By Howard Robson, MD, TFT-Adv* Chairman, TFT Foundation UK
In August we were deployed to Jerusalem together with Suzanne Connolly from the USA, to provide diagnostic training to a group of academic psychologists. Training took place at the Herzog Hospital Israel Centre for the treatment of Psychotrauma, including participants from other areas of Israel.
The psychology team there are now undertaking a study assessing the benefits of TFT for treating the many who have suffered psychological trauma in Israel.
During the training, we were able to treat a few patients who consented to attend the group for treatment with TFT. The volunteers included a married couple with long standing PTSD who had been fortunate to survive a suicide bombing, and had been attending the psychologists with little benefit for several years.
They were treated in separate rooms, one half of the trainees treated the husband and the other half treated the wife. We joined the two groups together to evaluate he result of treatment. The smiles and the laughter said it all. The husband invited the men to dance, as is the custom, his wife just smiled and laughed while watching the men celebrating.
Three days later they returned to the centre to tell us how TFT had changed their lives. The lady had taken a bus (which she had never done since the bombing) to visit her sister, to whom she had given TFT treatment with great success. We often wonder how many more people have received treatment from her.
Celestin Mitabu, TFT Kigali Trainer and Director of Rwandan Orphans Project is leading national Radio programs, where even a Rwandan Ambassador called in for help. He is working tirelessly to share TFT Trauma Relief with his country. He has trained University students, the Red Cross teams and many others to assist with the monumental task of healing during the commemoration 100 days.
He urgently needs the funds to continue this work for the last half of the mourning period. Just look at the pictures to see all he’s doing to share healing with TFT.
We have a pledge of three, up to $500, donations for matching funds. Please help us raise the matching $1500 to send to him. He has the first ever national radio shows to teach TFT, is the first one to train Red Cross volunteers and is training teams of university students to help their fellow Rwandans. The people benefitting include the handicapped, the orphans, the prisoners, and families everywhere.
Click here to DONATE. If 100 us each gave $15 we would have the full $3000 needed to continue this healing through the last 50 days of the mourning period. Anyone contributing over $25 will receive a copy of the DVD, From Trauma to Peace. There is no better way to share the healing power of TFT.
The following article is from Sound Medicine News, February 3, 2015, and demonstrates the profound benefits an effective trauma relief therapy like TFT can have on the life of a child who has been traumatized:
Children’s brains are literally shaped by traumatic experiences, which can lead to problems with anger, addiction, and even criminal activity in adulthood, says van der Kolk. Sound Medicine’s Barbara Lewis spoke with him about his book.
BRAIN REGIONS credit: aboutmodafinil.com/cc
Sound Medicine: Can psychologically traumatic events change the physical structure of the brain?
Dr. Bessel van der Kolk: Yes, they can change the connections and activations in the brain. They shape the brain.
The human brain is a social organ that is shaped by experience, and that is shaped in order to respond to the experience that you’re having. So particularly earlier in life, if you’re in a constant state of terror; your brain is shaped to be on alert for danger, and to try to make those terrible feelings go away.
The brain gets very confused. And that leads to problems with excessive anger, excessive shutting down, and doing things like taking drugs to make yourself feel better. These things are almost always the result of having a brain that is set to feel in danger and fear.
As you grow up an get a more stable brain, these early traumatic events can still cause changes that make you hyper-alert to danger, and hypo-alert to the pleasures of everyday life.
SM: So are you saying that a child’s brain is much more malleable than an adult brain?
BK: A child’s brain is virtually nonexistent. It’s being shaped by experience. So yes, it’s extremely malleable.
SM: What is the mechanism by which traumatic events change the brain?
BK: The brain is formed by feedback from the environment. It’s a profoundly relational part of our body.
In a healthy developmental environment, your brain gets to feel a sense of pleasure, engagement, and exploration. Your brain opens up to learn, to see things, to accumulate information, to form friendships.
But if you’re in an orphanage for example, and you’re not touched or seen, whole parts of your brain barely develop; and so you become an adult who is out of it, who cannot connect with other people, who cannot feel a sense of self, a sense of pleasure. If you run into nothing but danger and fear, your brain gets stuck on just protecting itself from danger and fear.
SM: Does trauma have a very different effect on children compared to adults?
BK: Yes, because of developmental issues. If you’re an adult and life’s been good to you, and then something bad happens, that sort of injures a little piece of the whole structure. But toxic stress in childhood from abandonment or chronic violence has pervasive effects on the capacity to pay attention, to learn, to see where other people are coming from, and it really creates havoc with the whole social environment.
And it leads to criminality, and drug addiction, and chronic illness, and people going to prison, and repetition of the trauma on the next generation.
Cyber Bullying and Low Self-Esteem: A Social Nightmare
By Dr. Victoria Yancey, TFT-DX, TFT-ADV
Young people around the globe are taking their own lives because of cyber bullying. Teen suicides have occurred within the past ten years in Missouri, Florida, New York, Vermont, Massachusetts, Canada, United Kingdom, Italy and numerous other cities and towns.
Cyber bullying has created a social nightmare and has caused far too many teens to hang themselves, jump from bridges or find other ways to harm themselves. The number of suicides continues to grow with the easy access to and the increasing number of social media sites available to teens.
Cyber bullying is using digital technology to harass, embarrass, threaten, torment, humiliate or to make another person feel uncomfortable or scared. A study was conducted in 2010 by Cyber bullying research. It involved approximately 2,000 randomly selected middle school students from school districts in the United States.
The study revealed that of the students 20% reported seriously thinking about attempting suicide. Those figures include 19.7% females and 20.9% males. The results also showed that 19% reported actually attempting suicide with 17.9% females and 20.2% males. In addition, it is suggested that cyber bullying can cause emotional scarring, since it involves threats and humiliation.
Cyber bullying victims were almost twice as likely to have attempted suicide compared to youth who had not experienced cyber bullying.
Dear Friends, the TFT Foundation is very happy to announce that its documentary, “From Trauma to Peace: Making the Impossible Possible” has been accepted to the prestigious Vail Film Festival. It will also be shown at the Angor Wat Film Festival in Cambodia on February 28. The foundation will be submitting it to other film festivals as well…so keep posted.
If you haven’t seen the film’s trailer yet, please watch:
And if you wish to donate to keep this most powerful work for world peace growing–or you’d like to order your own copy of the DVD, please click here.
The TFT Foundation offers its sincere condolences to those in France affected by the recent shootings. Please let anyone you know that has been traumatized by this tragic event about our site, which has the instructions for the TFT trauma relief technique in 14 languages, including French. Here is the link you can pass along: www.TFTtraumarelief.com.
La fondation TFT présente ses sincères condoléances à ceux en France qui ont été affectés par les fusillades récentes. Faites connaître notre site s’il vous plait, à toute personne de votre connaissance traumatisée par cet événement tragique. Il contient les instructions de la technique TFT d’allègement des traumatismes dans 14 langues différentes dont le français. Voici le lien que vous pouvez diffuser largement : http://www.TFTtraumarelief.com.
By Howard Robson, MD, TFT-Adv*
