A Brief Summary of the ATFT Trauma Relief Mission to Rwanda 2009

In August this year, a team of six ATFT Members was deployed by the ATFT Trauma Relief Committee to do training, treatments and research in Rwanda. Over a period of two days, the team trained 36 Rwandan therapists to assist in the study and to treat members of their community who reported suffering from symptoms of trauma. Two hundred study participants, chosen by Father Jean Marie Vianey of the Nyinawimana Parish of the Byumba Diocese participated in the study. As seventy plus other persons had requested to be included in the study, but due to the study design, had to be excluded, the ATFT trainers themselves with the help of some of the new Rwandan therapists treated 73 non- study participants over a period of two days.

The study began with two days of testing, with one hundred persons participating in the study each day. As only one of the two hundred persons tested could read, the Rwandan therapists read the questions on the test instruments in a kind of structured interview. The first testing instrument, the MPSS has seventeen questions with two scales each, and is designed to determine if the participant meets the criteria for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. The second instrument, the TSI (Trauma Symptom Inventory) has one- hundred questions and is designed to determine what symptoms of trauma an individual participant might be suffering. The TSI also had three built in validity scales.

The participants were randomly assigned to a treatment group (Group A) or a wait group (Group B), the treatment group receiving blue, odd numbered folders and the wait group receiving red, even numbered folders. Following the pretesting, participants assigned to Group A were treated with Thought Field Therapy (fifty participants per day) over a period of two days by the newly trained Rwandan therapists. The Rwandan therapists were supervised by the ATFT team.

One week later, both Group A (the treated group) and Group B (the untreated group) re-took the MPSS and the TSI with the help of the Rwandan therapists.

During the following two days, participants in Group B, the wait group, were treated (fifty participants per day) by the newly trained Rwandan therapists who were supervised by the ATFT team.

One week later, Group B, once again took the TSI and the MPSS with the help of the Rwandan Therapists.

All together 101 persons from Group A and 97 persons from Group B for a total of 198 persons, completed the study.

The Rwandan Therapists also kept track of pre treatment and post treatment Subjective Units of Distress (SUD) ratings. Over the course of the study, one hundred and ninety eight persons were treated by the Rwandan therapists for 448 problems with an average pre treatment SUD rating of nine and an average post treatment SUD score of .2 and an average treatment time per problem of less than thirty four minutes per problem or person (some therapists listed time per problem and others for person.)

During the first gap in the study schedule, the ATFT Team, assisted by some of the newly trained Rwandan therapists who volunteered to help, treated seventy three persons who had expressed a desire to participate in the study but had to be turned down due to limited space. A SUD record of their treatment was kept by the ATFT team.

On a second break in the study schedule, three members of the team, still remaining in Rwanda went to Kigali and trained twenty- two Catholic Relief Services (CRS) Employees in Thought Field Therapy. Included in this group were five nuns and others who were administrators of orphanages, AID Centers, Centers for the blind, the handicapped and the aged. All were a part of the CRS Serve Center Network in Rwanda. The team spent a third day in the field at some of the CRS Serve Centers, supervising and treating difficult cases.

While in Kigali, the remaining team, spent a morning at a center for street children, where a murder had occurred a week prior. They were able to enter into all five classrooms of the Catch- up- School, one classroom at a time and treat each class for their trauma, sadness and sometimes anger following their classmate’s murder.

It was a productive trip and many were helped. More important, the Nyinawimana Parish has dedicated an office at the Izere Center to serving as an ATFT Center in Rwanda. Two Clinical Psychologists will be available two days a week to help those in the larger Byumba Community. The thirty- four other trained Byumba therapists will also be available at various times by appointment. The Byumba ATFT Group also plans to connect to the CRS Group in Kigali. They will have regular meetings and be sending reports to the ATFT Team. Following the reports, those Rwandan therapists who are active will receive, as part of the study $100.00 in payment for their services in six months, and another $100.00 in one year. Caroline Sakai and Suzanne Connolly hope to return to Byumba next August for a one year follow up of the study.

Thanks to all who helped make this study possible.

Suzanne Connolly, LCSW

Team Leader