love loss – Page 3 – TFT Trauma Relief

Relieving Trauma of Refugees and Immigrants

Thought Field – Vol 4 Issue 4

Thought Field Therapy and Traumatic Stress Recovery of Refugees and Immigrants

by Robert L Bray, PhD, LCSW, CTS, TFT-Adv and Crystal Folkes, MS

A pilot project in San Diego has demonstrated the effectiveness of TFT in helping immigrants and refugees to resolve post traumatic stress symptoms. The San Diego Elementary School Counseling Partnership (through a grant from the U.S. Department of Education) sponsored a traumatic stress clinic for children and families in the mid City area of San Diego for two months.

Although short in duration, it proved to be of great value. This project, serving an inner city school area, provided services primarily to immigrant and refugees. Andrew Jackson Elementary School, home base for the study, serves several immigrant communities.

Seventy percent of the 1,165 students at the school have limited English proficiency. Ninety-seven percent of the students receive free breakfast and lunch at the school. This population was chosen for several reasons. Continue reading “Relieving Trauma of Refugees and Immigrants”

Relieving the Effects of Past Trauma

Many thanks to Jackie Rioux, TFT-Dx, for submitting this Apr 19, 2011:

I have been taking TFT courses over the last year and having many successes with friends and family. I have helped a friend let go of the grief and trauma of losing a treasured family pet. I have helped several friends with general stress, relationship and work issues, and tested them for toxins as well. My friends are now quite used to hearing me talk about TFT and all its benefits and some are willing to let me practice on them to refine my skills.

My new son in law was having issues with the stress and anxiety of a new baby coming and his ability to provide for their future. I was receiving phone calls and texts every few days asking for reassurance and answers to questions about parenting. He has a wonderful secure job and he knew his fears were unfounded yet he was still anxious.

Although I have three other children who are accepting of TFT, this daughter is not comfortable with all my tapping remedies, but my son in law was willing to try it. One evening he was at the point of anxiousness where he Continue reading “Relieving the Effects of Past Trauma”

TFT Relieves Panic

By Christina Mayhew, TFT-Adv; published in the UPdate Magazine Issue 12, Summer 2009:

A friend of mine (let’s call him Art) was having trouble staying focused on his work, relating to others, sleeping at night, and was feeling very depressed and almost despondent. He called me and asked if I could help him. Art told me he had seen many doctors and had taken various drugs but nothing was working. In fact he was getting worse, not better.

He wasn’t even sure he wanted to live any more because he felt there was nothing left in his life that he cared about. I immediately asked him if he was under a doctor’s care. He said he was just released from a mental health facility and didn’t have insurance so he had to keep going to a local clinic and would have to wait for hours to see a doctor.

I asked him what happened. Art explained, “One day while driving to an appointment, I could feel the anxiety bursting at the seams. I was recently laid off from a large firm; I lost a long term relationship in a bitter break-up; I suffer from severe back pain from an auto accident a couple years ago, and now I don’t have the money to pay my overdue rent.”

Art had been looking for a job for months and said he was on his way to an interview, when he looked in the mirror and saw his face swollen, red and very itchy. He was covered from head to toe in a rash. “This was the final straw!” he exclaimed to me. The last thing he really remembered was Continue reading “TFT Relieves Panic”

The Power of TFT

The following article is from “David Baldwin’s Trauma Information Pages” and was written by Charles R. Figley, PhD, Director of the Tulane University (formerly of Florida State University) Traumatology Institute. On behalf of the institution, he is editor in chief for Traumatology, the field’s independent, peer-reviewed, scientific/medical journal.

Charles R. Figley, PhD

Psychosocial Stress Research Program & Clinical Laboratory
Florida State University
Tallahassee, FL 32306-4097
June 27, 1995

Dear Colleagues,
As some of you may recall, I sent out early last year, via Internet and other media, nominations from clinicians about approaches that appeared to offer a “cure” for PTSD. I had become frustrated that, although we knew a great deal about the etiology, incidence and prevalence of PTSD, there was no known cure. My intention was to find a cure. and if one could not be found, build upon those offering the best hope for providing one.

Thanks to the help of colleagues all over the world, we were able to find four approaches that appeared to hold great promise for reaching our goal. We were so impressed with them that we invited the innovators of these approaches to our clinical laboratory for a week to participate in our systematic clinical demonstration study. The primary purpose of their visit was to treat our clients, while meeting with our Tallahassee clinical practitioner colleagues prior to and following their work here. The Four approaches we studied were: Traumatic Incident Reduction, Visual Kinesthetic Dissociation, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, and Thought Field Therapy (TFT).

Here I would like to tell you about one of the four approaches. I do this not because we are suggesting that it is better than any other approach. All four of the approaches we investigated generated impressive results. But TFT stood out from all other approaches of which I am aware because of five reasons:

It is extraordinarily powerful, in that clients receive nearly immediate relief from their suffering and the treatment appears to be permanent.
It can be taught to nearly anyone so that clients can not only treat themselves, but treat others affected.
It appears to do no harm.
It does not require the client to talk about their troubles, something that often causes more emotional pain and discourages many for seeking treatment.
It is extremely efficient (fast and long-lasting).

In this brief space I would like to describe how it works in sufficient detail to permit you to try it yourself. By doing so, my hope is that the necessary work of clinical research will begin in as many laboratories as possible. It is only after the difficult work of science in testing the utility of the approach and an explanation for its effectiveness will it be sanctioned by our fields and utilized extensively. And, then, will we have a chance of realizing the full potential of this important discovery.

Dr. Figley then describes how to use the basic TFT trauma algorithm and invites colleagues to join him as “collaborative investigators” into the effects of TFT.

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.