The Nairobi Embassy Bombing
Reported by Jenny Edwards, Ph.D., TFTdx
When I first heard about Thought Field Therapy, I knew I wanted to learn it for my work in Africa, where I teach seminars sponsored by the Carmelite Community in Nairobi. I thought the people there would benefit from learning a simple way to eliminate trauma, physical pain, anxiety, addictions, phobias, and the many other symptoms that Thought Field Therapy successfully addresses. A year later, August of 1998, I was in Nairobi conducting a two-week seminar with priests, nuns, brothers, counselors, social workers, and educators. Along with the requested curriculum, I had decided to include a small section on Thought Field Therapy.
The bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi occurred on a Friday, while we were in the seminar, about a half hour from downtown Nairobi. I had just begun teaching TFT prior to the point that we became aware of the extent of the destruction. By Monday, the students were questioning whether TFT was powerful enough to help people with traumas as severe as those caused by the bombing. I had pre-arranged to go with the Sisters on their hospital rounds after the training that day. As we went through police roadblocks and arrived at the hospital, going directly to the wards, doubts began to surface. I knew that TFT worked – but these people had been in a bombing! I followed the Sisters from ward to ward, wondering whether TFT could help with such devastation. People’s faces were filled with stitches, often with their eyes bandaged. It was unthinkable to ask them to tap on the various face and eye points (I have since learned that equivalent points on the feet can be used when necessary).
We finally came to a woman who had mostly lower body injuries. She was lying on her bed staring into space, clearly in a great deal of pain. Her shoes had been blown off by the bombing, and among other injuries, she had a lot of glass in her feet. Though she was on pain medication, the doctors had not been around to see her yet, and she rated her pain at a “10.” Since her injuries were less severe than others, I offered to “Try something that might help.” “I’ll do anything,” she said. “I’m in so much pain. I keep thinking a bomb will explode any minute in the hospital. I know it’s probably not going to happen, but I can’t get it out of my mind!”
I worked on the pain first, using the TFT pain algorithm, and her pain came down from a “10” to a “5.” But then it wouldn’t budge. It occurred to me we needed to tap for the trauma in order for the pain to go any lower. She rated the trauma as a “10,” and using the TFT complex trauma algorithm, it came down to a “0” immediately. After that, we tapped again for the pain, and it went down to a “0.” She looked at me a little bewildered: “I’ve played the pictures of the bombing over and over in my mind, almost without stopping, since Friday. It’s really strange. Now I’m not doing that any more. I think that I’ll be able to sleep tonight.”
The Sister then came over asking me to assist another woman who had watched the first treatment and “wanted to be healed, too.” She was bandaged and her hand was hanging limp and too painful to move. She was a “10” on both trauma and pain. I decided to work on the trauma first this time, and it came down fairly quickly to a “0.” Then we worked on the pain, which was already down to an “8” from clearing the trauma. Soon her pain too was down to a “0.” She began moving her hand around and the color came back to her face. Then she was smiling and laughing. Her husband, who had been watching everything, asked the Sister if TFT might help his neck pain. She said, “Of course!” By now the first woman was sitting up for the first time since the bombing, eating dinner, and also smiling and laughing with her husband. Later on, her husband reported to the Sister that since the bombing, his wife had panicked whenever he had to leave, for fear of another bombing. On this evening, however, she was fine when he left.
Back in the seminar, I started doing demonstrations with traumas my students were experiencing related to the bombing. They were amazed by the results and began sending me friends and family, including some extremely difficult cases. I then received an invitation to introduce TFT to therapists at a local counseling center. Though I had for a year felt called to share TFT in my seminar in Nairobi, I had no idea how timely it would be, or how effective.
Jenny Edwards, Ph.D., is a Board Member of the Association for Thought Field Therapy Foundation. She has taught TFT in ten countries, including Canada, Israel, Italy, Kenya, Madagascar, Mauritius, Mexico, the Philippines, South Africa, and the United States. She is a certified NLP Master Practitioner and a Clinical Hypnotherapist. She may be contacted at [email protected].
