It has been my very great pleasure to collect and edit stories of how Traumatic Incident Reduction (TIR) has made a difference in people’s lives. In the 20 years since Frank A. Gerbode began developing the technique known as TIR, it has spread as far as Australia and Russia and from Alaska to Brazil. TIR has been successfully applied by not only psychologists and social workers but also by ministers and even lay trauma survivors, such as Vietnam veterans. Furthermore, it has proven its usefulness in the full spectrum of human woes: from birth to bereavement, war veterans to widows, children to car crash victims. TIR is used every day in a variety of locales beyond the therapist’s couch including domestic violence centers, jails, and even the frontlines of disasters.
I believe the multiplicity of voices and experiences that you find in this book makes the case for the broad workability of TIR. At the time of this writing, this is the first book to embrace the experiences of dozens of practitioners and clients in varied milieu and weave them into an argument for efficacy. If this book had been merely the work or experience of a single author, its voice would have been considerably weaker.
TIR allows practitioners to address trauma more deeply while simultaneously resolving trauma quickly. This allows practitioners to be more effective and able to handle more clients. Anecdotally speaking, compassion fatigue is virtually unknown among TIR practitioners. The following quote from Alex Frater, Ph.D will testify the power of this:
"The results I have obtained since returning to Australia with this innovative therapy are nothing short of miraculous. TIR has done nothing to reduce my workload, but it has increased my efficiency enormously. My trauma-related patients now number something like 45/week, up from the 20 or so that I was seeing at the time I went to California, and at the same time TIR has, in fact, enabled me to produce better, faster, and much more thorough results in dealing with trauma and related matters than have any other techniques at my disposal. Quite fantastic, really. More than worth every bit of time and expense of traveling to America for the training."
If TIR existed whole and independent of everything else, it would still be the marvelous tool that you’ll learn about in this book. In fact, TIR is part of Applied Metapsychology, a larger area of study developed simultaneously by Dr. Gerbode. Along the way, I’ll be introducing a few other of the key procedures available in Metapsychology (most often, that of Unblocking). The philosophy of Metapsychology is developed further in the final chapter of this book as well as Dr. Gerbode’s own book Beyond Psychology: Introduction to Metapsychology.
One of the challenges of editing lies in the classification and categorization of the stories presented herein. Keep in mind that these divisions are arbitrary, and though a practitioner may be highlighted in a particular area of trauma, it doesn’t imply that such a practitioner is limited to that area, in general practice or specifically with using TIR. For example, John Nielsen has had great success in working with jail inmates, but their traumas are not unique to prisoners. In one case, the root trauma of an inmate related back to experiences as a civilian in the Bosnian conflicts.
It’s also important for you to understand what this book is not about. Specifically, it’s not a "how to" manual or instructional guide of any sort. Although you can learn the complete theory from the textbooks of Frank A. Gerbode, M.D., Gerald French, and Bisbey and Bisbey, the only way to fully achieve the potential results of TIR is to attend a TIR Workshop.
At this point, you may be wondering why I personally decided to write this book given that a perfectly fine technical and training environment already exists. In the past 20 years the good word about TIR has not spread outside certain small circles of Traumatology and into widespread public knowledge.In early 2003, I heard a call-in program on National Public Radio about Vietnam veterans and their families suffering the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). They discussed the full gamut of flashbacks, panic attacks, unaccountable rage, depression, substance abuse, and other aspects of PTSD. The expert’s consensus was basically "Well, you just try to be patient and understand what they’re going through and maybe over time they’ll get better."
This sort of scarred-for-life mentality is promulgated on the six o’clock news after each and every disaster. As such, the public at large is left with the impression that really nothing can be done about the effects of trauma. I believe what’s missing, the presence of which would make a difference, is a book presenting the possibility for healing that TIR offers.
