News from Ahed Therapies

Complex Post Traumatic Disorder – A client’s story

Ahed TherapiesComplex Post Traumatic Disorder – obtaining the right support in London and Cardiff

Understanding the severe emotional stress and anxiety that people experience when suffering from Complex Post Traumatic Disorder can be very difficult. Often GPs do not even recognise the condition, sometimes subscribing medication which does not help the individual take the right steps forward.

Our latest client testimonial provides a compelling insight into the anxieties and fears that someone living with Complex Post Traumatic Disorder experiences.

The good news is that there are ways to assist an individual to break the cycle of fear and anxiety and Ms. R is an excellent example of the interventions that can assist to turn a life around.

For more information read the full clients story here.

Equality for Mental Health Campaign gets celebrity support

Post traumatic stress disorder PTSD treatments LondonEquality for mental health petition grows.

Film director Danny Boyle, screenwriter Richard Curtis, Crystal Palace manager Alan Pardew and General Sir Peter Wall, former head of the British Army and president of Combat Stress, are the latest names to back the Equality for Mental Health Campaign.

More than 200 people have now signed an open letter to the Government calling for greater help. It comes help within days of the campaign’s launch by Lib Dem former mental health minister Norman Lamb, Time to Change ambassador and former Labour government communications director Alastair Campbell, and former Conservative cabinet minister Andrew Mitchell.

Boyle said he had “no hesitation” in signing up to the campaign stating: “For too long mental health and mental illness have been surrounded by stigma and taboo and I will support anything that strips that away.

“There cannot be anyone alive who doesn’t know someone who has some kind of mental illness and yet it does not get the same understanding or support as physical illness. That is an injustice that harms so many lives.”

Pardew noted that even though there has been “big changes” in attitudes to the issues during his lifetime in professional sport “we still have a long way to go before we can say physical and mental health are seen in the same way”.

He said: “Most people will know someone with a mental health issue and yet it still lags behind physical health when it comes to government spending and general public attitudes. I am more than happy to support this campaign.”

Campaigners would like to see increased investment in the provision of mental health services and are urging people to sign up on social media using the hashtag #Equality4MentalHealth and via the website Equality4MentalHealth.uk.

Lack of access to treatment, long waiting times, inadequate crisis care and use of police cells are some of their concerns. The campaign has been launched ahead of the Government’s spending round.

Faith leaders including the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby and Dr Shuja Shafi of the Muslim Council of Britain are among the signatories, along with singer Annie Lennox, screenwriter Jimmy McGovern, presenter Graham Norton, comedian Ruby Wax and actress Emma Thompson.

To find out more visit the Equality4MentalHealth website.

What treatments do psychiatrists use?

employee occupational health treatmentsPsychiatrists use a wide variety of treatments – including various forms of psychotherapy, medications, and hospitalisation – according to the needs of each patient.

Psychotherapy is a systematic treatment method in which, during regularly scheduled meetings, the psychiatrist and patient discuss troubling problems and feelings. The physician helps patients understand the basis of these problems and find solutions. Depending on the extent of the problem, treatment may take just a few sessions over one or two weeks, or many sessions over several years.

Psychiatrists use many forms of psychotherapy. There are psychotherapies that help patients change behaviors or thought patterns, psychotherapies that help patients explore the effect of past relationships and experiences on present behaviors, psychotherapies that treat troubled couples or families together, and more treatments that are tailored to help solve other problems in specific ways.

Psychoanalysis is an intensive form of individual psychotherapy which requires frequent sessions over several years. The psychiatrist, who must have additional years of training in psychoanalysis, helps the patient to recall and examine events, memories, and feelings from the past, many of them long forgotten, as a means of helping the patient understand present feelings and behavior.

Psychiatry is one of the oldest medical specialties, but is also one of the most exciting frontiers of medicine. Recent advances in the neurosciences have led to new technologies in the diagnosis and treatment of many of these illnesses. For example, the DSM-IV diagnostic manual, brain imaging, and new pharmaceuticals have significantly improved diagnosis and treatment for these illnesses.

The average psychiatrist spends approximately 48 hours each week at work. Most psychiatrists spend 60% of their time with patients. Two-thirds of these patients are seen as outpatients, with the rest being seen in a hospital setting or, increasingly, in partial hospitalization or day programs and community residential programs. Psychiatric hospitalization is now more intense, more focused, and much shorter in duration than in previous years. Additional professional activities include administration, teaching, consultation, and research.

Today’s psychiatrist provides a wide range of biological, psychotherapeutic and psychosocial treatments which are tailored to the specific needs of the patient. The psychiatrist also serves as the medical expert for the mind/brain/body interface.