Tag Archive for: Nations Communities

Beads and bristles
TFT Sucess Stories by Bruce Ramsey, CTS,TFT DX

I have been promising you for too long that I would share some of the success stories in my use of TFT.

Let me begin with how I got to learning TFT.

I am a retired fire fighter and suffered some major traumas in my career including a fire that occurred in a previous place of employment. I attended as a fire fighter and was witness to fire deaths of nine of my friends. As a result of that I became interested in Critical Incident Stress Management.

I began teaching that and over a period of about five years became an authorized trauma trainer and a Certified Traumatologist from Florida State University. I was asked in the mid 90’s if I thought that the training was applicable for fire fighters in a unique cultural setting- that being First Nations’ communities in Canada. Of course in the USA the terminology would be native American or Indian.

I began teaching CISM for these small and often remote communities. What I learned very quickly was that all the trauma of our society happens in small communities too-car accidents, sudden death, drowning etc. The greatest difference is that most of the communities I traveled to had a severe shortage of psychological support.

In addition, as a result of acculturation, there is also a restricted level of traditional and ritual healing.

The levels of trauma are severe to say the least. I found that the CISM training was most useful but the problem was that as we taught, individuals would be triggered to past experience and become most distressed. Some were overwhelmed, abreactive in fact.

As an ethical person I found it unacceptable to go in to a community, teach, trigger trauma and then have nothing to assist in returning someone to their previous level of functioning or better. I decided to quit teaching the CISM in native communities.

Then, serendipity.

I was in San Diego at a trauma conference and by chance sat next to Dr. Bob Bray. He asked me what I did and I told him the above story. He said why don’t you do TFT? I did not know of it so he explained. He convinced me to attend training he was doing in Montreal. I went and learned the Algorithm Level and of course was astounded. I now had a tool that I could use to help people through.

Subsequently, Dr. Callahan convinced me to take the Dx training as he said the native community also needs someone to teach TFT to them to have as a new tool in their toolboxes.

I have been using TFT regularly since. I have seen and experienced some of the most amazing results. I have hundreds of stories.

I will give you just a couple.

Trauma.

As a crisis responder, I was asked to put together a team to assist a remote village with a horrible loss. Two young men had gone out in the winter and gotten lost. The community organized a search and spent days combing the territory looking for the two teens. Unfortunately without success. In fact to this date they have not found any trace of the two children. The community of four hundred was devastated. Read more