stress – Page 12 – TFT Trauma Relief

TFT and Grief

TFT Allows Us the Feelings We Need

By Robert Bray, PhD, LCSW, CTS, TFT-Dx

TFT in the bereavement process

In my experience, the most common problem with grief is people not grieving. When a client comes in looking for help with grief, the first question I ask is, ‘What are you doing? How are you grieving?

The most common response is that it hurts too much and “I cry ever time I remember (he or she) is gone.”

Avoiding the memories, avoiding the parts of their current life that triggers the memories, or avoiding sharing memories with others is a common coping mechanism to manage the pain even for the toughest person. Taking the time to be with feelings of love for the one who has died and integrating the fact that person is no longer with him or her is a necessary component in reconstructing a life.

Grieving is an active process requiring our engagement. Time passively passed without our conscious awareness is of little help in this process. Time spent locked in overwhelming emotion that freezes our thinking and prevents us from taking action is of less help. Making the change in our being requires living with the reality of having been given the gifts of our loved one and now being without the physical presence of his or her. TFT provides a means to getting unstuck and using our feelings in this change process.

A woman in her late forties approached me after a presentation at a conference and asked for help dealing with the loss of her son three years earlier. In his early twenties he had been killed in Continue reading “TFT and Grief”

Healing PTSD for Vets & Firemen

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Tapping into Healing for Wounded Warriors at Leaps of Faith Event

by Patricia Jennings NHC

On June 22 and 23, 2012, approximately 45 wounded warriors and some family members came from all over the US (a smaller group than in the past) to Connecticut for a weekend of water skiing, boating and kayaking. We also had several first responders, firemen, and a para-olympian in ice hockey.

One young fireman came who had been in a fire and had lost 4 of his buddies on 911. Since that time, as told by his wife and sister, he had become unresponsive and in a deep depression. Over the years, there had been no change in his condition, in spite of medication and psychiatrist visits.

His wife and sister came to me and asked if I could help him. I said I would try, if he wants me to. I gave them a brochure about TFT and a copy of the TFT Trauma Relief tapping sequence to give to him.

He received it, and after about 10 minutes I approached him and asked if he would like to try the technique. He said yes he would like to.

After checking him for psychological reversal and correcting it, I had him tap the pain and then trauma tapping sequences. We went through the sequence once and he raised his hand and slapped me a high 5 and had a slight grin on his face. We continued with the 9 gamut and repeated the tapping sequence one more time. His SUD [Subjective Units of Distress] went from 11 to 8 to 5 to 2 and finished with the floor to ceiling eye roll.

He got up off the bench and gave me a hug with a big smile on his face. Two hours later I found him Kayaking with his wife and the following day he went water skiing with some of the other vets.

One of the firemen from New York City who was a first responder to the 911 had been watching me working with the vets. He said that after the trauma that the firemen suffered, the city brought in several counselors to help but it had little effect on the firemen. Then a couple of TFT practitioners from New Jersey came in and the firemen began to heal. He was very excited about TFT.

At the end of the weekend Wounded Warriors weekend with Leaps of Faith, I had helped 22 Vets and firemen begin healing their post traumatic stress and many others took home the Trauma Relief Technique I printed out from the TFT Foundation’s free Trauma Relief web site, www.TFTTraumaRelief.wordpress.com. I have received many thank you cards and emails from the Vets and families. Please share this site with all you can, it can make such a difference in their lives.

Thank you Callahan’s for TFT and the TFT Foundation for these resources.

If you would like to help share TFT at one a future event, please contact me at pjpathways@webtv.net.

***photo from http://www.humanevents.com

Article Excerpted from “Tapping for Humanity”, Summer Issue, 2012

TFT Trauma Relief and Training in Uganda

UGANDA 2012 – Short Report

by Howard and Phyll Robson

We are delighted to make this short report on the TFT Foundation’s work in Uganda in June. The team worked hard to complete a packed program of research and training.

Training was provided for 310 Catechists at three centres within Kasese District of Western Uganda. To prepare for the PTSD study we first provided two days training for 40 catechists. These catechists would be the trainers in the PTSD study immediately following their Trauma Relief training.

The first day of the study was anxiety provoking, would all the participants attend? Many had to travel long distances, of-ten on foot. We were expectant that the study would be carried out effectively as we had been working on the details for over six months. Due to the lack of email facilities much of the detail was planned on the telephone with Fr. Peter, these conversations were recorded on our computer and sent by mail to avoid any misunderstandings.

Our first day went well in spite of our anxieties. However, the team met to identify and rectify any actual and potential problems. Working in a foreign language was challenging, due to pronunciation it was often difficult to understand each other, this difficulty improved quite quickly. The first part of the study took four days.

The first Catechist training took place in Nsenyi, the home of Fr. Peter and Training Centre for Catechists and 116 Catechists attended this two-day training.

We only had one day off before we undertook the second part of the study, again it took place over four days. We employed the same diligent method of having a team meeting each evening to ensure that all was going according to plan.

For the second training we moved to Bukangara Parish where we trained a further 104 Catechists. Each time we provided training and treatment for anyone who requested our help. The team travelled each day during the training to keep the cost down.

Following another day off, we moved to Hima Parish. Due to the distance involved we were guest of Fr Walter. We trained 90 Catechists at Hima Parish. Many of the sick in the Parish came to mass on Thursday, the day we arrived, and Fr Walter asked us to treat as many as possible. Two of the team were assigned to training and two treated the sick with the help of the Catechists we had trained for the study. We worked in the shade of the trees, watched by anxious relatives.

Saturday 30th June was the final day of the study, we planned to review 128 of the wait list group participants, for their post treatment assessment. Some of these participants had first attended on 13th June. We were concerned that there might be considerable fall off in attendance at this stage. It was therefore gratifying to be greeted by a large welcoming group of participants, still clutching their attendance tickets.

We are obligated to Fr. Peter and the catechists for their support and commitment to the completion of the PTSD study. They welcomed us into their lives and it was a pleasure to share the gift of Thought Field Therapy with them.

Free Trauma Relief for Those Affected by Shooting in Aurora, CO

This blog contains many posts demonstrating the profound effectiveness of Thought Field Therapy (TFT) for relieving trauma associated with violence, including mass violence such as the Rwanda genocide and the U.S. Embassy bombing in Nairobi.

Please refer anyone you know who has been affected by the recent shooting in Aurora, CO, to this site where we have written and video instructions for this safe, very powerful self-technique–all given free of charge. Those who could experience significant relief may be shooting victims or their friends and family–even unrelated persons who may experience trauma simply by watching or reading related news.

Healing Birth Trauma with TFT

by Pia Cowley, RN, RM, TFT-Adv & Lianne Schwartz, RM, TFT-Adv

“It wasn’t supposed to be like this…”

Current research in the US and Australia has found that around 1:3 women experience at least one symptom of trauma following birth, with around 1.5-6% developing full blown post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Con- sidering the numbers of women giving birth every day, the potential for trauma is vast.

Birth trauma, in this context, refers to symptoms of PTSD rather than physical trauma to woman or infant from the process of birth (though these may play their own part in the traumatic experience). Birth trauma is frequently misdiagnosed, and mistreated, as postnatal depression.

Birth trauma has countless ongoing negative effects: disruption to the parent-infant bond, reduced rates of breast- feeding (and the long term health implications of this), depression in partners, higher rates of divorce, higher rates of subsequent infertility in woman, and reduced emotional adjustment and cognitive/neurological development in children. One woman describes her journey after birth:

I knew something wasn’t right…everyone seemed to be ignoring the trauma of my birth. Inside my head I was screaming, “WHAT JUST HAPPENED TO ME?? AM I OK?? AM I OK???.” And outside my head, I was waiting for someone, anyone, to acknowledge what a horrific thing I’d just been through. Continue reading “Healing Birth Trauma with TFT”

Helping Soldiers Adjust to Civilian Life

Soldiers Return with Invisible Wounds

by Genie Joseph, MFA

Soldiers are prepared for combat operational stress. The Army has drilled them, trained them, polished them.

What happens when they come home and have to adjust to the “surreal” world of civilian life? Once you have lived next to life and death as your daily reality, and perhaps gotten so familiar with the stress of combat operations, returning to mundane life can make everything feel out of whack.

Retuning warriors often feel out of sync with family or civilian life, after what they’ve experienced. With prolonged exposure to high-stress, the brain may actually adapt to this lifestyle of danger — so that danger brain messages feel normal. The harder part of what they’ve experienced may be coming home!

I teach classes in media and communication at Chaminade University in Honolulu, which offers classes on all the military bases. I work with all branches of the military, as well as their spouses.

Many students walk into class in high states of stress. While I am not a therapist, and I don’t do any treatment or diagnosis, as a teacher I need to make sure that students are fully functioning and engaged, in order to make the classroom experience as positive as possible.

Sometimes students come to class after just hearing traumatic news, witnessing something terrible or even have just been a part of something very disturbing. Continue reading “Helping Soldiers Adjust to Civilian Life”