TFT Foundation – Page 12 – TFT Trauma Relief

TFT Relieves Suffering of Children in Rwanda

The following was written by Fr. Augustin Nzabonimana, director of the Izere Center, Rwanda, where TFT is used to relieve the suffering of those who have undergone horrendous trauma from the genocide, being orphaned, and other atrocities:

Discover the meaning of life using TFT!!!
TFT CAN MAKE YOU HAPPY!!!
Look how TFT Is helping the children with disabilities who live at Izere Center!

Many people we are treating at Izere Center come with depression, hopeless, angry and grief, with PTSD and extreme trauma,…! Somme time we need to lodge those who have an extreme trauma, fear and depression.

And, as Izere center is a social Center, we receive many cases to helped: Widows with low income, handicapped children, people with different incurable diseases, orphans,…

TFT is helping us to deal with all cases which need the high knowledge in psychology, sociology, theology and philosophy.

The pictures of the children who lie at Izere Center, I took them in different time after the long observation. It was no easy to see the happy and dancing. When they saw someone coming to them they went to hid themselves!

But now, when they have problem they go directly to see me, Adrienne or Betty to be treated with TFT. And I was very happy to see them treat themselves!!!

And I’m really happy to see my dear children friends dancing, singing and greeting the visitors of Izere Center. Note that many of those children are orphans and handicapped. We feed them, lodge them and bring them at school. They are my best friends children!!!

TFT Transforms an Abused Young Man

A Completely Transformed Young Man…

by Kristin Holthuis, MD

Here is a case study, with a client yesterday, it was so powerful, and, I just used some Algorithms…

Client was a 19 year old male, P, with a history of sexual abuse of nephews, and severe physical abuse by his father. His sister had been almost killed by his father several years ago, and also had been severely sexually abused.

I had been seeing his sister for multiple issues and she is doing so well that she decided to share her therapist (me) with her brother.

Note: They both live still with their father, who is trying to behave (after police intervention several years ago) but who recently has been emotion- ally abusive to this son again.

P. came in to work on what he calls ̈his frustration ̈ of not having work.

He looked very angry, with a kind of dark cloud around him. He has been looking for a job for 2 years now, with no success, and the family has gone through great financial challenges. He never smiled, almost didn ́t look me in the eyes, and was quite reluctant to talk.

I used some time to establish rapport, explaining about TFT and telling him he didn ́t have to tell me details. (His sister told me that he had been sexually abusive to his younger brother, which he was very ashamed about… he didn ́t mention this to work on in this session).

He asked me if I thought he was bipolar or so, and I explained that in any case it was important to address traumas, in order to be able to be free from the past… some tears came to his eyes, like regaining hope.

So when I asked if something else was going on he told me he doesn ́t speak to his father anymore since 3 months, and the situation in his house is very tense. I suggested we work on that first, since he stated he was so disappointed and angry with his dad, that he felt his presence as a dark energy, a 100 on a scale of 0 to 10!

We started to work on his anger and the deception of his father,

Beginning SUD was 100 (in his words), with a dark overwhelming feeling when thinking of his father. We used the complex trauma algorithm with anger, and it dropped to 8, a little smile and surprised expression came to his face.

We corrected several reversals, the 9 gamut and completed the sequence and the floor to ceiling eye roll and he reported his SUD was 0… He started to laugh and couldn ́t stop!! (It all took but 5 minutes.)

I then asked him to focus on his father and his shouting at him, and he didn ́t get upset at all!!

Then he wanted to work on his frustration of not finding a job, anxiety and lack of hope and self- esteem. His beginning SUD was 8.

I chose to use the complex trauma algorithm with guilt, and his SUD dropped to 5, so we completed the 9 gamut and sequence and it dropped to 4.

He referred to sadness and lack of self-esteem… so I repeated the sequence again and added the gamut 50 and some reversal corrections. After the eye roll his SUD was 0…

He laughed out loud and was completely transformed, with a sparkle in his eyes.

I gave him flower essences, and will see him back in one month.

Home work: PR corrections every hour and look for a strategy to get some experience in his job offering his services part-time for free.

During the session it was about 30 minutes rapport building and explanation, two times 5 – 10 minute treatment sequences, five minutes of laughter and 10 minutes of future strategies.

A completely transformed young man… I am looking forward to see how family dynamics might change too!

Excerpted from “the thought field”, Vol. 21, Issue 4

TFT Study in “African Journal of Traumatic Stress”

The TFT Foundation is very pleased to announce that its study on the effects of TFT on PTSD, led by TFT Foundation Trauma Relief Committee chairperson Suzanne Connolly and conducted in Rwanda in 2009, was recently published by the “African Journal of Traumatic Stress.” The study abstract is below. For the complete study, please click here.

Abstract

The use of Thought Field Therapy (TFT), a brief therapy technique, is examined in a study titled, Utilizing Community Resources to Treat PTSD: A Random Controlled Study Using Thought Field Therapy, to determine if there is a significant difference in the reduction of trauma symptoms between the treated group and the untreated group post treatment.

Study participants in the waitlist group received treatment after having completing the posttest. One-hundred and sixty four adult survivors of the 1994 Rwandan genocide received a one-time trauma-focused TFT intervention in this randomized waitlist controlled study. Prior to the study,TFT techniques were taught to community leaders, who then provided them in their native language, Kinyarwanda, to the participants during an individual session. Pre- and post-intervention surveys of trauma symptoms included the Trauma Symptom Inventory (TSI)

(Briere, 1995) and the Modified Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Symptom Scale (MPSS) (Falsetti, Resnick, Resnick, & Kilpatrick, 1993). After one week, significant differences were found in trauma symptoms and level of PTSD symptom severity and frequency between the treatment and the waitlist control groups. Participants in the waitlist group experienced significant reductions in trauma symptoms following their treatments,which took place after the first posttest. These positive outcomes suggest that a one-time, community leader facilitated trauma-focused intervention may be beneficial with protracted PTSD in genocide survivors.

TFT–Simple and Powerful

It is amazing that a simple Thought Field Therapy protocol, or algorithm, like the one we teach in this blog, can have such a profound effect. We see evidence every day of TFT transforming lives, even at its most basic level of standardized algorithms. The following is an example, given in response to the request “Please share how Thought Field Therapy helped you”:

Problem: “I experienced PTSD, severe anxiety, and intense stress.”

Results: “I felt balanced after doing the algorithms! The relief was wonderful and it was like feeling sane again. I practice the algorithms regularily because I love the feeling of balance it evokes within me.”

TFT and Rwanda’s Remembrance Day

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybnNgW3Gzy4&rel=0]

In April — July 1994, extremists from the ethnic majority murdered between 800,000 and 1,000,00 persons, mostly of the ethnic minority, and displaced two million more.

Children witnessed their families killed before their eyes, people left maimed and scarred. The trauma and terror of this time left the country without peace, without trust and without hope. TFT has played a large part in mending these wounds.

Every year in April, the Rwandan people have a Remembrance Day. A period of time to re-affirm a commitment to peace, understanding, hope and to never let this happen again.

The strength of TFT has become so well-known, practitioners were invited to several of the events to treat those overcome by grief, trauma and pain when remembering those days.

TFT Helps Young Man Reclaim His Life

By Monika D’Agate, London, UK, driving instructor and TFT therapist, shares how a student of hers used TFT to help a nephew reclaim his life.*

This young man is a very kind and sensitive individual, high achiever with very good grades at school. He has a supportive and caring family.

He only had his driving license for one year when an accident happened. Driving his father’s car only on occasion had given him very little experience. Furthermore, the country he lived in has very poor standards of competence, allowing people to take their driving test only after 30h of practical driver education.

Where it could be enough for someone with existing skills, for most people starting from scratch, it’s half or even less of what is really necessary to be competent and safe on the road. Sometimes people think that they are born with driving skills and they acquire more common sense as they get older. It’s rarely the case for the former one and not always the case for the latter.

One late evening, this 19 year old was driving back home from his factory, where he had a part time job. His parents bought him a car the week before. He was approaching a bend, not going fast, but when a car came up from the opposite side, blinding him with its high beam lights, he hit something.

It was a man on a bicycle, wearing dark clothing, on a bike without any lights. Continue reading “TFT Helps Young Man Reclaim His Life”