Tag: veterans

Healing PTSD for Vets & Firemen


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Tapping into Healing for Wounded Warriors at Leaps of Faith Event

by Patricia Jennings NHC

On June 22 and 23, 2012, approximately 45 wounded warriors and some family members came from all over the US (a smaller group than in the past) to Connecticut for a weekend of water skiing, boating and kayaking. We also had several first responders, firemen, and a para-olympian in ice hockey.

One young fireman came who had been in a fire and had lost 4 of his buddies on 911. Since that time, as told by his wife and sister, he had become unresponsive and in a deep depression. Over the years, there had been no change in his condition, in spite of medication and psychiatrist visits.

His wife and sister came to me and asked if I could help him. I said I would try, if he wants me to. I gave them a brochure about TFT and a copy of the TFT Trauma Relief tapping sequence to give to him.

He received it, and after about 10 minutes I approached him and asked if he would like to try the technique. He said yes he would like to.

After checking him for psychological reversal and correcting it, I had him tap the pain and then trauma tapping sequences. We went through the sequence once and he raised his hand and slapped me a high 5 and had a slight grin on his face. We continued with the 9 gamut and repeated the tapping sequence one more time. His SUD [Subjective Units of Distress] went from 11 to 8 to 5 to 2 and finished with the floor to ceiling eye roll.

He got up off the bench and gave me a hug with a big smile on his face. Two hours later I found him Kayaking with his wife and the following day he went water skiing with some of the other vets.

One of the firemen from New York City who was a first responder to the 911 had been watching me working with the vets. He said that after the trauma that the firemen suffered, the city brought in several counselors to help but it had little effect on the firemen. Then a couple of TFT practitioners from New Jersey came in and the firemen began to heal. He was very excited about TFT.

At the end of the weekend Wounded Warriors weekend with Leaps of Faith, I had helped 22 Vets and firemen begin healing their post traumatic stress and many others took home the Trauma Relief Technique I printed out from the TFT Foundation’s free Trauma Relief web site, www.TFTTraumaRelief.wordpress.com. I have received many thank you cards and emails from the Vets and families. Please share this site with all you can, it can make such a difference in their lives.

Thank you Callahan’s for TFT and the TFT Foundation for these resources.

If you would like to help share TFT at one a future event, please contact me at pjpathways@webtv.net.

***photo from http://www.humanevents.com

Article Excerpted from “Tapping for Humanity”,  Summer Issue, 2012

Helping Soldiers Adjust to Civilian Life

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Soldiers Return with Invisible Wounds

by Genie Joseph, MFA

Soldiers are prepared for combat operational stress. The Army has drilled them, trained them, polished them.

What happens when they come home and have to adjust to the “surreal” world of civilian life? Once you have lived next to life and death as your daily reality, and perhaps gotten so familiar with the stress of combat operations, returning to mundane life can make everything feel out of whack.

Retuning warriors often feel out of sync with family or civilian life, after what they’ve experienced. With prolonged exposure to high-stress, the brain may actually adapt to this lifestyle of danger — so that danger brain messages feel normal. The harder part of what they’ve experienced may be coming home!

I teach classes in media and communication at Chaminade University in Honolulu, which offers classes on all the military bases. I work with all branches of the military, as well as their spouses.

Many students walk into class in high states of stress. While I am not a therapist, and I don’t do any treatment or diagnosis, as a teacher I need to make sure that students are fully functioning and engaged, in order to make the classroom experience as positive as possible.

Sometimes students come to class after just hearing traumatic news, witnessing something terrible or even have just been a part of something very disturbing. Continue reading “Helping Soldiers Adjust to Civilian Life”

Relieving War Trauma of Russian Immigrant

By Katherine Bragin, LCSW:

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.

Mr. T, our patient for many years, is a WWII veteran. He fought during the war from Moscow to Berlin and was wounded a few times. He fought in the battle of Stalingrad.

Every night he would still fight during his sleep: screaming, yelling and making strange sounds. TFT has relieved this trauma. He still has flashbacks and talks about his war experience, but his wife reports that he is not screaming in his sleep anymore.

PTSD symptoms are normally very hard to treat, especially with the elderly. I am very grateful that I now have this knowledge and skill with TFT.

The main difficulty in my work with the elderly with different levels of dementia is their comprehension level. I find it hard to explain to them the concept of SUD and often have to judge our progress by the facial expression and patient’s subjective reaction.

The other problem is how to make the handout and explanation easy to understand for use at home. It often takes three or four sessions to do so.

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 Veteran’s PTSD

Charles G. Hayward, Sr., tells how he finally found relief with TFT after many years of suffering from war-related trauma:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PM6u_t9Cxn8&hd=1&rel=0]