Testimonials
"A very good book easy to read and understand and very comprehensive on the subject. I have found it fascinating and it is compulsive reading.
Very well done and wish you well with it in the future."
D. McGregor, Director of Maundy Grange Charity in Accrington
"Good effort on you book and your courses and best wishes for the future and your valuable work. "
Doctor Bob Johnson Consultant Psychiatrist and Director of James Naylor Foundation.www.TruthtrustConsent.com
"This book is filled with useful information for the beginner and also as a reference for the more wider of range of therapies and i would recommend it for this purpose". Anna Broliling (B.A. Psychologist.)
Copy of article published in the sixth sense newspaper in Germany on 08.05.08
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"A valuable book and it will be useful in my work in the future good effort and best wishes.I knew you could do it when is the next book due?"
Rachal, Youth Justice Officer. Liverpool Youth Offending Team.
"Good work John and it is a very interesting book and it is up to your usual high standard best wishes for the future."
Karen and Lorraine Directors of Parents Like You Liverpool based parenting group.
Great Book very useful. John is very knowledgeable and he knows what he is talking about !!!! Keep up the good work and I look forward to the next book. Gail Heaton Y.I.P Youth Justice Worker
heston.gayle@hotmail.com
Having had the opportunity to talk to you and listening to you and also having read your excellent book, it occurs to me that perhaps people who do not know your work, would I feel benefit from an open forum meeting where the issues could be discussed. I am not sure that when you are in the middle of a stressful situation you can quite realize what you need. Once a person has listened to you and heard your commen sense approach to solutions, through your understanding, enthusiasm and caring. It may help them to decide to do something about their situation. This site is wonderful and very comprehensive. Maureen Gay. Youth Offender Panel member Essex.
John Roberts is a highly regarded and has done a lot of work with this company, fantastic book, a must read for every family and professionals, thanks for all your help. Youth Offending Team member Liverpool C. Lynch
A selection of views and comments on a recent trauma in the family one day workshop.
Question 1
Since attending the workshop, how do you feel your level of awareness of the Disorder has changed?
Feedback and comments:
"I did not know very much about P.T.S.D until this workshop and this has changed now and also influenced my thinking about the condition."
"I feel I am much more informed about the disorder than ever before and this workshop has risen my awarenes and underdstanding ."
" I have gain much more insight into the disorder than before."
Question 2 How did you feel we used the time to present the workshop?
"The time was used very well and the information gained excellent"
"I would have liked more participation, however I found both the tutors very informative and knowledgeable on their subject."
" Very good use of the time and the information given.
I am pleased to announce that we now have a connection to David Walters and his most valuable work on the web site helpmeovercome.org I can personally testify to the help that david gave me and how I have been able to now use that help to help other sufferers and their families. As result of the help he gave me, I would like to return the favour and high light his most valuable work for the sufferers of P.T.S.D and their families.This is in the form of testimonals from his former clients about his work and the impact that this treatment has had for them.
Sean Tierney, Coldstream Guards (Ret’d)
My name is Sean Tierney and I am an ex-Regular soldier/Warrant Officer and served many years ago in places such as Aden, Northern Ireland, Oman etc. I was the youngest and most highly decorated of my generation apparently (Corn Flakes packets aren’t what they used to be!) Since that time I have worked for several PMC's (Private Military Companies in the fields of Personal Security ('Bullet Catching') and Protection and the training of indigenous local troops and security personnel in places such as Abu Dhabi, Angola, Borneo, Brunei, Croatia, Dubai, Hungary, Indonesia, the Ivory Coast, Kenya, Liberia, Malaysia, Mozambique, Ras-Al-Khaimah, Sharjah, Sri Lanka, Turkey and Uganda…some 31 countries in all. In a purely civilian capacity I have worked on numerous large, onshore and offshore construction/Petro-Chemical projects in such places as Bahrain, Indonesia, Iran, Libya, Malaysia, Norway, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Turkey and the UAE as an ERS Approved Engineering Inspector. I have also been an Arctic and Mountain Warfare/Survival Instructor and Mountain Rescue Team Member in working for the Outward Bound organization at the Mountain School at Eskdale in Cumberland and the Sea School at Aberdovey on the Welsh Coast.During the course of this active life, I have taken part in and been witness to many events that are traumatic to some degree but through my training and attitude towards these events, they didn't appear so at the time to have caused me anything more than a passing thought or two. I then genuinely believed that those who were on the receiving end of whatever happened to them at my hand and the hands of comrades was deserved and I had no reason to doubt it. I have never really given much thought to such events as I believed that the world was a better and safer place without these persons being on it but have over many years had weekly, nightly flashbacks which, after each episode became just that little bit more intense. In the sort of environment in which I operated – and was happy to continue doing so – it is just not done to admit to mental 'irregularities' due to the machismo culture within which you operate, so to avoid these 'flashbacks' becoming known then I used to deliberately volunteer for night duty when these flashbacks were due so as to stay awake and there for defeat the occurrence. If that wasn't possible then I used to go for lengthy runs – 20 to 30 miles or so or have an exhausting solo physical training session - and in so doing not only avoid the expected occurrence but simultaneously gain the reputation of extreme commitment. This got me the sobriquet of being somewhat over keen to be the best at what I did as physical prowess is essential to what we were employed to do but it also made me incredibly fit to the point where successful competitive sport came comparatively easily to me. I was in fact semi-seriously called 'the ultimate warrior'! In recent years however, with my physical health declining due in the main to spinal injuries sustained as a regular soldier, I have been registered as severely disabled and in receipt of a War Disablement Pension for wounds, injuries and surgical damage due to scar tissue "attributable to service" and calculated at 70% by The Veteran’s Agency. Unable now to work off my frustrations and inner anger/angst I started to suffer mental health problems and with no worthwhile Psychiatric care available to an 'old warhorse' like me, I had the good fortune to be introduced to a Consultant Psychiatrist called Dr. Dafydd Alun Jones – who, within seconds of being introduced to me had got to the heart of my mental health problems – the first so called 'expert' to do so – and began consultations which unlocked so much of my driving force/inner angst. My mental health was diagnosed as Complex, Late Onset P.T.S.D and I was being counselled /treated for that condition. Sadly the private hospital for traumatized ex-servicemen and women which he then ran was closed about two years ago and he has virtually retired but because of his knowledge and professional skill, I owe him a debt that can never be fully repaid. Those of us being counselled /treated by him were therefore left with no protective Psychiatric cover and as such were forced to create ad hoc self-help groups so as to have somewhere to turn to confront our problems with empathetic and non-judge-mental people in similar situations. This voluntary involvement is virtually all that is available to us until quite recently when something quite extraordinary took place.Quite out of the blue, I was contacted by Major-General (Ret'd) Dr. Robin Short who was a Director of the private Psychiatric hospital that had closed, and asked if I would become a 'guinea-pig' for a new mental health curative technique that he was involved in, run by David Walters. With the venue for this consultation less than 20 minutes drive away, I jumped at the chance for as it was endorsed/recommended by General Short, I knew him personally and his previous military service both as Surgeon General of the British Army as well as Head of Army Medical Services worldwide, I knew that he wouldn't support some sort of 'quack' remedy and with nowhere else to turn then it was a Heaven sent opportunity to hopefully get some curative treatment rather than continue to rely solely on the prescribed medication regime which was my daily lot. In explaining the technique to me I was quite prepared to allow myself to be totally honest and frank about the many demons that were now beginning to control my daily life which was becoming ever more reclusive and was then introduced to David. A short mutual introduction ensued then he carefully led me into the Trauma Release Technique...I lost any sense of time and David gradually unlocked several traumatic incidents from my past which my mind had subconsciously concealed but which were in fact instrumental in my then parlous mental condition. With amazing ease he painlessly teased these events from me and began the 'collapsing' process and at the end of what turned out to have been a marathon straight five hours (during which Robin Short had quietly listened in the background and taken notes) I re-entered 'real time' and although mentally drained felt as if I was at the beginning of a new, more focused and less stressed future which had seemed unreachable earlier that day. Once arriving home, the importance of what had just happened began to hit home and all the blank spaces which were the negative conversations, events, people, places, thoughts etc. which up till then had been increasingly controlling my behaviour were closing up – just like the 'defraging' of a computer – and the resultant greater positivity in not having to drag around these brooding and negative thoughts has given me back a lot of the physical as well as the mental energy which was my modus operandi for so many years before my permanent disablement. I will never be able to do without my permanently attached elbow crutch as mechanical damage is mechanical damage but one of the more positive aspects of this as yet incomplete treatment is that I have persuaded my GP to considerably reduce my pain relief and other medication. I will of course never be totally medication independent but I will at least be able to survive in comparative comfort with considerably less medication than originally prescribed. The technique used in releasing all of this mental negativity is so effective that in practising it religiously before getting out of bed as well as before going to sleep daily means that in 'commanding' any negative influences to which I have been exposed during the course of that day to disappear then not only do I not have any further recollection of those conversations, events, people, places, thoughts etc. but it means that apart from the negative influences in the past that have yet to be 'collapsed', I have so much more mental as well as physical energy to help those whom I voluntarily counsel who have not yet had the benefit of the procedure/technique or who perhaps are not yet willing to submit to telling of their inner 'demons'.I still find it hard to believe that such a painless, chemical free procedure can be so effective in improving my mental health and the 'ripple' effect that it has as an adjunct and as it is in my nature to be sceptical of claims and hype that tend to go hand in hand with such procedures then for once it is a genuine pleasure to be wrong.I have yet to finish the initial course with David but to date I do not have the slightest hesitation in TOTALLY endorsing the procedure as expounded by David Walters and it is my sincere hope that this unbelievably simple technique becomes properly funded and a National network of counselling centres put in place – not just for our overworked and under supported military personal but also for civilians who are unprepared/ill equipped to deal with traumatic event such as the Emergency Services, Trauma medical, surgical and nursing staff, the Coastguard, R.N.L.I. Personnel and the like. Taken from the Certified Testimonials of those of we Veterans involved in the making of the DVD "After The Falklands – Finally Ending The Nightmare of P.T.S.D" by David Walters and Major-General (Ret’d) Sir Robin Short – former Head of Army Medical Services Worldwide and Surgeon-General of the British Army.
Further Testimonial from Counselling charity Ltd.
However, as with your own organization there is still much groundwork tocomplete and Counselling Ltd. would like to wish Family Trauma UK everysuccess for the future.
