Traumatic Incident Reduction (TIR) involves re-experiencing past traumas in a completely safe environment, free of distractions, judgments, or interpretations.
What results can I expect?
- Relief from anxiety, guilt, and dread of what the future may bring
- Reduction of intrusive thoughts of past traumatic incidents; these incidents lose their power over you
- Relief from the sometimes overwhelming pain of bereavement and reconnecting with the love you felt for a lost loved one
- Relief from second-guessing what you should have or shouldn’t have done in a crisis
Praise for TIR:
- “Since I did the session, I can no longer feel the pain previously contained in that memory. It really has gone permanently …TIR really does deliver.”
~J. Lockethomson, Victim Support, Sutton, U.K. - “I have been helped…a whole lot more than I had expected. I am becoming increasingly more able to cope with upsetting situations. Ordinary, everyday events seem less and less to trigger recurring thoughts of my war experiences. I find, finally, that I can once again look forward to enjoying all that life has in store for me, without reservation.”
~D. W. Powell, Phoenix, AZ USA 
“TIR provides a way to look through the rear-view mirror of your life and to move forward with healing acceptance so your future once again is within your own reach.”
~S. Russell, Vero Beach, FL- “I now find it difficult to even recall a particular incident which used to haunt me constantly. It works like magic.”
~C. Patenaude, Toronto, ON Canada - “I am totally at peace. My laughter and silliness are back. I’ve learned to totally love. Strongest I’ve ever been spiritually…”
~Domestic Abuse Survivor, Victim Services Center, Miami, FL USA
What kinds of traumatic events can be addressed with TIR?
Any severe and shocking event can be addressed, including accidents, injuries, childhood traumas, violent crime, or any sort of loss.
In addition, unwanted persistent feelings, emotions, sensations, attitudes and pains can be addressed, even if you have no immediate memory of traumatic incidents connected to that feeling.
How does it work?
The idea that present difficulties may be caused by past traumatic incidents is not a new one. It was with the recognition of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) as a major difficulty for many Vietnam Veterans that the idea was given a higher profile. Once the phenomenon was clearly recognized, PTSD was easily identifiable among other populations, such as rape survivors and victims of natural disasters. Although survivors of all kinds of traumas with PTSD and flashbacks offer perhaps the most dramatic example of living in the past, the phenomenon is quite common to people in general.
In normal life, most people can be triggered into momentary or prolonged reliving of past traumas, of varying degrees of severity, with attendant negative feelings and behavior.
How Can TIR Help You?:
When something happens that is physically or emotionally painful, we have the option of either facing it fully and feeling the pain, or trying in some way to block our awareness of it. In the first case, the action of experiencing (perceiving and understanding) what has occurred is allowed to go to completion and the incident becomes a past incident. However, in the second case, the action of experiencing that incident is blocked. That is, one represses the incident, and the incident (together with the intention not to experience it and any other intentions and activities present during the incident) continues to exist as ongoing unfinished business. Such traumatic incidents may continue to exert negative effects.
This blocking activity is a self-protective impulse. It “works” to a certain extent, but it can cause us to have attention and awareness tied up in incidents from the past. This has a dulling effect on our ability to perceive, to respond intelligently in the present, and to enjoy our current environment. Unexamined, unresolved past events tie up our energy and intention.
Traumatic Incident Reduction provides a safe space and the means to fully examine that which has been blocked.
A past incident loses its ability to hurt us at the point where we have looked it through and through. In the process, we release our resistance and the painful emotion and negative thought patterns contained in that past trauma. At the point where the incident has been fully viewed, we feel our attention become un-stuck from it and often have an insight or realization. This is called an end point.
By providing a means of completely facing a painful incident, TIR can and does deliver relief from the incident’s negative effects, enabling us to fully move on.