injury, accident – Page 5 – TFT Trauma Relief

Replacing Nightmares with Hope

UPdate Issue 8, Summer

El Shaddai Orphange: Nightmares Replaced with Dreams of a Future

by Gabriel Constans

There’s much more to Rwanda than the genocide that took place over thirteen years ago. Yes, there was plenty of carnage that lay in its wake and everyone in the country (the size of New Jersey) was directly affected, especially the children, many of whom ended up on the street, with distant relatives or friends or perished from neglect. Add the scourge of the AIDS pandemic and you found even more homeless and abandoned children living on the streets. The needs outstripped all available resources.

But it only takes one person to make a difference and the street children, also known as “street rebels” in Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, were blessed with one such man. His name is NZITUKUZE Sylvester. (In Kinyarwanda, the official language of Rwanda, last names go first and are capitalized).

While Sylvester was in the Rwandan Army he had a vision that he was somehow meant to help the street kids of Kigali. He followed his vision, left the army and started taking children into his home. It wasn’t an easy task. A lot of the kids were filthy, disease-ridden, taking drugs, angry and traumatized. After a year or two of Continue reading “Replacing Nightmares with Hope”

Relieving Trauma of Refugees and Immigrants

Thought Field – Vol 4 Issue 4

Thought Field Therapy and Traumatic Stress Recovery of Refugees and Immigrants

by Robert L Bray, PhD, LCSW, CTS, TFT-Adv and Crystal Folkes, MS

A pilot project in San Diego has demonstrated the effectiveness of TFT in helping immigrants and refugees to resolve post traumatic stress symptoms. The San Diego Elementary School Counseling Partnership (through a grant from the U.S. Department of Education) sponsored a traumatic stress clinic for children and families in the mid City area of San Diego for two months.

Although short in duration, it proved to be of great value. This project, serving an inner city school area, provided services primarily to immigrant and refugees. Andrew Jackson Elementary School, home base for the study, serves several immigrant communities.

Seventy percent of the 1,165 students at the school have limited English proficiency. Ninety-seven percent of the students receive free breakfast and lunch at the school. This population was chosen for several reasons. Continue reading “Relieving Trauma of Refugees and Immigrants”

Relieving Trauma from Earthquake in Japan

We have instructions for the TFT trauma relief technique in Japanese. Go to the page listed on the right that says “Japanese”. It will give a link to the ATFT association website in Japan, which has complete instructions in Japanese. Please pass this on to those you know in Japan. It can greatly relieve the suffering involved in such a crisis.

If you need any assistance with this, please let us know by submitting a comment. We’ll get back to you as soon as possible.

TFT for Crisis Intervention

By Jim Mc Aninch, CTR, CEAP, TFT-Dx, from the “ATFT Update”, Issue 3, Summer 2005:

A Great Crisis Intervention Tool

I am the Industrial Coordinator for Pittsburgh’s Critical Incident Stress Management (CISM) team and I have found TFT to be a very powerful tool in working with the individuals in these situations.

The principal goals of a CISM team are: (1) To reduce emotional tension. (2) To facilitate normal recovery process of normal people having normal, healthy reactions to abnormal events. (3) To identify individuals who might need additional support or referral to professionals for specific care. A CISM program is neither psychotherapy nor a substitute for psychotherapy. When I receive a call it is generally associated with a fatality at the workplace.

I first used TFT at a construction site where an individual witnessed an individual fall to his death. What created a problem for him was that he had a very similar near fatality for himself a numbers of years ago which ended up resurfacing for him creating visible anxiety for him.

I was able to have him follow me with the trauma algorithm and you were able to see the change and he was no longer feeling the anxiety from his previous fall.

The next time I had an opportunity to use TFT at an electrocution of an employee at a small company with a family type environment. I first treated them as a group using the complex trauma with anger and guilt. I also included hopelessness.

I then found that some people we’re having problems with other traumas in their past so I treated them separately.

I was able to use this procedure at a number of fatalities at a number of large industrial settings with ease and great success. My team coordinator was very skeptical at first on my using this until he was able to see the success and rapid results. The coordinator was quick to see the value in TFT and we are now planning a training for the team.

Recently, I was able to take HRV readings in addition to using the TFT protocol with very interesting results.

I was called to the fatality and I was there a couple of hours after a conductor on the plant railroad was crushed between two cars. Continue reading “TFT for Crisis Intervention”

The Power of TFT

The following article is from “David Baldwin’s Trauma Information Pages” and was written by Charles R. Figley, PhD, Director of the Tulane University (formerly of Florida State University) Traumatology Institute. On behalf of the institution, he is editor in chief for Traumatology, the field’s independent, peer-reviewed, scientific/medical journal.

Charles R. Figley, PhD

Psychosocial Stress Research Program & Clinical Laboratory
Florida State University
Tallahassee, FL 32306-4097
June 27, 1995

Dear Colleagues,
As some of you may recall, I sent out early last year, via Internet and other media, nominations from clinicians about approaches that appeared to offer a “cure” for PTSD. I had become frustrated that, although we knew a great deal about the etiology, incidence and prevalence of PTSD, there was no known cure. My intention was to find a cure. and if one could not be found, build upon those offering the best hope for providing one.

Thanks to the help of colleagues all over the world, we were able to find four approaches that appeared to hold great promise for reaching our goal. We were so impressed with them that we invited the innovators of these approaches to our clinical laboratory for a week to participate in our systematic clinical demonstration study. The primary purpose of their visit was to treat our clients, while meeting with our Tallahassee clinical practitioner colleagues prior to and following their work here. The Four approaches we studied were: Traumatic Incident Reduction, Visual Kinesthetic Dissociation, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, and Thought Field Therapy (TFT).

Here I would like to tell you about one of the four approaches. I do this not because we are suggesting that it is better than any other approach. All four of the approaches we investigated generated impressive results. But TFT stood out from all other approaches of which I am aware because of five reasons:

It is extraordinarily powerful, in that clients receive nearly immediate relief from their suffering and the treatment appears to be permanent.
It can be taught to nearly anyone so that clients can not only treat themselves, but treat others affected.
It appears to do no harm.
It does not require the client to talk about their troubles, something that often causes more emotional pain and discourages many for seeking treatment.
It is extremely efficient (fast and long-lasting).

In this brief space I would like to describe how it works in sufficient detail to permit you to try it yourself. By doing so, my hope is that the necessary work of clinical research will begin in as many laboratories as possible. It is only after the difficult work of science in testing the utility of the approach and an explanation for its effectiveness will it be sanctioned by our fields and utilized extensively. And, then, will we have a chance of realizing the full potential of this important discovery.

Dr. Figley then describes how to use the basic TFT trauma algorithm and invites colleagues to join him as “collaborative investigators” into the effects of TFT.

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”