For quite some time a popular word banded about in psychological services, psychiatry and medicine has been ‘Evidence Based Practice’;

There are many variable definitions, here is just one;

“the conscientious, explicit and judicious use of current best evidence in making decisions about the care of individual patients. The practice of evidence-based medicine means integrating individual clinical expertise with the best available external clinical evidence from systematic research”

Source: Sackett et al, 1996.

The definition above, highlights the need to draw on both the professionals clinical experiential knowledge and the best external evidence. Neither is enough on its own. As Sackett and his colleagues point out, clinical practices become out of date if new evidence is not drawn upon. However, the clinician must be aware of what evidence is appropriate to integrate into their practice. This can prove to be a difficult and time-consuming task but it is an essential skill in implementing evidence based practice.

Evidence based practice can be broken down into 5 key stages. These are:

The Question. The first step in evidence based practice is recognising that there is a need for new information. This information need has to be converted into an answerable question.

Finding the Evidence. Choosing the right evidence is of fundamental importance.

Appraisal. The evidence must be critically appraised to determine its validity and potential usefulness.

Acting on Evidence. Once you have concluded that the evidence is of sound quality, you will have to decide whether the evidence should be incorporated into your clinical practice.

Evaluation & Reflection. Evaluation and reflection are necessary to determine whether the action you have taken has achieved the desired results. This is now a fundamental part of any clinical practice.

Evidence based practice is a continuous process. Once you have worked through each of the stages, you are likely to find that new questions have arisen that need to be answered.

“Let me know if this was useful?”

Dawn Pugh Expert therapist.

Two 10 year old boys murdered a 3 year old child in Liverpool in 1993.

I remember in February 1993 when a young 3 yr old boy was taken from  his mother in a shopping mall in Liverpool UK, by two 10-year-old boys. The 3 year old walked away from his mother for only a second and these 2 boys took his hand and led him out of the shopping Mall to his horrendous death.

They took Jamie on a walk for over 2.5 miles, along the way stopping every now and again to torture the poor little boy who was crying constantly for his mummy.

Finally they stopped at a railway track where they brutally kicked him, threw stones at him, rubbed paint in his eyes and pushed batteries up his anus.

It was actually worse than this. What these two boys did was so horrendous that Jamie’s mother was forbidden to identify his body.

They then left his beaten small body on the tracks so a train could run him over to hide the mess they had created. These two boys, even being boys, understood what they did was wrong, hence trying to make it look like an accident.

The pair were given new identities and released from custody in 2001.

One of these murderers now 27 years old, has just violated his parole by allegedly committing a very serious crime.

Reports have also been received stating that he has been drinking cider and snorting cocaine in several of Liverpool’s popular nightclubs, despite license conditions banning him from returning to the city without permission from his parole officer.

“Have you any views in this matter?”

“What would you do?”

Dawn Pugh Expert therapist.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Bulger Killer Venables Is Back Behind Bars (news.sky.com)
• Bulger murderer returned to jail (news.bbc.co.uk)
• Notorious UK child killer back in custody (cnn.com)
• Liverpool to be transformed into Formula One race track (telegraph.co.uk)
• Visiting the new Liverpool (gadling.com)

Allegedly running can make the brain grow.

At Cambridge University some neuro-scientists have shown that running can indeed aid the brain in growing fresh grey matter, resulting in a big impact on our mental ability.

Just a few days if running can produce 1000’s of brand new brain cells that can help with memory recall.

Past studies have shown that people with depression symptoms can also achieve improved mood and stablize emotions.

Come on…What are you waiting for?

Dawn Pugh Expert therapist.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Sleepless nights ’shrink your brain’ (telegraph.co.uk)
• Deepak Chopra: Why It’s Better to Have a Mind Than a Brain (huffingtonpost.com)
• Grow Some Grey Matter (lewrockwell.com)
• Running could help jog memory and help brain grow, says Cambridge study (telegraph.co.uk)
• Calendar: MIND events in March and April (scienceblog.com)

Apparently in a new guide for people seeking to change their working lives in 2010 – Counseling has been listed as being in the top 10 career opportunities.

Research showed that 1 in 4 people were unhappy with their careers and felt they would be better suited to another profession.

One of the main reasons for unhappiness is boredom or feelings of being unfulfilled.

Source: CareerEnergy.

Life is more complex than it used to be. Which means there’s an increasing demand for counselors – Here are 4 examples:

1.     Many people no longer have a network of family members or a community. So they have no one whom they can turn to for help. A counselor can provide the advice and support that others can’t bring.

2.     Women are no longer willing to tolerate abuse or bad behavior from their partners. They often require their partners to seek advice. 66% of mid-life divorces are initiated by women. Counselors can help bring partners together.

3.     Old people are separated from the family, and have no one to turn to. After a busy life, they can become lonely and troubled. Counselors can provide real solutions.

4.     Because their parents work, children often lack the detailed care and support given by parents. Some turn to drugs. Other children have problems at school, and stop going. Again a counselor can help.

And that means more people are seeking the support of a counselor. So there’s a bigger opportunity for you to become employed as a professional counselor.

To anyone who was thinking of signing up on the counseling course I’d say:

“Try it and enjoy it – One can learn a great deal, gain a great sense of achievement and real self-satisfaction upon completion!”

Dawn Pugh therapy expert.

Related articles by Zemanta

• On Being a New Therapist: Week 3 (psychcentral.com)
• New Website Provides Counselors with Instant Help for Troubled Kids (prweb.com)
• I See Your Dream Job by Sue Frederick (mediabistro.com)
• Are you in the ideal career for you? (halliecrawford.typepad.com)
• Career questions to ask yourself when in transition (halliecrawford.typepad.com)
• Job satisfaction plummets despite expected end to recession (telegraph.co.uk)

What is respect?

How do you know if you are getting respected?

How do we give and receive respect.

What if Respect was a religion?

Respect denotes both a positive feeling of esteem for a person or other entity (such as a nation or a religion), and also specific actions and conduct representative of that esteem. Respect can be a specific feeling of regard for the actual qualities of the one respected (e.g., “I have great respect for her judgment”). It can also be conduct in accord with a specific ethic of respect. Rude conduct is usually considered to indicate a lack of respect, whereas actions that honor somebody or something indicate respect.

Source: Wikipedia

Giving respect to your parents even as an adult can be an issue. Even if you’re an adult still give them the respect that you would want your kids or future kids to want to give you. Respecting your parents is important even if they weren’t the best parents to you. They brought you in the world and the least that you can do is respect them. Familiarity can sometimes make it hard to honor your parents, but it’s a valued behavior to honor and respect your parents.

3 Tips to give respect to your parents;

1.    Make dinner for you parents once in a while. They will appreciate the effort you put into making them a meal and it will lessen the work load on them.
2.    Even if your parents weren’t there for you, reach out to them and communicate. It shows that you’re on a different maturity level and that you won’t let that hinder you from respecting your parents.
3.    Helping them with things that they’re not as fit to do if they’re elderly. Parents are usually big blessings they take of you and you should take of them in return and show your love for them.

Source: PJ69 EHow.

Dawn Pugh Therapy expert.

Related articles by Zemanta

• What ever happened to respect? (momblognetwork.com)
• Are you enititled to respect? (findingforrest.com)

What exactly does privacy mean?

‘The term “privacy” means many things in different contexts. Different people, cultures, and nations have a wide variety of expectations about how much privacy a person is entitled to or what constitutes an invasion of privacy.

Internet privacy is the ability to control what information one reveals about oneself over the Internet, and to control who can access that information. These concerns include whether email can be stored or read by third parties without consent, or whether third parties can track the web sites someone has visited.‘

Learn how 20 years of the web has reshaped our lives.

‘Every day in Britain millions of searches are carried out on Google for free. Every month we spend millions of hours on Facebook for free and read millions of articles from free newspapers.

But now look at it the other way round.

Every day Google gathers millions of search terms that help them refine their search system and give them a direct marketing bonanza that they keep for months.

Every week Facebook receives millions of highly personal status updates that are kept forever and are forming the basis of direct advertising revenue.

Every month free newspapers plant and track a cookie tracking device on your computer that tells them what your range of interests are and allows them to shape their adverts and in the future, even content around you.

So you’re not just being watched, you’re being traded. The currency has changed.’

Source: The Virtual Revolution.

Would you give consent to trade your privacy for free access to web sites and services?

Does it concern you that your personal space is being eroded by companies who are building databases of your online habits and preferences?

“Let me know what you are thinking?”

Dawn Pugh Expert therapist.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Virtual Revolution: The Cost of Free (guardian.co.uk)
• The Internet Spying Problem Back Here (technologizer.com)
• Improve Your Family’s Online Privacy With a Plugins (wired.com)
• F.T.C. Wades Into the Swamp of Online Privacy (bits.blogs.nytimes.com)
• Fact and Fiction: The Truth About Browser Cookies [Privacy] (lifehacker.com)
• The price of free (news.bbc.co.uk)
• Critics Say Google Invades Privacy With New Service (nytimes.com)

Cognitive Analytic Therapy involves a therapist and a client working together to look at what has hindered changes in the past, in order to understand better how to move forward in the present.
Questions like ‘Why do I always end up feeling like this?’ become more answerable.

CAT focuses its attention on discovering how problems have evolved and how the procedures devised to cope with them may be ineffective. It is designed to enable clients to gain an understanding of how the difficulties they experience may be made worse by their habitual coping mechanisms. Problems are understood in the light of clients’ personal histories and life experiences. The focus is on recognizing how these coping procedures originated and how they can be adapted and improved. Then, mobilizing the clients’ own strengths and resources, plans are developed to bring about change.

Source: ACATonline.

Dawn Pugh Therapy expert.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Meeting With My First Therapy Client (psychcentral.com)
• Paula Bloom Psy.D.: Just Do It! Insight. Motivation and Action (huffingtonpost.com)
• Michael Yapko: Your Focus Shapes Your Life (huffingtonpost.com)
• Behavioralapproaches (slideshare.net)

New York may be the home of the famous Concert Hall that carries his name – ‘Carnegie Hall’.

But Andrew Carnegie also reached across the Atlantic, approximately 3336.763 miles, as the crow flies across the pond so to speak and benefited many local people within Tyldesley a little town in Wigan, Greater Manchester.

Tyldesley Library was established in1909 from a generous donation of £4000 from Carnegie.

Thanks to this donation many have reaped the rewards of education and cultural benefits.

Andrew Carnegie in many ways typified the American dream. He began with nothing and used his drive and intelligence to become the world’s richest man. At the height of his power, he sold out his holdings and dedicated his remaining years expending his fortune to aid his fellow man.

Carnegie wrote an article for the North American Review, entitled “The Gospel of Wealth.” He advanced the idea that the rich are merely trustees of wealth and that they have a duty to use their resources to benefit society. He took his admonishment to others to heart and spent the last two decades of his life giving away the great bulk of his fortune.

Carnegie gave away most of his money to establish many libraries, schools, and universities in America, the United Kingdom and other countries, as well as a pension fund for former employees. He was often regarded as the second – richest man in history after John D. Rockerfeller.

“Amazingly!! small world isn’t it?”

Dawn Pugh Expert Therapist.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Andrew Carnegie’s Success Secret as told by Mike Litman (slideshare.net)
• Connectivity Matters (cansar.com)

“It is becoming increasingly more often that I here of a thoroughly diabolical and non-senseical news headline…Naturally as humans we try to make sense of situations or events…That is until one becomes exposed to these kind of monstrosities.”

A 19-year-old man has been given an indeterminate jail sentence for the kidnap and rape of an 86-year-old woman in a Bradford care home.

A judge at Bradford Crown Court told the 19 year old from, his crime was “appalling”.

The court heard how the 19 year old had been on bail for a series of house burglaries at the time of the attack.

He admitted rape and kidnap and gave evidence that he was allegedly high on drugs at the time.

The elderly woman was assaulted in the early hours of 15th September at a home in Bradford UK.

She needed hospital treatment at the time of the attack and has since ‘apparently’ died of natural causes.

Whatever the cause of death was, her prognosis deteriorated rapidly as a result of what happened to her that night and she died two months later.

“I ask you what kind of drugs make you rape and kidnap a 86 year old woman?”

Another similar incident happened in Detroit USA.

A man has been arrested in connection with the attempted rape of an 84-year-old woman and rape of a 23-year-old woman on the city’s east side.

Police say an anonymous tip led to the 22-year-old man’s arrest Thursday at a house where he was hiding out.

Police are seeking warrants against the suspect, who could face charges of first-degree criminal sexual conduct, kidnapping and using a firearm during a felony.

“Well…What can I say…?”

“Let me know what your reaction is?”

Dawn Pugh Therapy expert.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Man jailed for raping woman, 86 (news.bbc.co.uk)
• Taking DNA catches murderers | Sandra Laville (guardian.co.uk)
• Man sentenced for encouraging kids to beat mother (seattletimes.nwsource.com)

The debate over assisted suicide will be reopened tomorrow when Sir Terry Pratchett uses the annual Dimbleby Lecture to call for a radical overhaul of the law.

Sir Terence David John Pratchett, OBE (born 28 April 1948), more commonly known as Terry Pratchett, is an English novelist, known for his frequently comical work in the fantasy genre.

The best-selling author, who has early-onset Alzheimer’s disease, will say that the “time is really coming” for assisted death to be legalised.

He will also offer himself as a “test case” for an assisted suicide tribunal, a body that he believes should be set up to give people legal permission to end their life with medical help.

Sir Terry said that if he knew he could end his life at a time of his choosing, without the fear of incriminating a friend or family member, he would enjoy the rest of his life far more.

Source: Times online

“Let me know what you are thinking”.

Dawn Pugh Expert therapist.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Writer Pratchett Wants Assisted Suicide Law (news.sky.com)
• Writer Pratchett Calls For Assisted Death Law (news.sky.com)
• Pratchett urges euthanasia tribunals (guardian.co.uk)
• Assisted suicide: 4 in 5 say do not prosecute (telegraph.co.uk)
• Pratchett to do Dimbleby lecture (news.bbc.co.uk)