I JUST finished a John Barnes MFR training seminar and it was bizarre (understatement of the century). He claimed that it can help with Alzheimer's disease, that people have gone off of their medication because it cured bipolar disorder, and that it cured someone's pre-cancerous cervical cells.
The videos are very outdated and people are encouraged to express their emotional releases through these theatrical experiences where people were writhing around, shaking, and screaming like it was an exorcism. Multiple people had an unwinding experience, but there was one particular student who screamed or cursed or thrashed around just about every time. It was actually pretty stressful to be around and it made it incredibly hard to focus. It felt like there was way too much focus on getting people to unwind, and the focus on releasing and healing emotional trauma felt to me like people were trying to do mental health work. We did very little hands-on work for a 4 day continuing ed course and spent hours watching these old videos from him. It feels purposeful that he didn't include the more outrageous claims (curing cancer, dementia, mental illness) on the website and that he only talks about this in his videos.
I just needed to vent to maybe other massage therapists who get it. I feel so weird about this experience.
TL;DR - the MFR I class felt culty, was stressful, bizarre, and not at all worth the money.