Category: depression

Awareness During Anesthesia–and TFT’s Help

AWARENESS DURING ANESTHESIA: My Personal Mission to Help Others
by Jeanette Magdalene, PhD

Published in “ATFT Update”, Issue 15, summer 2010

I’ve worked with a problem known as Awareness During Anesthesia for the last 18 years. Many people don’t know that an estimated 100 people per day, or more, will wake up during their surgery and not be able to speak, move, open their eyes, or do anything to let the doctors know they are awake! This is a frightening experience that happened to me in 1990 during my own surgery.

I woke up before the surgery even began only to find myself buried within my body that no longer worked as I knew it. The surgery began. I felt every cut of the knife, smelled and felt my flesh burning, heard everything everyone was saying and even stepped outside of my body as my heart started to go into arrest. I then viewed everything the doctor was doing to get my heart under control. I even heard the doctor say there was nothing wrong with me! He said, “Misdiagnosis, so never needed the surgery to begin with.”

The real nightmare for me began Continue reading “Awareness During Anesthesia–and TFT’s Help”

TFT Relief for Haiti Earthquake Survivors

The ATFT Foundation (ATFTF) is very pleased to be sending a TFT trauma relief team to Haiti on July 2, 2010. As on previous ATFTF missions, their purpose will not only be to relieve the symptoms of trauma of as many earthquake survivors as possible, but will also be to teach local leaders how to continue giving TFT relief to their community once the ATFTF team is gone.

The trauma relief team will be joining a medical team led by Dr. Carolle Jean-Murat, a physician from Haiti who currently lives and practices in the U.S. Having trained at the algorithm level in TFT, Dr. Carolle knows its power to relieve the effects of trauma and has spearheaded these efforts to bring relief to her home of Haiti.

Dr. Carolle writes:

The commune of La Vallee de Jacmel is situated in the Southeastern portion of Haiti and is comprised of 18 townships dispersed throughout the territory. The area was within the epicenter of the devastating earthquake of January 12 and its deadly aftershock on the 16th. There are about 4,500 homes that had an average of 3 to 5 members. The majority of these homes were badly damaged or completely destroyed.

Following the earthquake, they are overloaded with relatives –young and old, who had emigrated to Port-au-Prince or Jacmel, survived the earthquake but have lost everything. The average household is now 15 to 20. THERE IS NO MENTAL HEALTH HELP AVAILABLE!

Many who survived the earthquake are now dying of sadness, heart attacks, or just “going crazy.” I guess that it is a way for them to “check out” because there is no hope.

We are elated about the idea of offering a 2-day TFT training that will help alleviate the suffering of our people. Little help have reach them since the earthquake last January the majority of the population is living under tarps and few tents with no hope in site.

We are contemplating offering the two-day training to people in position to affect many others such as teachers, nurses, community leaders, medical and nursing students (the only medical school in Haiti was destroyed killing most of the doctors, patients and medical students), etc. Imagine all these people living under tents or tarps themselves. It would also be a great opportunity FOR THEM TO HEAL WHILE LEARNING!

I am sure that with time, trainees will eventually return to other areas of Haiti armed with an excellent tool for healing.

In view of the threat and the acuity of the mental health deterioration, I have already told my medical team that I would not spend time delivering medical care but be with the ATFTF team, whatever time it takes during our stay to make this a success.

Thank you so much for offering this opportunity to the earthquake victims. I am confident that it will create a lasting impact in their lives, as well as given them a tool for healing others as well.

Love and blessings,

Dr. Carolle

The ATFTF team will be led by Dr. Howard and Phyll Robson from the U.K., who are generously paying all of their own expenses and providing many medical items to take with them. The foundation still needs additional funds to cover the training events. If you’d like to support these efforts to relieve the suffering in Haiti, please click here.

If you know anyone in Haiti, or going to Haiti, and would like to provide them with instructions for the TFT trauma relief technique in French, you will find the instructions by clicking here.

TFT Relieves Grief of Elderly Russian Immigrant

By Katherin Bragin, CSW, TFT-Dx:

I work with a unique population–Russian immigrants 65-years-old and up. Our practice is in the heart of a Russian community, famous Brighton Beach. Coming here to the U.S., my patients brought with them a myriad of issues – some are unique only to this population group and some are universal for all elderly–the loss of  social status, familiar surroundings, life-long friends, rich Russian culture, profession or career, and part of the family (left behind).

And much more…They miss the traditional cultural closeness of the family. They come here so they won’t be separated from their children, and their children often move to different parts of the country, leaving them in Russian neighborhoods to take care of themselves.

They also have unique pain and memories: fighting in WWII, running from Germans, famine and labor camps of Stalin’s era, and concentration camps or ghetto.

They are now getting older, with more medical problems that also affect their emotional well-being.

One of my patients, Mrs. L, is in her early seventies, looking younger than her age. She is a good-looking woman, but behind her smile there is pain.

Ten years ago she immigrated to the USA from Moscow with her mother and husband. Their daughter, who stayed behind to have a baby, was supposed to come a few months later. She did not. She stayed in Moscow, had one more child and eventually lost her visa. Now she is not able to even come to the U.S. for a visit. Mrs. L went to Russia a few times to see her newborn grandchildren.

Five years ago Mrs. L’s mother became ill and passed away. A few months later she lost her husband to cancer. Now she is alone and is not able to visit Moscow any more. Her doctors advised her not to fly that far. “I had a big family and now I do not have anybody. What do I do? I cry every evening, feeling so lonely.”

I treated Mrs. L with the emotional trauma algorithm and gave her a handout to use at home. She uses the protocol every time she feels lonely or wants to cry. She tells me that it helps her enormously and she is feeling better.

I am very glad I learned TFT–and have it as the main tool in my tool box. It helps my patients enormously.

TFT Relieves Pain of Euthanizing Beloved Pet

From Tim Bruneau:

My border collie, Murphy, was an extraordinary spirit who enriched my life immeasurably. He was, in effect, “the nicest person I knew”…cheerful, happy, and affectionate to all. When he reached the age of fourteen, his health began to fail dramatically, and slow organ failure had reduced his life to a miserable existence.

In an attempt to make the most compassionate decision possible, I sought the advice of his veterinarian and subsequently had him euthanized.

While I had psychologically prepared myself for the process of mourning his absence, I truly had not thought about the intensity of emotion that would be precipitated by my having made the conscious decision to have Murphy’s life ended. I was genuinely devastated by feelings of sadness, guilt and confusion for weeks after his passing.

I had met Dr. David Hanson in my work as an entertainer, and in one of our many conversations, he told me of his work in the arena of Thought Field Therapy.

When he offered to help me address my challenges in mourning Murphy through an impromptu session of therapy, I consented with only faint belief in its ability to help.

Despite my hesitation, the session proved to be a miraculous experience. Almost immediately afterward, I felt a clarity of thought and a lightness of spirit unlike anything I had experienced in weeks. Dr. Hanson’s treatment allowed me to process emotions that had simply remained in my head and heart as an unsolvable puzzle of pain and angst.

I will always be grateful for the gift of his healing treatment, TFT, and I encourage anyone who has suffered a loss of this nature to seek it out.

TFT–from Trauma of Rwanda Genocide to Forgiveness & Compassion

The following is an article published in “The Thought Field”, Vol 15, Issue 2, by Caroline Sakai, PhD, TFT-VT:

Suzanne Connolly and I have been awed by the magnitude of the horrors that most of the genocide survivors endured and survived, with their resiliency, courage and perseverance. The women and men who were trained with TFT at the algorithm level were very caring, and reached out with their compassion and their newly learned TFT skills to treat very severe post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

It was immediately apparent that many who were the oldest child survivors in their villages that were decimated in the genocide of 1994, and who took on the responsibilities of looking after the younger survivors, never had the time or energy to grieve, to mourn, to even address or note their own feelings. They came in with dissociated states and blank stares, and said they never thought about, and did not want to think about, the genocide and had never talked about their own experiences. Continue reading “TFT–from Trauma of Rwanda Genocide to Forgiveness & Compassion”

TFT Trauma Relief After Flooding in Tabasco & Chiapas, Mexico

In this article from “The Thought Field”, Vol. 15, Issue 1, Ing. Alvaro Hernandez, TFT-Dx, describes the devastation from flooding in 2007 in Tabasco and Chiapas, Mexico–and the relief given through TFT by many generous practitioners and trainers, sponsored by the ATFT Foundation:

Climatic changes are affecting many Countries, and some of these changes are causing a tragedy for many people, especially the poor and needy.

Tabasco is a state rich in natural resources; it has the largest rivers in Mexico, beautiful large forest and rich oil fields. Its population of about 2,200,000 people is integrated with people from different social and economical levels, but most of them are poor.

At the end of this year, an extraordinary rainy season caused the big dams that hold the water from the mountains to produce electricity, to overfill. It was necessary to release the dams in such massive amounts of water that not only the small communities downstream, but also the City of Villahermosa (surrounded by the Grijalva and the Carrizal rivers), were flooded.

The total affected people was about 1,200,000 persons, more than half of the population, both rich and poor people were affected. Continue reading “TFT Trauma Relief After Flooding in Tabasco & Chiapas, Mexico”