The TFT Foundation is very pleased to announce that its study on the effects of TFT on PTSD, led by TFT Foundation Trauma Relief Committee chairperson Suzanne Connolly and conducted in Rwanda in 2009, was recently published by the “African Journal of Traumatic Stress.” The study abstract is below. For the complete study, please click here.
Abstract
The use of Thought Field Therapy (TFT), a brief therapy technique, is examined in a study titled, Utilizing Community Resources to Treat PTSD: A Random Controlled Study Using Thought Field Therapy, to determine if there is a significant difference in the reduction of trauma symptoms between the treated group and the untreated group post treatment.
Study participants in the waitlist group received treatment after having completing the posttest. One-hundred and sixty four adult survivors of the 1994 Rwandan genocide received a one-time trauma-focused TFT intervention in this randomized waitlist controlled study. Prior to the study,TFT techniques were taught to community leaders, who then provided them in their native language, Kinyarwanda, to the participants during an individual session. Pre- and post-intervention surveys of trauma symptoms included the Trauma Symptom Inventory (TSI)
(Briere, 1995) and the Modified Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Symptom Scale (MPSS) (Falsetti, Resnick, Resnick, & Kilpatrick, 1993). After one week, significant differences were found in trauma symptoms and level of PTSD symptom severity and frequency between the treatment and the waitlist control groups. Participants in the waitlist group experienced significant reductions in trauma symptoms following their treatments,which took place after the first posttest. These positive outcomes suggest that a one-time, community leader facilitated trauma-focused intervention may be beneficial with protracted PTSD in genocide survivors.