Category: Trauma

YOU Can Help Relieve Suffering from Trauma in Rwanda

In August, 2009, Dr. Caroline Sakai and Suzanne Connolly led an ATFT Foundation Trauma Relief Team to teach community leaders in Rwanda to use TFT to help their fellow Rwandans.

This training took place at the IZERE Center for Peace and Reconciliation in Byumba, and 36 community leaders were trained over a period of two days. The newly trained Rwandan therapists then treated over 200 of their countrymen and women for symptoms of trauma, and continue to do so today with the support of the ATFT Foundation.

The Foundation is completely supported by donations and has established a sponsorship program to help support the Rwandan therapists. Sponsors will be able to get personal reports, handled through the ATFT Foundation, from their adopted therapist. The cost to sponsor one full-time therapist for one year is $2000; $300 for a part-time therapist for one year; or $150 for a part-time therapist for six months. This is a powerful opportunity to make a stand for world peace!

If you’d like to sponsor a therapist, or learn more about this program, contact sheila @ atft.org. To see a summary of self-reports (translated into English) by the Rwandan therapists three months following the ATFT Foundation training team’s departure, click here.

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”

Free Trauma Relief for Haiti

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This photograph produced by Agência Bras

Message from Ms. Joanne & Dr. Roger Callahan (founder and developer of TFT):

While it may be too soon to think about helping with the psychological traumas of the survivors in the after effect of the massive earthquake in Haiti, it is important to begin the psychological healing of the families and friends who are living elsewhere, and providing trauma relief for the rescue crews, first responders, troops going in to serve and their families. Even the press and viewers are being effected by the constant stream of heart wrenching images and reports of losses.

The ATFT Foundation has provided Thought Field Therapy® (TFT), the original meridian tapping therapy for trauma, to victims of wars, genocides and natural disasters including Hurricane Katrina and the floods in Tabasco, Mexico. TFT  has been safely used to heal psychological problems for 30 years, and PTSD studies have demonstrated it to be highly effective in quickly eliminating the debilitating effects of even the worst of traumas with lasting results.

Early and regular use of these safe, self-applied protocols, can reduce or eliminate crippling grief, secondary traumatization, compassion fatigue and burn-out of our rescue workers and first responders. TFT can also reduce the stress and fears burdening the families of the rescue workers and response teams on the ground.

To this end, the ATFT Foundation’s TFT Trauma Relief Blog teaches these TFT
trauma relief procedures in English, Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Russian, and Spanish. These procedures are the very same powerful tools used successfully in Kosovo with war victims, Rwandan genocide survivors, New Orleans Hurricane Katrina victims, and other traumatized regions.

The tapping techniques are provided in print and video formats to all who are in need. Please, if you have any family or friends that have been affected by the devastating earthquake in Haiti, or have loved ones deployed in the rescue efforts, take advantage of these free, powerful self-help tools.

You can also receive a Free Stress Relief Guide at www.RogerCallahan.com.

TFT Relieves Rape Trauma of Boy with Downs Syndrome

The following is an article by Nora Baladerian, PhD, TFT-Dx, from “The Thought Field” newsletter Vol. 15, Issue 3:

One day, now several years ago, I received a referral to work with a
 young man who had recently been raped. He has Downs Syndrome with severe mental retardation, and extremely limited expressive language.

Since the rape, he had been severely depressed, and had acquired a condition of severe pain upon urination. His mother had taken him to the GP, to the urologist, and several tests had been done to ascertain the cause of the pain. They found no physical source for the pain.

His countenance was down, one could almost see the draw down of 
the depression and trauma he was 
feeling. Continue reading “TFT Relieves Rape Trauma of Boy with Downs Syndrome”

TFT Relieves Severe Traumas of Rape

The following is an article by Sharon Hales, TFT-Dx, rape crisis specialist, from “The ATFT Update”, Issue 11, Spring 2009:

TFT MUCH NEEDED IN RAPE CRISIS WORK

I’ve worked full time in a rape crisis centre for 14 years, counseling women who had been raped or sexually abused. It would typically take about 1- 2 years of weekly therapy sessions for survivors of rape to reach a satisfactory level of recovery, but not a complete cure, from their trauma. For survivors of child abuse, it could take anywhere between 2 and 4 years to stabilize.

In addition to our rape therapy, many of the survivors had previously accessed psychological support through the National Health System.

Repeating The Trauma Is Cruel

Although I accepted the longevity of this work, I equally felt it was very cruel. Throughout those 14 years, I studied as many different techniques as I could, and I strove to develop resources that would speed up this process for survivors.

When I received an invitation in 2002 to train in Thought Field Therapy, I was extremely skeptical and cautious. It sounded too good to be true. But, on the other hand, Continue reading “TFT Relieves Severe Traumas of Rape”