – South African Association of Psychotherapy, headquartered at Rhodes University in Grahamstown, Eastern Cape Province, South Africa. I am also a Professor of Psychology at the Department of Psychology, Rhodes University. I am also a registered Psychologist with the Health Professionals Council for South Africa.

Mr Tagar is an exceptional individual, teacher, counsellor, psychotherapist and trainer in mastery of arrange of unique and extraordinary skills which he has evolved over many years of work in a number of countries. Building on an extensive education and training in social sciences, humanities and the arts, Mr Tagar developed the field of Psychophonetics, a field which continues to expand both locally and internationally. Psychophonetics is a form of personal coaching, counselling and therapy that involves the use of verbal as well as non-verbal modes of communication: sense, gesture, sounds and visualisation to promote self awareness and a range of modes of self-intervention for physical, emotional and spiritual healing. The holistic principles of Psychophonetics (as practised and taught by Mr Tagar) resonate deeply with the traditional as well as the multi-cultural human landscape of South.

I first met Mr Tagar in 2001 at the foundation conference of the South African Association of Psychotherapy of which I am a co-founder and the current president. Mr Tagar was originally invited by us to present his work on recovery from sexual abuse with Psychophonetics. We were deeply impressed by the richness, artistry, humanity and effectiveness of his approach to this deeply concerning condition here and worldwide, and by the development of Psychophonetics in general. On the basis of his presented work Mr Tagar was accepted by us as a professional member of SAAP. His subsequent contribution to SAAP’s follow up conference in 2003 on “Metaphors as Reality for the Life-Body” and the experiential workshop he gave to the whole conference equally highly appreciated.

The wealth of publications and presentations under Mr Tagar’s name and the body of work and training he has created in South Africa since his arrival here are a testimony to his internationally professionally recognised expertise, and I have no hesitation in expressing my opinion that Mr Tagar possesses exceptional and extraordinary skills in the field of personal development, counselling, executive and organizational coaching using Psychophonetics.

Based on Mr Yehuda Taggar’s request, I would like to comment on the recommendation of his lectures for your institution.

I recommend incorporating exercises in conscious empathy into the training of teaching staff and experts in a number of social areas that monitor the development of a person’s inner self on their way to humanity.

I participated in several seminars offered by the author in the Czech Republic. In an original way, the author combines his deep knowledge of the ideas of the philosophy of freedom with the practical application of dramatization methods for self-knowledge and self-understanding of the personality of seminar participants. Participants always take away stimuli for their individual self-development and experience with practical tools of self-knowledge with which they can work in the field of empathy themselves in the future.

Curriculum Prof. PhDr. Hana Lukášová, CSc

• At the Department of Pedagogy and Psychology of the Faculty of Education in Ostrava, she worked as an assistant and professor (1975-1989).
• She worked at the Institute for Free Alternative Education at the University of Ostrava from 1992-1998.
• She worked at the Department of Pedagogy for Primary and Alternative Education the period from 1998 to 2013 and was also the head of this department.
• In 2014, she joined the Institute of School Pedagogy at the Faculty of Humanities at T. Bata University in Zlín. It focuses on the preparation of teachers for primary education and, in research, also on issues of pedeutology.

I am writing this reference regarding Mr. Yehuda Tagar, professional counselor, psychotherapist and professional member of the Society of Counseling and Psychotherapy Educators of Australia (SCAPE).

I am a Medical Doctor registered in Australia as a General Medical Practitioner since 1989 and a Fellow of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners. I have been the principal medical practitioner at the Melbourne Therapy Centre; a medical and therapeutic clinic based on Anthroposophy, since 1993.

I am currently a board member of the Australian Anthroposophical Medicine Association (AAMA) and have been a member of this Association since it’s foundation in 1995.

Yehuda Tagar has been practicing counseling-psychotherapy using Philophonetics Counseling since 1991. Until recently, with the establishment of Philophonetics Counseling training in South Africa, he was part of the multidisciplinary therapeutic team at the Melbourne Therapy Centre.

I have had a close working relationship with Yehuda Tagar during the last 9 years. During this time we have had mutual patients that required medical and psychotherapeutic management for a range of psychological and psychosomatic conditions. I really believe that Psychophonetics is a safe and beneficial modality of psychotherapy.

In my opinion Psychophonetics has a philosophical basis on Rudolf Steiner’s Anthroposophy.

I personally believe Yehuda Tagar works out of high professional standards and professional integrity. He is professionally qualified to assist patients in psychological distress arising from traumatic life events.

I have no hesitation in referring/recommending patients for Philophonetics.

We are please to welcome the inclusion of Psychophonetics as a modality of Anthroposophical Psychotherapy, based on Rudolf Steiner’s Psychosophy in the program of the British College of Integrative Medicine.

The British College of Integrative Medicine is promoting the teaching and research of integrative therapies in the UK and in Europe. We recognise Psychophonetics as an important new psychotherapeutic approach with evident benefits in mind-body medicine and look forward to being able to introduce our students to your practical teaching and philosophical views. We have been impressed by the effectiveness of Psychophonetics in quickly illuminating and powerfully addressing traumas held in body, soul and spirit and have witnessed the benefits achieved through your Masterclasses for the College and in your one to one work as a Master Practitioner in this field that you are pioneering.

We believe that Psychophonetics is an important addition to the range of modalities that Integrative Medicine doctors and other health professionals will be very keen to learn about and integrate into their own 21st Century IM practice.

We also appreciate that with its deep grounding in Rudolf Steiner’s philosophy and psychology, rooted as it is in the spiritual heart culture of Central Europe that Applied Psychosophy and Psychophonetics as a form of Anthroposophical Psychotherapy has an important role to play in the development of holistic integrative medicine in Europe, where we have strong partnerships and student interest.

We welcome you and your work to our College, Yehuda and admire the rigour and depth of your knowledge and commitment to making this new approach available to clients, health professionals and the academic community.

I write this letter in my capacity as Head of the Department of Psychology of the University of Limpopo and as President of the World Council of Psychotherapy – African Chapter (WCP-AC), in support of the work permit application of Mr Yehuda Tagar (born on 31 May 1953), a national of Australia. I am therefore competent to issue this letter.

Mr Tagar is an exceptional individual in every sense of the word. Building on an extensive education and training in social sciences, the humanities and the arts, Mr Tagar developed the field of Psychophonetics, a field which continues to expand its extremely beneficial applications both locally and in international terms. Psychophonetics is a form of personal, executive and corporate coaching, counselling and therapy that involves the use of sense, gesture, sounds and visualisation to promote emotional self awareness, maximising the use of personal resources, stress management and healing. While visualisation and sense-therapy are techniques frequently used by psychotherapists, the spiritual principles of Psychophonetics (as practised and taught by Mr Tagar) resonate deeply with traditional African practices in a particularly effective manner that is substantially different to normative Western practices.

For the past 15 years Mr Tagar has been closely associated with Persephone College of Philophonetics International, the last three years of which he has been employed as Principal and lecturer at Persephone College in South Africa. He has been a highly appreciated contributor to leading conferences of psychology academics in this country which I attended: South African Association of Psychotherapy conference at Rhodes University in 2001 and 2003, where he introduced his powerful methodology of recovery from sexual abuse and his work on “Metaphors as reality for the Life Body”. At my invitation he was a presenter at the 4th International Conference of the African Chapter of the World Council of Psychotherapy at Polokwane. Together with Professor Stan Lifschitz of the University of South Africa and Dr Corinne Oosthuizen of the University of Johannesburg he presented a successful workshop on rituals of healing to participants from universities of various African countries. Mr Tagar has published a much appreciated chapter on “Psychophonetics in South Africa” at my book “CONTRIBUTIONS TO PSYCHOTHERAPY IN AFRICA” (Madu, S. N. (ed.) (2003). Contributions to psychotherapy in Africa (pp. 91-118). Polokwane (Pietersburg): UNIN Press.). All these are but initial indicators of his potential future contribution to this country.

The great wealth of publications and presentations under Mr Tagar’s name is a testimony to his internationally professionally recognised expertise and I have no hesitation in expressing my opinion that Mr Tagar possesses exceptional and extraordinary skills in the field of personal development, executive and organizational coaching using Psychophonetics. It is my understanding that Mr Tagar desires to continue to employ his skills and experience in South Africa. In my opinion his skills in this field will undoubtedly be of benefit to the South African environment in which he intends sojourning.

I was very fascinated by the method. More so, the method is not culture-bound. My impression is that it has the potential of making a significant contribution in the treatment of abused and traumatized person not only in South Africa, but also in the whole of Africa.

I am Head of Department, Sociology, at the University of Cape Town. I wish to support Mr Yehuda Tagar, in terms of his special skill and expertise. I feel he qualifies for this in terms of these unique attributes which are much needed in our African.

As I will explain below, he has given his professional practice an African framework and context. In the past few years, he has become known throughout South Africa as a wonderful teacher of the practice of Psychopnonetics, and he has trained over 100 people of diverse languages and backgrounds, including in poor areas, to become practitioners.

I myself have undergone three counseling sessions under his principles of Psychophonetics. Not only does this combine therapy with sounds, gestures and visualization – a unique approach which he has himself developed internationally and brought to Africa – but also the aim is to complete the psychological healing in only a few sessions (unlike long forms of therapy in traditional Western psychology). The last point is important, as he is beginning training of practitioners in the African townships, where people are not able usually to afford long periods of extended therapy. Hence his approach has potentially, enormous benefits for ordinary people in our country, who welcome short but intensive treatment to help them deal with the problems and traumas of everyday life in situations of poverty and stress. Moreover, his mode of theraphy with sounds and gestures fits well with traditional African healing and therapy modes.

In the light of above, I feel Mr Tagar has very scarce and much needed skills which our country needs, for both his teaching college and his psychological therapy practices and training.

My name is Dr Leela Monti, I am a registered medical practitioner in the UK and I work as a Specialty Doctor in Forensic Psychiatry within Lincolnshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust (LPFT). I am also a graduate of the 3rd year of Mr Tagar’s professional training of Psychophonetics, an Anthroposophical Psychosomatic Psychotherapy training program in Stroud, UK between 2010 and 2013.

Mr Tagar is an Australian, South African and British psychotherapist and an international trainer of psychotherapist, and since 2010 he has worked in the UK. He is the founder of the advanced and innovative powerful modality of Psychophonetics, a practical approach to empower people in different sectors and in various conditions of mental health issues – to become their own helpers and independent in their self care and recovery, through a remarkably short period of therapeutic intervention.

I would like to commend Mr Tagar as a human being, a psychotherapist and as a trainer of psychotherapists and to recommend to anyone in a position to apply and utilise his exceptional skills in the field of mental health in Britain today, on the following grounds:

Firstly, studying Psychophonetics has been a tremendous support for my own development as a human being, as a medical practitioner and as a psychiatrist. It enabled me to maintain a high level of personal sustainability, self-care and burn-out prevention in a very high-pressured work environment, while caring for people with very challenging mental health issues in the complex and demanding field of forensic psychiatry in the UK.

Secondly, Psychophonetics provides training in ‘Methodical Empathy’ – the process of methodical cultivation of the empathic capacity of mental health practitioners (and of other health professionals), which sharpens their perceptive capacity of patients’ experiences and reality from their own point of view. I find Mr Tagar’s teaching of the highest value in my work as a psychiatrist, and I would recommend his training to all mental health practitioners in the UK. Mr Tagar is, to my knowledge, the only teacher of Methodical Empathy in Britain today.

Thirdly, the powerful, self-empowering and highly ethical intervention tools of Psychophonetics, in the hands of trained practitioners, can be of tremendous help for the strengthening, the recovery and the capacity of further self care of people with mental health challenges, on the basis of a very short period of professional intervention. Mr Tagar is the only fully qualified trainer of Psychophonetics Psychotherapists in Britain today.

Lastly – and most important for the future of mental health in this country – Mr Tagar is a regular contributor to the post graduate training of the Psychiatrists and other mental health professionals in the Lincolnshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust (LPFT), lecturing on psychotherapy and self-care topics to our mental health care team here: Methodical Empathy, self care for the caring professionals, burn out prevention for practitioners and on Psychophonetics approach to the recovery from the trauma of past sexual abuse. His contribution is highly appreciated by our team of psychiatrists and other mental health practitioners here.

On the basis of Mr Tagar’s good work in post graduate education of mental health professionals in this country, alongside the other contributions listed above, he is uniquely capable of sustainable contributions to the mental health care services in this country.

I am a registered clinical psychologist and have been practicing in Cape Town for more than 10 years. I have also served as a member of the Council of the Psychological Society of South Africa in the capacity of Chair of its Division of Health and Sport Psychology. In my previous career I was Chair and Managing Director of one of the BP Group of Companies.

As Chair of COCHASA and a member of its national executive since its foundation, I have had full opportunity to observe the arrival in South Africa of a number of new modalities of healing and therapy and of their development into fully acknowledged professions. In the light of my experience, my view of Psychophonetics, which has been developed by Mr Tagar, is that it offers a valuable contribution to the range of healing modalities available to the South African public. Mr Tagar is an exceptional individual in every sense of the word and building on his extensive education and training in social sciences and the arts, Psychophonetics has become a field which continues to expand internationally. It comprises a form of counselling and therapy involving the use of sense, gesture, sounds and visualisation to promote emotional healing. While these techniques are frequently used by psychotherapists, the spiritual principles of Psychophonetics (as practised and taught by Mr Tagar) resonate deeply with traditional African practices in a particularly effective manner that is substantially different to normative Western practices.

The wealth of publications and presentations under Mr Tagar’s name is testimony to his internationally professionally recognised expertise and I have no hesitation in expressing my opinion that Mr Tagar possesses exceptional skills in the field of personal development, executive and organisational coaching using Psychophonetics. I have personally witnessed Mr Tagar’s clinical work demonstrated on clients in Cape Town and found it showing speedy and effective benefit. I have also attended as part of a final examination panel for the graduation of a leading medical practitioner who has completed the three-year professional course in Psychophonetics offered by Mr Tagar. I found the case presentation on a complicated psycho-somatic topic most convincing, and a powerful demonstration of Mr Tagar’s ability as a methodology developer, teacher, trainer and supervisor in this field.

I take this opportunity of wishing him every success in his future endeavors.

Ian Gillespie

• Chair COCHASA (Confederation of Complementary Health Associations of South Africa);
• Member of the National Executive of Action on Elder Abuse;
• Member of the National Executive of the Joint Forum for Policy on Ageing; Life Member Economic Society of South Africa;
• Life Member Psychological Society of South Africa;
• South African Sport Merit Award for Coaching