trauma research – TFT Trauma Relief

Ugandan TFT Mission: January 12 – 27, 2014

By Roger Ludwig*

Mists of mosquito netting drape around me as I type, cross-legged, on my bed. Beyond are cracked walls and doors ajar. Any effort to make and keep parallel lines in Africa is usually ephemeral. But to do that, in the form of a well ordered scientific study of Thought Field Therapy’s effectiveness, we have come, in addition to training many people and treating dozens of others.

Beyond this room, in the haze of heat, humidity and dust, are now familiar sounds. Children shout, men laugh. There is the loud cawing of ravens, relentless hoopoe of grey doves, and the distant, throbbing hum of the hulking cement factory which towers over this gritty town of Hima. It brings meager paychecks to workers who come from all over Uganda with their separate languages and appearances. They toil in hope of better lives for their wives and children. Our sweat is small in comparison but our dreams are similar for these Ugandan peoples we have come to love.

The work of our mission is now finished, ending, as it began, in fatigue. I arrived two weeks ago at 3:15 am, a smooth landing in Entebbe, grabbed bags and passed customs to see the ever hospitable Fr. Peter waiting to “most welcome” me. It is my third trip to Uganda. Fr. Peter’s musical laugh and loving heart is a tonic, to me and to hundreds of others.

Our Volunteer Team

After two hours’ sleep in a guest house I meet the team at breakfast. Dr. Howard Robson and his wife Phyll are here from England. They have recently retired, he from his cardiology practice, she from nursing. We have worked together on both prior Ugandan trips. It is great to see them.

One of our most important goals is to add to the 2012 study. At that time we trained volunteer TFT counselors, who pre-tested, then treated 256 people who came admitting symptoms of PTSD. A week later they were post-tested. It was a wait-list controlled effort that involved hundreds of people. Dr. Howard directed the study and has taken charge, in his relaxed manner, of this one. We hope to bring many of those 256 back, now 18 months later, for post testing. How have they fared after their brief treatment? Continue reading “TFT Healing Trauma in Uganda”

*Dr. Howard Robson training Ugandan leaders in TFT, 2012*

Phyll Robson, board member of TFT Foundation UK, gave the following report on the presentation given by foundation chairman Howard Robson, M.D., at the 2013 ACEP conference:

Dr. Howard Robson was very pleased to be presenting the research results from the PTSD study undertaken in Uganda in January last year, 2012. He described the care taken to follow protocol to ensure the study undertaken on 256 participants would be valid.

The Research presentation session was well attended, and there were many questions from the floor about the study itself, and about the psychological and physical changes we witnessed in the study participants after treatment. The audience were very impressed to learn that only one treatment session was provided to each participant, by a newly trained Algorithm Ugandan Therapist, to achieve our results.

Roger Ludwig gave a moving account of the changes he observed in the study participants, followed by an overview of the many transformations we observed in the local people not included in the study, but who were treated by the TFT team, some of the Catechists trained in 2009, and some of the newly trained Catechists who were keen to practice their new TFT skills.

I talked about a group of women we had treated the previous day, who were very excited when we met them again at the training centre. They told us how they had been able to sleep all night for the first time in years. Many people in Uganda suffer Continue reading “Dr. Robson Presents Uganda Study Results”