Practicum Learning Agreement Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Practicum Learning Agreement - Assignment Example Help student to under stand their professions this by motivating the students to solve most tasks and get new ideas of their professional activities through research, Help to solve emerging negative issues of different categories for example communities, groups and individuals. This is through the discussions exhibits where one gets to know the problems the society is facing; it helps create good relationships of different people at different levels. By understanding their way of reasoning, levels of work, their exposure to the new technology and their educational level, Enable one in exhibition. This will help curb the social problem through one on one insertion due to demonstration in discussion thus improving the society and find solutions to the problems faced due to more research and achieve the objectives. The knowledge that the student will get will enable the student to fit well in the marketing industry and to make him become successful in everything that he/she

Leadership Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words - 1

Leadership - Essay Example Overview of leadership context Leaders of today are important people in the decision-making process in order for an organization to function the fastest speed possible and compete effectively with its peers (Morrison, 2000). The quality of a leader can make or break an organization hence people should be very careful when searching for leaders in their organization (Carpenter, 2007). Kelly (2013) argues that top performing leaders are very creative and innovative and can be 13 times more likely to outperform their competitors in a fair competition. This is because they are very innovative and are more likely to devise ways and produce quality goods and services than their counterparts hence achieve satisfying financial indicators. Organizations that portray poor leadership quality always lag behind from their competitors leading to losses and lack of development. According to Eriksen (2009), leadership quality does not just affect the bottom line; it affects the employee retention an d engagement thus resulting to more competitiveness of a business. He further adds that organizations with higher quality leadership are likely to retain employees than their competition due to high understanding and respect they accord their workers. This is profitable for the business since there is a link between engagement and the retention of employees in the overall performance of the business. Passionate leadership are those who full energy to their works thus proactively makes value hence act with a sense of leadership required to move the organization forward (Masculli, 2011). A passionate leader is a very important person to the organization since they can easily inspire good work and performance from his followers. Quality of leadership and passion in leadership goes hand in hand and thus cannot be easily avoided separated in the context of a business (Story, 2004). Given the gravity and role that leaders play in these highly competitive environments, the leaders who can fully meet the needs of the organization are hard to find. The Human Resource professionals are the one who has expressed highest concern for the quality of leadership in their organizations they has a direct impact in their operations (Leslie et al, 2002). The majority of the HR professionals interviewed showed lack of confidence with their leaders with a mere 25% showing confidence and trust in the ability of their leaders. This means that majority of the organizations are missing a great opportunity in having a potent kind of leadership they require to propel them forward. Organizations experience various types of leadership in different capacities and the higher the level of leadership the more expectation required from him in terms of accountability and development qualities. On the global scope and in respect to HR professionals, leadership quality is rated highest in North America and lowest in Europe and Asia (Leslie et al, 2002). The recession of 2008/9 exposed most organiz ations and the quality of leadership they had due to the nature of their reactions in combating the effects of the global credit crunch as many of them were guilty of losing focus on talents. The fear of losing talents is making most of the organizations to fear losing employees for the future development of the organizations (Carter and Greer, 2013). Quality of leade

Mental Health And Community Care Social Work Essay

Mental Health And Community Care Social Work Essay In this report I will discuss Mental health and community care, I will look at the historical context of community care taking into consideration policies and that stemmed it and competing ideological perspectives that that has impacted on it. I will further look at its benefits and shortfalls since its implementation taking into accounts the impact of the 1990 NHS Community Care Act and current reforms. Finally I will discuss the process of poverty and social exclusion which affects some of these people who have been discharged home as a result. History of Community Care and Objectives Dobson (1998) stated that Care in the community represented the major political change in mental healthcare in the history of the National Health Service (NHS) It was the result both of social changes and political expediency and a movement away from the isolation of the mentally ill in old Victorian asylums towards their integration into the community (Goffman 1961). The aim was to normalise the mentally ill and to remove the stigma of a condition that is said to afflict one in four of the British population at some time in their lives. The main push towards community care as we know it today came in the 1950s and 1960s, an era which saw a sea change in attitude towards the treatment of the mentally ill and a rise in the patients rights movement, tied to civil rights campaigns. The 1959 Mental Health Act abolished the distinction between psychiatric and other hospitals and encouraged the development of community care. According to Goffman, (1961) historically, people who were designated as having a mental illness lived in confined institutional environments for years and had limited expectations for returning to the community. Community care is used to describe the various services available to help individuals manage their physical and mental health problems in the community which is the British policy for deinstitutionalisation. Duane (2003) defined deinstitutionalisation as process of replacing long-stay psychiatric hospitals with less isolated community mental health services for those diagnosed with mental disorder or developmental disability. These services include, for example, nursing or social work support, home help, day centres, counselling and supported accommodation. The Department of Health expresses the need to promote the development of a personal health plan of individuals, based on who they are, what they want and what their circumstances are. According to DoH, Health is linked to the way people live their lives and the opportunities available to choose health in the communities where they live. There have been major improvements in health and life expectancy over the last century and on the most basic measures, people are living longer than ever before (DoH report, 2005). Rogers A and Pilgrim D (2001) stated that the ideological commitment to community care was associated with vague idea of achieving an ideal society, prior to it being effected as a practical reality. Similarly Titmuss in the 1960s suggested that the notion of community care invented a sense of warmth and human kindness, essentially personal and comforting Titmuss (1968). This early positive view emphasised the idea of leaving the disabling environment of the institution behind and ushering in the enabling possibilities of ordinary living. According to Bulmer (1989), the first use of community care was in the part of mental health, as understanding developed of the negative consequences of institutionalizing mental patients in hospitals, and to discharge the ex-patients and mental handicap hospitals, and to discharge the ex-patients into the community, where they would live in hostel-type accommodation or in their own homes and be cared for by a mixture of professional and personal carers, particularly in day centres and by nursing staff on the one hand and by members of their own families on the other. Community care in the past has always been a mixed economy, financed by both the state and by user charges and provided by voluntary sector organization, commercial, for-profit organization, the state and the family. Alan Walker (1982, 1989) and Roy Parker (1990) have specifically addressed the problem of defining community care and have pointed out that it has been very easy for one persons community care to be anothers institutional care. Community care has been a mixture of policies. To the health service any provision outside the NHS equals community care, therefore institution run by local authorities constitute community care. The mixed economy of community care during the 1960s left wing academics, notably Peter Townsend (1962), made moving request for the deinstitutionalization of elderly and mentally ill people, whereas Titmuss (1968) has already sounded a note of caution when he referred to the way in which the term community care conjured up a sense of warmth and human kindness. All this assumed the main provider of community care to be the state. In some ways, the idea of community care in mental health ran counter to the dominate trend within the NHS after 1948, which until recently, was centralised and hospital-dominated. Bulmer (1989) similarly emphasised that in recent years community care has broad meaning including the goal of providing comprehensive outreach, day and residential services and support for ordinary facilities within the locality. In principal at least community care now extends to social inclusion and the promotion of assess to facilities used by other people living in the community and the right and responsibility of participation in local community acitivties. According to Pilgrim (2001) when the Labour government came to power in 1997, it announced the need for rapid reform of mental health services based on the impression or evidence that care in the community has failed. In 1998, the Health Secretary, Frank Dobson, stated that discharging people from institutions has brought benefits to some. But it has left many vulnerable patients to try and cope on their own. Others have been left to become a danger to themselves and a nuisance to others. A small but significant minority have become a danger to the public as well as themselves. Mind, along with many others, disagreed with the statement that community care had failed. These were based on concerns about control of risky behaviour which led to the spokes enquiry following the killing of a social worker (Isablel Shwartz) in 1984 by patient Sharon Campbell in Bexley Hospital. These were some of the limitations of care discovered and led to recommendation about post-discharge case management DHSS (1998). The report similarly noted the lack of any requirement on the part of services to identify vulnerable patients or provide individualised care plans, and for agencies with responsibilities for mental health to work together. The inquiry into the care of Christopher Clunis was also another reason why the community care needed a reform. Rogers and Pilgrim (2001) explained that inquiry examined the manner in which services failed to respond adequately to Christopher Clunis, a young black man With a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia who stabbed a stranger (Jonathan Zito) at Finsbury Park underground station. This highlighted a number of problems why the Labour government called for the reform of the community care policy because of the inadequate support for in the community with severe mental health problems. In 1999 The Government published the  National Service Framework [NSF] for mental health modern standards and service models for England. The NSF spelled out national standards for mental health services, what they aimed to achieve, how they should be developed and delivered, and how performance would be measured in every part of the country.(DoH Community care is the support by informal and formal carers of the elderly, the disabled and the mentally disordered groups in the community who are usually in their own homes rather than in institutions. According to Bulmer(1989)the ideas with which community care came about is due to the mixture of sociological propositions about the nature of modern community life, including personal ties between relative, friends, and neighbours. The Griffiths Report: Community Care: Agenda for Action Margaret Thatcher invited Sir Roy Griffiths to produce a report on the problems of the NHS. This report was influenced by the ideology of managerialism. That is it was influenced by the idea that problems could be solved by management. According to the report, Griffiths firmly believed that many of the problems facing the Welfare State were caused by the lack of strong effective leadership and management. Because of this previous work, which was greatly admired by the Prime Minister, Griffiths was asked to examine the whole system of community care. In 1988 he produced a report or a Green Paper called Community Care: Agenda for Action, also known as The Griffiths Report. Griffiths intended this plan to sort out the mess in no-mans land. That is the grey area between health and social services. This area included the long term or continuing care of dependent groups such as older people, disabled and the mentally ill. Basically he was saying that community care was not working because no one wanted to accept the responsibility for community care. Community Care: Agenda for Action made six key recommendations for action: Minister of State for Community Care to ensure implementation of the policy it required ministerial authority. Local Authorities should have key role in community care. i.e. Social Work / Services departments rather than Health have responsibility for long term and continuing care. Health Boards to have responsibility for primary and acute care. Specific grant from central government to fund development of community care. Specified what Social Service Departments should do: assess care needs of locality, set up mechanisms to assess care needs of individuals, on basis of needs design flexible packages of care to meet these needs Promote the use of the Independent sector: this was to be achieved by social work departments collaborating with and making maximum use of the voluntary and private sector of welfare. Social Services should be responsible for registration and inspection of all residential homes whether run by private organisations or the local authority. The majority of long term care was already being provided by Social Services, but Griffiths idea was to put community nursing staff under the control of local authority rather than Health Boards. This never actually happened. The Griffiths Report on Community Care seemed to back local government whereas, the health board reforms in the same period, actually strengthened central government control. rewor According to the Mind, In 1989 the government published its response to the Griffiths Report in the White Paper Caring for People. It set out a framework for changes to community care, which included a new funding structure for social care. This would mark the beginning of the purchaser/provider split whereby social services departments were encouraged to purchase services provided by the independent sector. The report promoted the development of domiciliary, day care and respite services to enable people to live as independently as possible in their own homes. Other objectives included quality initiatives around assessment of need and case management. Carers needs were addressed by prioritising practical support initiatives for them. The next decade saw a dramatic increase in the number of voluntary and private sector service providers. The impact of the community care reforms The community care reforms outlined in the 1990 Act have been in operation since April 1993 Glennester, (1996).They have been evaluated but no clear conclusions have been reached. A number of authors have been highly critical of the reforms. Hadley and Clough (1996) claim the reforms have created care in chaos (Hadley and Clough 1996) They claim the reforms have been inefficient, unresponsive, offering no choice or equity. Other authors however, are not quite so pessimistic. Means and Smith (1998) claim that the reforms: introduced a system that is no better than the previous more bureaucratic systems of resource allocation were an excellent idea, but received little understanding or commitment from social services as the lead agency in community care the enthusiasm of local authorities was undermined by vested professional interests, or the service legacy of the last forty years health services and social services workers have not worked well together and there have been few multidisciplinary assessments carried out in reality little collaboration took place except at senior management level the reforms have been undermined by chronic underfunding by central government the voluntary sector was the main beneficiary of this attempt to develop a mixed economy of care The Care Programme Approach (CPA ) According to Rogers and Pilgrim (2001) there was a light with the introduction of the Care Programme Approach in 2001. It introduced an attempt to improve and standardise the delivery of community care services. The CPA set out a practice framework for health authorities in England, giving guidance on how they should fulfil their duties as laid out in the National Health Service (NHS) and Community Care Act 1990. The programme contained four key elements namely, Arrangement for assessing the health and social needs of recipients of specialist mental health services, The regular use of care plan that identified which provider was responsible for different aspects of a persons care Key worker who would monitor and co-ordinate care for the individual Regular review and if appropriate changes to the care plan. Through the introduction of the CPA, patients identified at risk have been required to be kept on supervision register (DH, 1995). The idea was that all patients in contact with services would be subject to CPA but that some require greater scrutiny and service input. Pilgrim et al stated that the Labour government inherited this method in 1997 and continued to endorse it as the mainstay of good quality community-based management for people with mental health disorder, despite the concept of community care being problematic by health ministers and controversial cases such as that of Christopher Clunis. Social inclusion Social exclusion occurs when,  marginalised by society, people are not able  play a full and  equal part in their community.  Many people who experience mental distress experience stigma and discrimination, and live in poverty. They may find it hard to find adequate housing or access employment. The net result is that people can become seriously isolated and excluded from social and working life. Following the publication of the Social Exclusion Units (SEU) report into mental health and social exclusion, the National Institute for Mental Health in England (NIMHE) have been charged with implementing the 27 action points listed in the SEU report. NIMHE are working on a number of policy areas including employment, education, social networks, housing and homelessness, direct payments, income and benefits. (DoH 1998)

Into Thin Air, by Jon Krakauer Essay -- Into Thin Air, Jon Krakauer

In the novel Into Thin Air, the author Jon Krakauer shows us two characters who have some similarities, yet are markedly different. Rob Hall and Scott Fischer are both world renowned mountain climbers as well as the leaders and head guides of their own mountain climbing enterprises. Each employ the respect of his peers, yet here is where the similarities end. With differences in their physical stature, climbing styles, and safety concerns, it would seem that one was destined to succeed and other to fail. Krakauer describes Hall as being a thirty-five-year-old man standing at "six foot three or four and skinny as a pole" (31). His approach to climbing and guiding was meticulous and demanding. He paid close attention to details and had an intense desire to succeed. Hall made many successful climbs prior to his attempt at Everest. In 1990, after three separate attempts over a span of ten years, Hall finally made the summit of Everest. Hall’s flair for publicity had allowed him the success of his prior climbs, but he decided that the guiding business was preferable to constantly pursuing sponsorships. After creating Adventure Consultants, his mountain climbing enterprise, Hall became very successful at getting his clients to the top of Mount Everest. By 1996, he was charging sixty-five thousand dollars per person. This fee was the highest of all the companies on Mt. Everest. Hall’s success rate was not only due to his attention to detail but his attention to safety and the knowledge that without the Sherpas, any attempt at guiding on Everest would be disastrous. Hall’s ability to plan and coordinate ensured that his clients had plenty of food and supplies and that they became acclimatized to the higher altitudes. Each base camp ... ... Scott’s clients who were sick, instead of a Sherpa, I don’t think he would have been treated so haphazardly’" (113). Had Fischer not had such a lax approach to climbing, a guide would have been with Ngawang Toche and had him down the mountain sooner. While Hall was the better guide, both gentlemen held the respect of their peers for their individual climbing skills. Of the climbers on the mountains that day, they were considered the best. Yet despite their skills or their ability to guide, both succumbed to the tragedy on the mountain. Krakauer admired both Hall and Fischer for different reasons, yet he uses them as examples to show us that no matter how good, passionate, or skillful a person might be, the tragedy on the mountain was a cascade effect beyond human control. Works Cited Krakauer, Jon. Into Thin Air. Digital ed. New York: Random House, 2000. Into Thin Air, by Jon Krakauer Essay -- Into Thin Air, Jon Krakauer In the novel Into Thin Air, the author Jon Krakauer shows us two characters who have some similarities, yet are markedly different. Rob Hall and Scott Fischer are both world renowned mountain climbers as well as the leaders and head guides of their own mountain climbing enterprises. Each employ the respect of his peers, yet here is where the similarities end. With differences in their physical stature, climbing styles, and safety concerns, it would seem that one was destined to succeed and other to fail. Krakauer describes Hall as being a thirty-five-year-old man standing at "six foot three or four and skinny as a pole" (31). His approach to climbing and guiding was meticulous and demanding. He paid close attention to details and had an intense desire to succeed. Hall made many successful climbs prior to his attempt at Everest. In 1990, after three separate attempts over a span of ten years, Hall finally made the summit of Everest. Hall’s flair for publicity had allowed him the success of his prior climbs, but he decided that the guiding business was preferable to constantly pursuing sponsorships. After creating Adventure Consultants, his mountain climbing enterprise, Hall became very successful at getting his clients to the top of Mount Everest. By 1996, he was charging sixty-five thousand dollars per person. This fee was the highest of all the companies on Mt. Everest. Hall’s success rate was not only due to his attention to detail but his attention to safety and the knowledge that without the Sherpas, any attempt at guiding on Everest would be disastrous. Hall’s ability to plan and coordinate ensured that his clients had plenty of food and supplies and that they became acclimatized to the higher altitudes. Each base camp ... ... Scott’s clients who were sick, instead of a Sherpa, I don’t think he would have been treated so haphazardly’" (113). Had Fischer not had such a lax approach to climbing, a guide would have been with Ngawang Toche and had him down the mountain sooner. While Hall was the better guide, both gentlemen held the respect of their peers for their individual climbing skills. Of the climbers on the mountains that day, they were considered the best. Yet despite their skills or their ability to guide, both succumbed to the tragedy on the mountain. Krakauer admired both Hall and Fischer for different reasons, yet he uses them as examples to show us that no matter how good, passionate, or skillful a person might be, the tragedy on the mountain was a cascade effect beyond human control. Works Cited Krakauer, Jon. Into Thin Air. Digital ed. New York: Random House, 2000.

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing Essay

There are many events in a person’s life that can be considered traumatic. Trauma can be easily described as a distressing experience caused by an event or physical injury. The symptoms that follow a traumatic event can include disassociation, hyperarousal, and avoidance. Some people choose to cope with their symptoms in many different ways such as substance abuse, medication, and/or therapy. When working with trauma there are many diverse forms of treatment. Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing [EMDR] is one form of treatment that appears to be effective. Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing is a treatment used in psychotherapy to alleviate distress associated with trauma (Shapiro, 1991). During EMDR clients reprocess information while focusing on external stimuli such as, lateral eye movements, hand tapping, and audio stimulation. Francine Shapiro developed EMDR in 1987 after discovering that eye movements had a desensitizing effect on herslef, and also after experimenting she found that others also had the same response to eye movements. In 1987, Shapiro named this approach to treatment Eye Movement Desensitization. A case study was conducted to test the effectiveness of eye movement desensitization. The results indicated there was a significant decrease in distress and increase in confidence in positivity (EMDR Institute, 2012). When this treatment was first discovered it was reported it serves to decrease anxiety and did not claim to eliminate all posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms. Gaining feedback from clients and clinicians this treatment continued to develop. In 1991 reprocessing was added to eye movement desensitization creating EMDR. Adding reprocessing was to reflect the insights and cognitive changes that occurred during treatment and to identify the information processing theory (that Shapiro developed) to explain the treatment effects (2012). In 1995 the EMDR International Association was founded to establish standards for training and practice (Shapiro, 2001). There have been many studies published in regards to posttraumatic stress disorder and demonstrating the effectiveness of EMDR. EMDR therapy happens in eight stages. EMDR requires clients to think about the past, present, and future. The first phase is designed to obtain history and also to develop treatment planning. Obtaining history information can take one to two sessions or it is something that is continuous throughout therapy. Clinicians will discuss with the client the specific problem and symptoms resulting from the problem. The client does not have to give much detail in regards to history. Some people will share and give great information and specifics and there are others who are only comfortable sharing limited information. With the background information and history collected, the therapist will be able to develop a treatment plan that will identify targets on which to use EMDR (Shapiro, 1991). Targets are the events from the past that created the problem, situations that cause distress, and skills client needs to learn for future well being (1991). The second phase is preparation, it is important to explain the theory of EMDR and how it works. Establishing rapport to ensure clients are reporting accurate feelings and changes that are experienced during eye movements is helpful (Shapiro, 2001). The second phase of treatment the therapist will also ensure the client has several ways to cope with difficult situations. The therapist is able to teach different techniques of imagery and stress reduction techniques that clients can use during sessions. The techniques are used to rapidly produce change in emotional disturbances (2001). The client at this point is learning self care. The third phase is assessment, in this phase the client will select a specific memory/picture from the target event. At that time a statement is chosen that expresses a negative self belief associated with the event (Shapiro, 2001). The negative beliefs are verbalizations of negative and disturbing emotions that still exist. The common statements include I am bad, I am worthless, I am nothing, etc. The client then picks a positive statement to replace the negative belief. The positive statement should reflect what is appropriate in the present (2001). The client is then asked to estimate how true they feel the positive statement is using the one to seen Validity of Cognition scale; one equals completely false and seven equals completely true (Maxfield, 1999). Also, during the Assessment Phase, the person identifies the negative emotions along with physical sensations associated with the memory. The client is asked to rate disturbance on the Subjective Units of Disturbance (SUD) scale, with zero reflecting no disturbance and ten reflecting the worst feeling ever had (1999). The next phase focuses on the client’s emotions and sensations as they are measured using the SUDs rating (Shapiro, 2001). The desensitization phase people reprocess past events while focusing on an external stimulus. This phase allows a chance to identify and resolve similar events that may have happened and are associated with the specified event/memory. During desensitization, the therapist will lead the person in sets of eye movement with appropriate changes of focus until his SUDs levels are reduced to zero or a low number. Another phase is the installation phase. The goal is to increase the positive belief that the person has identified previously to replace the negative belief. The goal is for people to identify and believe in their positive statement and scoring it high on the Validity of Cognition scale. After the positive belief statements and installation the next phase which is the body scan phase, the client is ask to think about the past target and asked to notice and focus on changes in body. The seventh phase is closure. In this phase the client is asked to keep a log during the week of anything related to the memory that may arise. The goal is to ensure that the client leaves feeling better than the beginning of treatment (Shapiro, 1989). It is reported if the processing of the traumatic target event is not complete in a single session, the therapist will assist the person in using a variety of self-calming techniques in order to regain a sense of stability. The last phase examines the progress made thus far. The therapist makes sure positive results on scales have been maintained. The reevaluation phase is vital in order to determine the success of the treatment over time (Maxfield, 1999). Clients may feel relief almost immediately with EMDR; however it is as important to complete the eight phases of treatment. The goal of EMDR is to produce the most comprehensive and profound treatment effects in the shortest period of time, while simultaneously maintaining a stable client. The beginning of EMDR appears to be similar to exposure therapy. There are several studies and reviews that have been completed to test the effectiveness of EMDR in treating trauma. EMDR has been found to be an effective treatment for trauma. It has also been found to work faster than other therapies (Cahill, 1999). A study done by Davidson and Parker compared EMDR to no treatment and compared it to other exposure therapies such as prolonged exposure (2001). This study explored thirty four studies on the effectiveness of EMDR in treating trauma. It was discovered that among the thirty four studies, EMDR was found to be effective with an effect size of . 83 when compared to no treatment. It was also found to be a better choice of treatment than other non-exposure therapies such as CBT which only had an effect size of . 55. Controlled efficacy studies report a decrease in PTSD diagnosis of 70-90% after three to six sessions (Chemtob et al. , 2000). EMDR has been compared with cognitive behavior therapy in past clinical trials. EMDR has also been compared with and found superior to a wide range of other treatments, such as relaxation therapy, biofeedback, standard mental health treatment in a managed care facility, and active listening (Maxfield, 1999). Evidence based support has led to EMDR being acknowledged as effective in the treatment of PTSD. Independent reviewers for the American Psychological Association reports EMDR and exposure therapy as empirically validated treatments (Chambless et al. , 1998). Also the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies designated EMDR as effective for PTSD (Shalev et al. , 2000). They noted that EMDR is more efficient than other treatments as it used significantly fewer sessions than behavior therapy and took less time (2000). Cahill found similar results in a literature review conducted. They found that as a whole EMDR is effective in treating trauma, but that it is equally as effective when compared to other exposure therapies (1999). Some studies also indicate that EMDR may be more easily tolerated by clients than other exposure therapies. In a study by Schubert, it was discovered the use of eye-movements in the EMDR process reduced the pulse and heart rate in clients (2010). This suggests a calming experience as the process progresses. EMDR has been extensively researched in the treatment of trauma survivors. EMDR has been tested with survivors of a wide range of traumatic events, using a variety of control conditions, in multiple types of settings, by numerous researchers (Maxfield, 2002). Research has also investigated the use of EMDR with victims of rape, physical assault, childhood abuse, natural disasters, accidents, and other traumas (2002). EMDR is a therapeutic technique in which the patient moves his or her eyes back and forth, while concentrating on the target event or memory causing distress. The therapist waves a stick or light in front of the patient and the patient is supposed to follow the moving stick or light with his or her eyes. EMDR is fast and rapid approach to therapy. While there are many supporters of this type of therapy there are many critics that believe EMDR is pseudoscience. It is suggested, wit evidence based information EMDR is an effective treatment. It is important to note that only clinicians who have received specialized training in EMDR are able to conduct it.

Mengchao Essay

Arley Merchandise Corporation Objectives and Synopsis Teaching Plan This teaching plan organizes the class as follows: Valuation of the Arley â€Å"right† †¢ Why include the ten-year note alternative? †¢ American- vs. European-style exercise? †¢ Similarities to a convertible subordinated debenture †¢ The choice made and the aftermath †¢ Valuation of the Arley â€Å"Right† Consider first the case where the right is exercisable into $8 of cash. The unit proposed for sale in the Arley financing then can be characterized as the sale of a share of common stock plus a two-year European put option with a strike price of $8 or, alternatively, through put-call parity, as the sale of a two-year zero-coupon note with face value $8 plus a two-year European call option on common stock with an exercise price of $8. Thus, the value of the unit can be broken down in two ways: Market value of the unit = Market value of stock + market value of put option = Market value of zero-coupon bond + market value of call option Applying the Black-Scholes model with a two-year riskless rate of 11% per  annum, an initial stock price of $6.50, and a volatility of 40% (as indicated in the assignment question), yields values of the put and call options of $1.44 and $1.45, respectively.1 Exhibit 4 shows historical volatility data for comparable firms. The instructor can engage the students in a discussion of how to use this information in the analysis. The Appendix to this teaching note contains a discussion of these comparables and sensitivity analysis. However, Black-Scholes is not necessarily applicable because of default risk associated with this particular put option. That is, put option holders will wish to exercise their right to receive cash at precisely the time that Arley’s stock is low, which is also when the firm will least be able to fund the $8 payment. Thus, the standard Black-Scholes formula, which assumes no default risk in the option, will overestimate the value of the right. To correct ly value the put option requires a model of default risk in addition to the underlying equity risk.2 Luckily, in this instance, the above put-call parity relation provides a simple and indirect way of valuing the right, since it separates stock price risk from default risk. There is little, if any, default risk associated with the call option, as holders will wish to exercise their right at a time when the firm 1 The put and call values are almost equal since the strike price of $8 is very close to the beginning stock price of $6.50 plus  riskless interest. 2 See, for example, H. Johnson and R. Stultz (1987), â€Å"The pricing of options with default risk,† Journal of Finance, 42, 267-280. What remains is to value the zero-coupon note. This is a question purely of credit risk, the price of which can be approximated using Exhibit 5, which contains yields on straight debt of lowrated issuers comparable to Arley. The issues in the Exhibit are priced at spreads as high as 3.5% over Treasurys. Arley’s subordinated debt would probably carry a Ba or B rating, and would thus require a yield at the high end of the range. Assuming a flat term structure for the credit spread, the required spread on two-year Arley debt is about 3.5%, or a yield-to-maturity of 14.5%. Discounting $8 at 14.5% per annum for two years gives a value for the two-year zero-coupon note of $6.10. Adding the value of the two-year note ($6.10) to the value of the call option ($1.45) yields an estimate of $7.55 for the value of the total package. The implied value of the put option is therefore $7.55 – $6.50 = $1.05. The implied value of the put option is therefore $7.55 – $6.50 = $1.05. This can be summarized as: Note + Call $6.10 + $1.45 = Unit = Stock + Put = $7.55 = $6.50 + $1.05 The difference of $0.39 between this value of the put option and the Black-Scholes value of the put option ($ 1.44) is the diminution in value of the option due to issuer default risk. The analysis so far has assumed that the put option is exercisable into cash. In general, and ceteris paribas, the issuer’s option to substitute debt for cash upon exercise of the option reduces the value of the right even further. However, this assumes the stock price of $6.50 is unaffected by the nature of this contract. For example, the flexibility to substitute debt for cash may significantly reduce the likelihood of financial distress and enhance overall firm value. Here, the value of the right is likely to be significantly diminished by the flexibility to substitute debt since the debt is unlikely to be worth as much as $8.00/ unit when issued. In late 1982 and early 1983, the lowest class of investment grade debt (Baa) sold at a yield of about 125% of the ten-year Treasury debt yield. Baa debt was trading at a yield which was only 116% of ten-year Treasury yields. As surmised earlier, Arley’s subordinated debt would probably carry a Ba or B rating, and would thus require a yield substantially higher than Baa-rated debt. In addition, the maximum issue size of subordinated debt issued in exchange for Arley units would amount to only about $6 million (750,000 x $8.00). Trading would be extremely thin and the issue would be highly illiquid. It would trade at a still higher yield for this reason. In all, it appears that the Arley package was somewhat overvalued by the underwriters (assuming a value of $6.50 for the common stock). Why Include the Ten-Year Note Alternative? The information asymmetry issue raised earlier in this note is important in understanding the significance of the inclusion of the ten-year note  alternative. The strength of management’s conviction regarding the certainty of future forecasts can be reflected in the form in which it chooses options for honoring the guarantee obligation. Management’s stock ownership position will also play an important role in this choice. A management with little stock ownership will convey the strongest position of certainty if it restricted its options in honoring the guarantee to only cash. The weakest conviction will be conveyed 3 if the options included the exchange of the right for additional common shares to bring the value of each Arley unit up to $8.00. This outcome would simply reallocate the equity value among Arley’s shareholders without exposing the management to any default risk and potential loss of employment. In companies where management owns little stock, as the options available for meeting the guarantee expand along the spectrum of cash, senior debt, subordinated debt, preferred stock, and common stock, the strength of management’s conviction about the future should decrease in the minds of investors. A management with significant stock ownership would convey the strongest  position of certainty if shareholders could collect their value guarantee in either cash or market value of common stock at the option of the owner of the right. This arrangement would expose management to both default risk (and possible loss of jobs) as well as disastrous dilution of their accumulated wealth position if the stock price declined but the company was not in danger of default on the put. The underwriters have suggested a prudent and practical position with regard to the form of the options the company will have available for honoring the guarantee, but (given the fact that Arley’s management owned over 50% of the company’s stock) this is also one of the weakest positions possible in terms of the persuasive power of its information content to investors. Information content is obviously only one factor for Arley to consider in making its decision. The need to preserve financial flexi bility under adverse circumstances is probably the most critical factor, and Arley’s management would retain this flexibility, in the form of the option, to issue a subordinated debt to honor the guarantee. American- vs. European-Style Exercise? A design question was whether holders of the security should be able to exercise their right at a specific point in time (European-style), or at any time until the expiration date (American-style). Arley favored a European-style exercise option. This made it possible to plan for and finance a mass redemption, rather than confronting one at an unexpected and inconvenient time. Similarities to a Convertible Subordinated Debenture The proposed Arley security can be viewed as a convertible subordinated debenture with somewhat unusual terms. The principal variations are: The conversion period expires in two years instead of spanning the life of the debenture (or until the debenture was called); In exchange for a two-year grace period on interest payments, Arley unit owners will receive what is intended to be a â€Å"market rate† of interest on the security for the balance of its life. Normally, convertible subordinated debentures carry a below-market rate of interest (Exhibit 5); The life of the issue is twelve years rather than the more typical twenty to twenty-five years for a convertible subordinated debenture (Exhibit 5). Since the Arley issue is conceptually and economically similar to a convertible subordinated debenture, why didn’t Arley simply issue a convertible subordinated debenture with terms  equivalent to the proposed Arley units? There were two good reasons favoring the proposed Arley issue: Since Arley had no publicly traded common stock, buyers of any Arley convertible subordinated debenture would have no traded equity security against which to price the debenture. A liquidity problem (only 6,000 debentures would be available for trading) would exacerbate the pricing difficulty. †¢ The â€Å"retail optics† of the Arley issue are better than the equivalent convertible subordinated debenture. The proposed Arley unit can be marketed as an issue with a two-year money-back guarantee. The unit would almost certainly be sold to retail investors and might trade at a higher price than the equivalent convertible subordinated debenture. The Choice Made and the Aftermath The proposed Arley unit was sold in the form described in the case on November 14, 1984. Management had hoped that the units could be described as equity, but Arley’s accountants had argued that the securities would have to be accounted for on a line entitled â€Å"Common stock subject to repurchase under Rights,† which fell between the debt and equity accounts on the Arley balance sheet. The operating performance of the company and the performance of its stock price following the offering were both disappointing. Earnings per share fell (versus the similar quarter in the prior year) for five successive quarters immediately following the offering (Exhibit TN-1). The  price of the Arley units fell after the offering, and did not recover to $8.00/unit for fifteen months (Exhibit TN-2). The right traded well below the anticipated level of $1.50. Trading volume in the units and common shares combined averaged only about 50,000 per month, or about 1,500 per trading day. Vo lume in the rights averaged only 1,000 per trading day. In July, 1986, Arley management announced that they had agreed to accept a leveraged buyout offer at $10.00/share for all of the company’s common stock from a group of middle-level managers at the company. In May, 1985, a similar offering was made by Gearhart Industries which raised $85 million at a premium of 23% above its then common stock price of $10.75/share. This offering featured five put dates at one-year intervals from one to six years following the offering date. The company also had the option to honor the put (at a price which escalated above the $13.25/unit issue price at the rate of 10%/ year) in common stock or preferred stock as well as subordinated debt. The option to satisfy the guarantee with an equity security removed the need to characterize the security as anything other than equity for accounting purposes. Gearhart’s stock price collapsed after the offering. The right was designed to put a floor under the value of the Gearhart unit at the $13.25 offering price but this obviously was not the case as shown in Exhibit TN-3. The Arley and Gearhart cases are good examples of situations where the risk of default can enter significantly into the value of a put option. Here, it is when the put is to the company itself rather than to a third party of high credit quality. Exhibit TN-1 Arley Merchandise Corporation Earnings Per Share by Calendar Quarter, 1983-1986 1983 1984 1st Quarter .20 2nd Quarter .33 .20 .25 4th Quarter .30 *.28 1986 .16 .20 .08 .22 .20 op yo 3rd Quarter 1985 * First Earnings Report following Initial Public Offering. November 1984 Share + Right 5 1/2 1/2 January 1985 6 1/2 1/2 February 6 1/8 N.A. March 6 7/8 1/8 7 April 6 1/2 1/8 6 5/8 May 6 3/4 1/8 6 7/8 June 6 3/8 1/8 6 1/2 July 6 1/8 3/8 6 1/2 August 5 7/8 5/8 6 1/2 September 5 3/4 3/4 6 1/2 October 5 3/4 1 1/8 6 7/8 tC op yo December 6 7 N.A. November 6 7/8 6 7/8 December 5 7/8 3/4 6 5/8 January 1986 5 7/8 1 1/4 7 1/8 February 6 7/8 N.A. N.A. 7 7/8 1/8 8 7 7/8 1/8 8 March April November 1985 7 1/4 4 1/8 December 7 5/8 3 3/8 January 1986 5 1/4 4 7/8 February 4 3/8 6 March 3 3/4 6 April 2 5/8 3 3/4 6 3/8 May 3 1/4 4 1/4 7 1/2 Share + Right 11 3/8 11 10 1/8 10 3/8 9 3/4 Appendix Comparables and sensitivity analysis Normally, students encountering options are given either historical or implied volatility data. In this instance, as Arley does not yet have publicly traded stock, neither of these standard sources of data is available. However, the case does give data on a set of comparable firms; none had traded options, so all of the data given is historical volatilities. The instructor can engage students on the issue of how to use this volatility data. The average volatility ranges from 18% to 39%, and averages 28% for the most recent volatility and 29% for the average volatility over the prior five years. Yet the assignment question asks the student to use a 40% volatility. Why would Arley probably have a higher volatility than the average home furnishing manufacturer; more generally, what would drive volatility? Students may recognize that volatility should be related to fundamental business risk, which in turn would be related to the instability of supply  and demand, as well as variable competition. More narrowly, one might expect that firms with higher fixed costs might experience higher volatility as well as firms with greater debt, as operating or financial leverage would amplify movements in firm value for shocks in the underlying business. They might also expect that smaller firms might have greater volatility, in part due to lower scale economies. An especially diligent student might calculate the relationships between the volatilities in Exhibit 4 with firm size (market value of equity plus firm value of debt), firm leverage (debt divided by market size), or profitability. Using average volatility as a measure, she would find the coefficients on these relationships to be directionally correct (higher volatilities on smaller firms, more levered firms and less profitable firms), but in an OLS framework, none are close to conventional significance levels. Given the uncertainty in volatilities, students might calculate the sensitivity of option values to various levels of volatility. The table below shows this sensitivity for various volatilities as well as for various maturities. Note: this table uses the two-year risk free rate from Exhibit 7 (11.14%) which is quoted on a bond-equivalent yield basis, so the numbers will vary slightly from those in the text. VOLATILITY RANGE 25% 30% 35% 1.07 $ 1.20 $ 1.33  $ 0.88 $ 1.06 $ 1.24  $ 0.73 $ 0.93 $ 1.13   $ 0.61 $ 0.81 $ 1.02  $ 0.51 $ 0.71 $ 0.92  $ 25% 0.39 $ 0.94  $ 1.45  $ 1.92  $ 2.36  $ 30% 0.52  $ 1.12  $ 1.65  $ 2.13  $ 2.56  $ 35% 0.65  $ 1.29  $ 1.85  $ 2.34  $ 2.76  $ 40% 0.78  $ 1.47  $ 2.05  $ 2.54  $ 2.97  $ 45% 1.59  $ 1.59  $ 1.52  $ 1.43  $ 1.33  $ 50% 1.72  $ 1.76  $ 1.71  $ 1.63  $ 1.53  $ 45% 0.91  $ 1.65  $ 2.24  $ 2.75  $ 3.18  $ 50% 1.04 1.82 2.43 2.95 3.38 40%  $ 1.46  $ 1.41  $ 1.33  $ 1.23  $ 1.12  $ Do No tC PUTS $1.41 20% 1 $ 0.95 2 $ 0.70 3 $ 0.53 4 $ 0.41 5 $ 0.32 ^Time to maturity CALLS $1.47 20% 1 $ 0.27 2 $ 0.76 3 $ 1.25 4 $ 1.72 5 $ 2.17 rP os t