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‘Florida‘ ‘murder‘

James Cooper, 25, and James Kouzaris, 24, had been staying with one of the men’s extended family in Longboat Key,   ‘Florida USA‘ – a well-heeled island town known for its white sand beaches overlooking the Gulf of Mexico. Their bodies were found 12 miles away from there at 3am on Saturday, lying in the road in the Newtown district of North Sarasota, they had been shot.

Local officers said it was ‘very unusual’ to find tourists in this area. So what had taken them to this area which was notorious for its gang violence, high unemployment and social housing?

Police said they had their suspicions as to why they were there but it would be unfair to state them they added that neither of the men were in possession of drugs, but would not say whether they had cash or weapons.

Friends described them as kind and innocent people.

On April 19th 2011 a local 16-year-old boy was charged with their murder.

Always a chance was created in their memory so their deaths were not in vain, a charity aimed at helping the young and disadvantaged. Through education and experience they hope to enable youths to make better choices and turn against crime and violence. Get involved;

Do you fancy a challenge ?

Dawn Pugh

Related articles

• Florida boy, 16, charged as adult in double slaying of British men ( racism ) or just what the USA made him ! (smokesomething.wordpress.com)
• Bob Ward, Florida Millionaire, Convicted Of Murdering Wife, Diane Ward (huffingtonpost.com)

Counseling and Psychotherapy Sessions for Trauma: Many debate certain counseling techniques involved in trauma therapy that use de-briefing strategies, they argue that they can have a negative impact on trauma recovery.

Trauma Therapy from the Client’s Perspective

Ms. Burton’s own experience of therapy convinces her, for example, that trauma survivors don’t always make the best trauma therapists. This is especially true if they never completed their own therapy. She has seen them react with fear …

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Effective for Treating Trauma …

CDC press release, dated Tuesday, September 9, 2008, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Effective for Treating Trauma Symptoms in Children and Teens.

A pill to solve trauma memories?

The idea of dishing out a pill never entered my mind. Posted in child therapy, issues, materials Tagged: child, EFT, emdr, fast phobia/trauma cure, NLP, tearless trauma technique, therapist, trauma, trauma treatment, young person.

What is Exposure Therapy?

In PTSD, exposure therapy is intended to help the patient face and gain control of the fear and distress that was overwhelming in the trauma, and must be done very carefully in order not to re-traumatize the patient. …

Finding life beyond trauma : using acceptance and commitment …

Oakland, CA : New Harbinger Publications, c2007. x, 266 p. : ill. 28 cm. Call Number: RC552.P67 F65 2007 Location: UNR Knowledge Center.

Comment on Art Therapy Shows Promise in Treatment of PTSD & Trauma …

While inside, the doctors asked me to draw circles and color them in using exactly 7 colors in each circle. I must have colored several hundred circles during the month I was there. Can you tell me what this form of therapy is called …

Let me ask you to share your thoughts with all of us by leaving a comment in the box below.

Dawn Pugh Psychotherapist

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Reasons why Purple hearts could be awarded for Post traumatic stress disorder?

As you continue to read this article you will notice how you begin to absorb this information.

Many years before Iraq and Afghanistan went to war, George Washington created the Purple Heart to honour troops who had been physically wounded in combat.

But with an increasing number of troops being diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), the modern military is debating an idea that George Washington may never have considered — awarding one of the nation’s top military citations to veterans with psychological wounds, not just physical ones.

Arguments erupt when people state that the Purple Heart should be reserved for physical injuries, Some opponents  note that PTSD can be faked, which can’t easily be done with a physical wound.

A recent California-based research institution Rand Corp. study concluded that 300,000 of the military personnel who have served in Iraq or Afghanistan have symptoms of the disorder, which can sometimes lead to suicide. The report found tragedies closely linked to the development of PTSD: Half of the 1.6 million troops who spent time in the two war zones had friends who were seriously wounded or killed, while about 45% saw dead or wounded civilians.

The purple heart is a recognition for being wounded, and PTSD is a recognized in the military as a wound worthy of disability pay.  I feel this honour should catch up with current policies.

My intention is not to trivialize some ones physical injuries but to support justice in bringing all aspects of war sufferings into play and their subsequent recognitions.

Do these people actually understand the causes and effects of PTSD and our basic instinct the infamous “Fight or Flight syndrome”?

How being witness to a death or being subject to a near death situation can result in years of suffering -

If you are like me then you would like to see all veterans being awarded  medals of  honour, courage and bravery and also having the opportunity to access some form of psychological therapy as a ways and means of offering  some after care to these brave men and women who put their lives in danger to serve and protect their own countries. I know that the police service are offered treatment and so are the fire service and medical staff – So what about our Troops?

Share with us all what this information meant to you.

Dawn Pugh Psychotherapist

Related articles

• Writing Poetry is Therapy for Veteran Suffering from PTSD (prweb.com)
• Post-traumatic stress risk to police officers lower than previously thought (medicalxpress.com)
• PTSD – Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (chrissyadventures.wordpress.com)
• Erie region Purple Heart recipients live with pain, pride (goerie.com)

Impact Economic Effects on Suicide Statistics. Suicide statistics rise with the effects of economic depression. What is recession?  Recession 2008:  According to Wikipedia: The definition of a recession is;  ”a significant decline in economic activity spread across the economy, lasting more than a few months, usually affecting; real income, employment, industrial production, and wholesale-retail sales.” A sustained recession may become a depression..

I recently found an article in the Marketwatch.com that saddened and outraged me, yet at the same time offered hope to those that I think deserve as much help as possible:

“Sadly, given the current economic conditions, more and more Americans are feeling that they must cut their mental health care to make ends meet. I am concerned about those most vulnerable – especially our returning troops and their families who will be affected by the current economic crisis – particularly those returning to rural communities across America where mental health care is already limited”.

Research shows that suicides and psychiatric hospitalizations tend to peak at the lowest point of a recession, when unemployment is at its height. A smaller peak also occurs just prior to the economy falling into recession, when there is widespread uncertainty. “If you were to look at suicide graphically, it wouldn’t be difficult to imagine that you would be seeing another economic indicator,” says M. Harvey Brenner, a professor of public health at the University of North Texas Health Science Center.

Source: The Wall Street Journal

I wanted to spread the word regarding:  ”Give An Hour“  Give an Hour is a nonprofit organization, founded in September 2005 by Dr. Barbara V. Romberg, a psychologist in the Washington, D.C., area. The organization’s mission is to develop national networks of volunteer mental health workers, capable of responding to both acute and chronic conditions that arise within our society.

I hope you find this as evocative as I.  Let me know?  I am interested.

Dawn Pugh Psychotherapist

Four Good Reasons why Trauma Treatment Therapy is Crucial when we experience Traumatic Events.

1. We need to express and process our strong emotions, if we are not allowed to do so, we learn to  repress these feelings and they can erupt years later, distorted and causing great confusion.

2. The ability to process these emotions can prevent difficulties in later life. Whereby we can struggle with daily functioning. Often feeling inundated and incapacitated.

3. Many people who have repressed their experiences and feelings, often find great difficulty in moving on, they become more likely to self harm, take drugs and or alcohol. They may turn to these substances in order to escape and numb their difficult, painful emotions.

4. Stomach problems (IBS), anxiety and panic attacks, exhaustion, and memory loss problems are physical manifestations of emotional stress.

Dawn Pugh Psychotherapist

Barbara Rothbaum, Ph.D., an NIMH grantee at Emory University heralded the new approach as “a paradigm shift.”

D-cycloserine enhanced psychotherapy has been found effective for social phobia in two studies, and for obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) in two out of three studies, according to Rothbaum.

D-cycloserine is currently being tested on Iraq veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), via enhanced virtual reality based exposure therapy.

Dawn Pugh Psychotherapist

If there existed a best ever rock band list, that consisted of the 100 greatest rock bands, then I would expect to see Metallica and Guns’n'Roses on that list. Who would you expect to see on the 100 greatest rock band list?

Did you know that Metallica, the world’s biggest heavy rock band, were widely ridiculed for making their last album, 2003′s comparatively sensitive St Anger, under the guidance of a psychotherapist.

In terms of regaining their primacy, Death Magnetic is every inch the record they needed to make: a more wisely chosen mentor, producer Rick Rubin, has them exploding anew with the battle-rabid, flat-out thrash-metal of their late-Eighties heyday.

Source: Telegraph.

Others who have been helped by Psychotherapy are Axl Rose. Lead singer from Guns’n'Roses. Where ever and when ever he felt the need, he flew his own personal psychotherapist to him and usually went through extensive emotional work for 4-5 days at a time.

Guns N’ Roses – Axl Rose Interview

New hurricane: Tropical Storm Fay is poised to hit Florida as the current hurricane threat. Reports say that this potential new hurricane will reach Florida in the next day, after killing on its path through the Caribbean.

The current hurricane report states that storm fay’s death toll has been estimated at: Four people in the Dominican Republic. At least seven people were killed by the storm in Haiti. Two others may have died after a bus overturned while trying to cross a flooded river, it was then reported that there were at least 30 people on the bus. Below is a hurricane video:

Tropical Storm FAY [2008/08/18]

Tips: Know what to do when a hurricane watch is issued. American Red Cross

• Listen to NOAA Weather Radio or local radio or TV stations for up-to-date storm information.
• Prepare to bring inside any lawn furniture, outdoor decorations or ornaments, trash cans, hanging plants, and anything else that can be picked up by the wind.
• Prepare to cover all windows of your home. If shutters have not been installed, use pre cut plywood as described above. Note: Tape does not prevent windows from breaking, so taping windows is not recommended.
• Fill your car’s gas tank.
• Recheck manufactured home tie-downs.
• Check batteries and stock up on canned food, first aid supplies, drinking water, and medications.

How to deal with Trauma shock. I have found some effective E-Books for your perusal, you will choose one that best suits your needs: 

Heal PTSD Click Here!

Eft Immersion Training Software Click Here!

Hope you find this helpful.

Dawn Pugh Psychotherapist 

Identities stolen can happen to anyone of us.We need to protect ourselves from identity scams, by adopting an identity theft check. “LifeLock“  reports that in 2006 over 193,000 people fell victim to identity theft in the United States and every 3 seconds someones identity is stolen.  

Ask periodically for a copy of your credit report. Your credit report should list all bank and financial accounts under your name, and will provide other indications of whether someone has wrongfully opened or used any accounts in your name.Keep a careful eye on your banking and financial accounts. Even though financial institutions are required to maintain copies of your checks, debit transactions, and similar transactions for five years, you should retain your monthly statements and checks for at least one year.

 One of Europe’s most wanted men, ‘Radovan Karadzic’ ,a 63-year-old, who has been leading a double life as alternative therapist ‘Dragan Dabic’, The real ‘Dragan Dabic’, is a 66-year construction worker, and quite rightly complains of being besieged by the media. ’Dabic’,who bears no resemblance whatsoever to ‘Karadzic’ said “I’m being questioned by police, my life is in turmoil”.  Officials were trying to figure out whether ‘Karadzic’s’ ID was a fake or an official copy of Dabic’s original ID.

‘Karadzic’ intends to represent himself when he faces charges for his part in the 1995 massacre of 8,000 Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica and the siege of Sarajevo.

 ‘Karadzic’, a trained psychiatrist, called himself an expert in “psycho energy” spent his time on the run writing a weekly column about meditation for an alternative health magazine. He even had a website offering treatment for diabetes, using something called “quantum energy”. and saw patients at a centre outside Belgrade, he even treated a young couple for fertility problems.

Has your identity been stolen?

How did you cope with this traumatic event?

How do you protect your self now?

Talk to me,  I’m Listening………..

Dawn Pugh Psychotherapist

“Critical Incident Stress Management” enables emergency workers to cope with the trauma and stress’s that their professions may cause and to help them function healthier and also, to move on with their lives. “Critical Incident Stress Management” is not  counseling or psychotherapy, nor is it a substitute for these therapies. It offers emergency workers the opportunity to off- load how they feel about the situations that they have just experienced and whether they are having difficulties coping or not, it can be very beneficial for their state of minds.  Making them aware of what they can do to help themselves and help each other. The fundamental  point of  ”Critical Incident Stress Management” it is to help people understand that their reaction and experiences are normal.

Developed in the 1970s,  “Critical Incident Stress Management” is now being used in schools, communities and organizations outside of the emergency services.

What is Critical Incident Stress Management Training?

Critical incident stress management training is extremely important for people working in professions that deal with or may have to deal with critical incidents. These events or incidents have the ability to destroy a person’s ability …

Critical Incident Stress Management

incident stress has been a recognized mental health concern for generations. World war I brought us the shell shocked soldier. During World War II the study of mental health had evolved, and the concept of battle fatigue became a …

Before a Critical Incident Strikes – The Pre-Incident Planning and …

Sometimes it can ease and shorten the period of recovery significantly. Safety managers know it and so do crisis professionals… Pre-incident planning is a crucial part of the work of critical incident stress management teams. …

Traumatic Stress Response team aids Airmen in coping with tragedy

Tragic accidents resulting in the loss of an Airman can happen anywhere at any time, whether it’s during a deployment, on the job stateside or even while home on leave. The Traumatic Stress Response team takes on the challenge of …

Hope you find this useful

Dawn Pugh