Robert Austin describes how TFT relieved the severe trauma of a child who was traumatized by watching a horror movie at a birthday party:
“I remember one of the first children I worked with using TFT. She was eight years old and had been referred by her pediatrician because she had not been able to sleep at all for two weeks.
She had attended a sleep over birthday party during which one of the other girls brought in a DVD of a Stephen King terror movie and she went into a traumatized, terrorized state and could not sleep. The pediatrician wanted to give therapy a try before snowing her with medications.
Her mother did not speak English well but I got the gist of what had happened. The girl was shaking with fear so I figured I would not get anywhere with talk therapy. I asked her if she liked to play and she said she did. I said I had a silly imitation game and all she had to do was imitate me tapping on my body.
I knealt down on the floor so I was at eye level with her and began tapping the complex trauma code with many variations. Out of the corner of my eye I could see her mother’s jaw drop in horror at what I was doing.
After about 10 minutes, mother’s look changed dramatically as her little girl’s appearance changed dramatically. She had stopped shaking, was breathing normally and was smiling all over.
I set a follow up appointment, but the day of that appointment her mother called to cancel saying that her daughter slept through that night and subsequent nights. She was very appreciative.”
A few days ago, my visiting 4-1/2 year old granddaughter and I watched an hour-long version of “Pinocchio”, after which I put her to bed. She was taking a very long time falling asleep and after about 45 minutes, she told me she couldn’t stop thinking about the whale in the movie–it scared her. So I asked her if she wanted me to do some TFT with her and she said ‘yes’. While laying next to her, I did the trauma technique on myself while touching her, and she said she felt fine. She was asleep within five minutes!