Testimonials From Margaret's Clients

The results of my intensive therapy session with you have been truly amazing. Had I not experienced these results myself I would not have believed they were possible. Sadly, my friends keep asking me “How are you doing?” as if I was still carrying the same burdens that were definitively released in therapy. Some just don’t believe such healing is possible.

Results of Therapy:

1. Overall decreased anxiety
2. Overall decreased muscle tension
3. Very mentally alert upon waking in the morning. I no longer require 15 minutes to attain mental alertness
4. Sleeping deeper and sleeping less
5. Increased physical and mental stamina
6. On February 17th I had an extremely good day. Nothing out of the ordinary happened but my psychological experience throughout the entire day was a major shifting of affect……no negative thought or reflections, happiness, very strong positive attitude
7. The heart arrythmia I had been suffering from for a few years has not returned since therapy
8. The pain and numbness in my right hand from a dog bite has ceased.
9. Increase in appropriate boundary setting with others.
10. Marked increase in effectiveness in engaging other hostile men. Firmly standing my ground but keeping my cool.
11. So many of the positive benefits of therapy are difficult to express. When a memory becomes “refiled or deleted” and its toxic effect is removed, I no longer reflect on it or remember it but the beneficial effects of having that memory processed and refiled are very great.
12. I know I keep harping on this but a very major effect of therapy relates to what I have experienced in my 3D visual perception. I must have had a traumatic experience in my brain that interfered with my ability to process 3D visual perception. There is a very serious and marked change in the way my eyes see things in 3D now. It is exactly like seeing the world in fresco style 2D and then suddenly seeing in 3D permanently. Driving past a row of trees in the car is fascinating and beautiful to me. So are panoramic views or looking at landscapes. For the first two weeks after therapy I found myself looking and staring at collections of three dimensional objects for hours.

Thank you so deeply from the bottom of my heart.

You saved my life.

The sound of my cell phone ringing in the middle of my workday instantly sends my stomach into turmoil. Sure enough, it’s the school. The secretary, with whom I’m on a first name basis, informs me I need to pick up my 5th grade son as he is suspended for hitting. Once again, he has overreacted to some horrendous injustice (someone cut in line, a kid really was “out” in the kickball game, 2 + 3 was 6 yesterday but today they are saying it’s 5).

Sam is my huge-hearted, deeply spiritual, animal-loving, athletic, cuddly son. He’s been in my heart and home since he was 5 days old. A preemie, born crack-addicted with an inability to self-soothe. Over the past 12 years we have been kicked out of churches, restaurants, neighborhoods, and schools. He began the medication regime at the age of 3. Clonidine, Ritalin, Abilify, Celexa – to name a few. He began the therapy regime at age 4 after he got kicked out of preschool – behavior modification, talk therapy, art therapy, and prayer therapy.

In the spring of 2013 he was 50 pounds overweight, aggressive and impulsive, and throwing multiple fits a day at home and at school. He felt dumb, inept, and out-of-control. He HATED feeling these things but felt powerless to change them and I felt powerless to help.

Two weeks of Trauma Therapy using the ITT model changed our lives forever. I know it sounds unbelievable, if I wasn’t living it, I wouldn’t believe it myself. After treatment, the therapist explained that I had a window of opportunity to impact his life. All the behaviors stemming from various traumas (in-utero drug exposure, adoption, medical procedures) were “resolved.” I needed to adjust my parenting to reflect the fact that he was not inherently unable to behave due to trauma and neurological issues relating from his birth circumstances. The transformation was extremely quick and drastic changes occurred daily.

Six months later I have a totally different child. He has dropped 35 pounds and is successful in school for the first time ever. He no longer throws fits or is aggressive. He is a quick thinker and VERY funny. He has goals for his life and hope for his future. I consider all his behaviors “normal” at this point. Our home has gone from chaotic to peaceful. I no longer cringe when the phone rings in the middle of the day.

– Ohio

After pursuing a career in veterinary medicine and spending 10 years co-managing a large dairy operation, my husband and I realized our lives felt empty and unfulfilled without children and focus of family life. We decided to begin looking into adoption in 2008 since having children biologically wasn’t an option.

By May 2009, we had been paired with two siblings that were being raised in the foster care system as their parent’s rights had been terminated due to abuse and neglect. Michael was 4 years old and Elizabeth was 3 years old when they entered foster care and unfortunately this did not put an end to the abuse they were being subjected to. They endured an additional two long years of both sexual and physical abuse by their foster parents before CPS realized something was terribly wrong. By the time we became a family, the children had gone through four different foster home transitions. The last foster care home was a placement that was housing six foster children that were the hardest to find placement for because by this point in their lives their behaviors were so extreme due to traumas and emotional instability.

We were probably the typical “ignorance is bliss” couple walking into our adoption. Not realizing the severity of our children’s prognosis and having the age-old concept that our love will solve everything and it doesn’t. Michael was almost 8 years old and Elizabeth was 6½ years old. Michael was diagnosed with ADHD, ODD and PTSD. He was on a prescription of Adderall and Clonidine. Elizabeth was diagnosed with ODD, depression, attachment disorder, PTSD and bipolar disorder. She was on a prescription of Abilify. I remember as the adoption was taking place and I was maintaining their appointments with their existing psychologist and behavior therapist noting the phonebook size patient chart for each child. However we were now on our own and behaviors were still running rampant.

The first two years as a family were a steep learning curve for me and my husband. We searched frantically for solutions to help our children heal. We felt like a sinking ship without much hope as our children raged and acted out their anger every day at us and each other. The violence and aggression was unexpected but understandable as we became aware of their past experiences and traumas. We put all we had emotionally and financially into trying to help our children find help. I gave up my career to be a stay at home mom and even began homeschooling since it became quite evident that the children needed time to bond and learn how to regulate. This was impossible with a normal school schedule for them to accomplish. They would come home from school full of anxiety and stress from trying to maintain with peer pressures and school expectations and act out worse than ever. We began working with a therapist who specialized in children with reactive attachment disorder syndrome. We traveled to her office 180 miles from our home every week for a full day of sessions for almost two years. We participated in healing heart camps and had hired help come into our home. In total we spent over $90,000 in three years just in counseling support doing everything we could to give the children a chance at a life without the violence and anger they just could not let go of.

It wasn’t until the end of 2012 when we found the help that finally made the difference. We took the children for a five-day session of trauma treatment using the Instinctual Trauma Response model. It was amazing to watch the transformation of the children almost overnight. They were finally emotionally freed from feelings that had held them in bondage to anger for so many years. The time we had put into trying to help them before the treatment began to pay off. As parents we had already learned how to parent children with extreme traumas and behaviors so we could immediately begin applying these skills to help them undo bad habits. But the key was they were finally emotionally free to respond without the fear that their traumas were still occurring in their present state. Our insurance billing is evident to this healing transformation. Since the trauma treatment using the methods of the Instinctual Trauma Response model we haven’t spent any more time or money on counseling. We just had a full year anniversary from the treatment with complete success. Our children have begun to have healthy relationships with other children and participate in extracurricular activities that before they would always sabotage with their behaviors or tantrums. My daughter has made remarks to me that she no longer has the memories of sexual abuse like she did before, she says she can’t bring them up to mind even if she tries. Our children are prescription free and living normal childhood lives finally.

After watching the healing process that my children went through with their trauma treatment, I now realize how many children there are out there that could also benefit from this type of treatment. Many children that present challenging behaviors are stuck emotionally in fear-based responses because of life experiences that traumatically affected them at some point in their lives. Unfortunately, they are not able to respond to the love and logic parenting skills we are all taught until they can be released from the fear driving memories that keep them in high alert and survival mode. The benefits of treating traumas that are driving challenging behaviors from the start are huge. The investment of time and money was nothing compared to that spent in years of family counseling or attachment therapy which is almost always required to support adoptive families. In our case, our cost in trauma treatment was five percent of our total expenses for three years of intense counseling for reactive attachment disorder. Remarkably, the children respond to only the initial treatment without the on-going need of follow up treatments of any kind. What an alternative solution as opposed to the need for drug therapy to control unwanted behaviors. For the opportunity to increase the chances of any child’s ability to succeed in transitioning into a new family and finally having the ability to make choices in their behaviors, this treatment is such a small investment. Anyone who has lived with a child with destructive and challenging behaviors knows from experience the behaviors are irrational, self-sabotaging and stuck in nature. Without the proper treatment, we are asking the impossible when we expect our children to respond to our corrective parenting.

I can truly understand how families fall apart when faced with the challenges we faced when there is no end to the madness. Fortunately we were in a unique position where I could quit my job and afford the support we had until we got the help the children needed. It is of no wonder that so many of these adopted children end up in at risk homes or in the criminal system costing society so much more on the back end. I just pray that our testimony falls on open ears and hearts so more children are offered this type of help and can be freed from the emotional traumas that keep them stuck in the behaviors that destroy their lives and the people that love them. We all don’t want to hear more of the heart wrenching stories of failed adoptions and children abandoned over and over again because no one can help them receive help.

– Washington

Before trauma therapy I spent every day depressed, empty, lonely, intensely needy, scared, and suicidal.

The process was very painful, but not the kind of pain that is terminal. It was the kind of pain you get when you exercise muscles you have not used in a long while.

I want to shout from the mountaintops to anyone and everyone who has suffered the painful effects of trauma that there is help.

– Ohio

Before trauma therapy, my experience of life always felt confused and fractured. I felt like all I ever did was cope and no one seemed to understand. I finally have clarity and peace; I finally have myself back.

– Michigan

I spent my whole life suffering from anxiety due to various traumas I had experienced. I never thought I’d be freed from it this side of heaven, but after treatment I was completely set free!

It has drastically changed my life in many positive ways and my loved ones have been amazed to see me grow and thrive. I can honestly say now that I am fully alive – mentally, spiritually, physically, and emotionally.

I feel as if, after treatment, I have only just begun to really live. My only regret is that I didn’t go through treatment sooner!

– Anonymous

I was thinking today how dubious I was before treatment. After suffering for so many years, how could I be healed at all, much less in so short a time period? Yet the traumas took a relatively short period of time to change my life in very negative ways – mentally, spiritually, and physically.

As a nurse, I still cannot wrap my brain around the patho-physiology that must be behind this treatment. However, if a few moments can cause memories that alter us so drastically, it is logical that “processing” those memories could (and DOES) bring about the exact opposite mental, spiritual, and physical effect…HEALING, HOPE, PEACE! Such peace as I have never known before, and I will be 50 years old this May! Ha!

When Deb asked me what my goals for treatment were, and I told her one of them was to know in my heart that God loves me…that anyone could love me, and she said “we can do that with this therapy,” I was thinking “Yeah, right.” LOL! Decades of suffering end with two weeks of therapy (due to the number of different traumas – some people need only a week). Yes – it sounds incredible. I pray more people have the courage to believe it is possible and take the chance. Life really can be wonderful!

– Jennifer

This was the answer to many prayers for our family. Two years ago, when we were going through the adoption process, they helped fix our broken family. When everyone else was ready to quit they stepped in and helped.

Our daughter was deeply traumatized by her biological family situation. She was way too young to verbalize anything. Thrive helped give her trauma a voice so she didn’t have to live with it any longer.

Yes, there were a lot of skeptics – people judging that a two-year-old wouldn’t benefit from the trauma therapy. After a week of therapy my daughter made an amazing transformation. Our family would have never been complete if it were not for this help and the gift and the faith God has given them.

– K. from Ohio