Tag: PTSD

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 After Fireworks Explosion in Face

By C. Mayhew TFT-Adv:

Fourth of July in the United States is a major Holiday where were celebrate our independence and birth as a Nation. Most businesses are closed in observance of this patriotic occasion.

Major cities around the world have festivities, parades and concerts. The night ends with awesome displays of bursting color and light forms dancing against the dark backdrop in the sky. The Awe’s, Oh’s and Wow’s from the spectators can be heard echoing under the magnificent burst of light with loud pops and bangs.

For many living in the outskirts of the city or for those who choose not to travel into the crowded cities, friends and families come together and celebrate with each other at their homes. They create their own excitement and shoot off their own fireworks.

But, what happens when an exciting, fun filled evening turns bad? Our 22 yr. old son, was in a rural area enjoying the festivities with other family members. After a day of boating and swimming, everyone sat around the campfire as several of the adults went over to the secured area to shoot off their own fireworks.

That’s when the evening turned disastrous. As soon as our son lit the fuse on his firework, it exploded in his face. Since it was dark, it was hard for anyone to determine how bad he was. There were several EMT’s at the party who started administering care right away. The closes ambulance was too far so they rushed him themselves to the closest hospital emergency center.

My husband and I were 3 hours away and did not get the call right away about the accident.

At the hospital, they had to remove various shrapnel from his forehead and eyes. He had 3rd degree burns over his face and forehead and his eyes were badly burned. Continue reading “TFT After Fireworks Explosion in Face”

Lifetime Achievement Award to TFT Founder & Developer Dr. Roger Callahan

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G06pcpF03yg&rel=0]

By Gregory J. Nicosia, Ph.D., D.CEP
–President, Association for Comprehensive Energy Psychology:

At this year’s ACEP Conference Dr Roger Callahan was presented with ACEP’s first LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD. As ACEP’s president, it was an honor to present this award to a man to whom we all collectively, and myself personally, owe so much. Every time we tap on this or that, we stand on his shoulders. In every field there is a first and Dr, Callahan was the first, the original, to devise and popularize a coherent meridian based tapping psychotherapeutic method. His basic methods have been copied, modified, abbreviated and expanded upon. Indeed imitation is the highest form of flattery. But in all the myriad evolutions of meridian based energy psychotherapies, his influence can be seen. Thank you Roger for all that you have done and continue to do. We at ACEP all look forward to working together with ATFT members in integrating TFT and other forms of energy psychology into healthcare and humanitarian efforts worldwide.

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 10-Year-Old Boy’s Trauma from Dog Attack

By Dick Brown, PhD (from “The Thought Field”, Vol 2, Issue 2):

Jimmy, a 10-year-old foster child, came to his first therapy session with the hesitancy, reluctance, and resistance common to this population. In an attempt to engage him, he was invited to create some pictures but stubbornly refused. I then took the pencil and started doodling upside down and unconsciously sketched a person walking a dog.

He looked at the drawing and said, “I’m afraid of dogs.” Despite having this knowledge, I asked him to tell me about it. “When I was little,” he said, “a great big Doberman pinscher attacked me. He bit me on the inside of my leg. Continue reading “TFT Relieves 10-Year-Old Boy’s Trauma from Dog Attack”

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.