Whole Foods Trends

Whole Foods Market, the world’s largest retail chain of organic and natural foods supermarket was founded in the year 1980, from what was initially a local supermarket for health and natural food stuff and products. For nearly three decades now, since its inception, Whole Foods Market has proved to be a leader in the supply of natural and organic foods across the United States.Advertising We will write a custom case study sample on Whole Foods Trends specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More The company is widely recognized for its constant ability to supply food products that are free from preservatives and ingredients, and also for their stringent standards to sustain agricultural practices in the country. The company’s unique mission in business is stipulated by its organizational motto, which bears the slogan, ‘Whole Foods, Whole People, Whole Planet.’ This paper provides an in-depth analysis of the trends ap plied by the company in retailing organic foods and its competitive power in the market as it is observed from the provided case. The organic food sector has shown consistent growth in the past several years. Some of the key factors contributing to this abundant growth would include more consumers getting informed through education and conscious concerns of health that processed food products are likely to bring to humans. These practices have further facilitated developments in the sector over the time as mainstream supermarkets continue to utilize the available opportunities to diversify their selection of organic and natural products. Some of the most common trends pertaining the retail of organic food products in the industry include the ups and downs within the farming sector, concerns of the environment, and concern of healthy lifestyles. All these trends would have a significant impact in Whole Foods Market. Uncertain climatic patterns for instance, would negatively influence the supplies of the products in the market, leading to shortages in case of a bad season. More importantly unavoidable weather situations such as tornadoes and hurricanes can also occur anytime, contributing to loss of crops. Regarding environmental concerns, consumers tend to believe that organic products come with positive effects towards the conservation of the environment. It is also understandable that people are now paying more attention than ever before, to what they ingest. In that case, the necessary steps are being applied in diverse settings to promote healthier lifestyle for individuals and families.Advertising Looking for case study on business economics? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Whole Foods Market is making up and down attempts to establish major suppliers of organic supplies to cater for all chains and stores across the states. Food 2008 is a major player in the American food industry. Competition of th e key players in the American food industry has increased rampantly in the past few years, owing to the heightening demand for organic and natural food products. Most Whole Food products target all categories of people in the society. These products have continued to attract increasing consumer concerns from across the states owing to their unique market standards. It is easier to evaluate the competitive environment of the company using Michael Porter’s competitive forces that shape competition strategy. The five forces as observed by Porter include bargaining power of consumers, threat of new entrants in the market, suppliers bargaining power, competitive rivalry, and substitute products. Bargaining Power of Consumers The company is known for its commitment and involvement in charity missions among other community citizenship activities. More importantly, all these would happen as the firm continues to maintain its quality standards on all their products. In that case, the firm’s customers have less bargaining power since their demands and requirements are appropriately catered for and in the most charming manners. However, owing to the increasing number of players in the food industry, buyers are likely to learn new ways in the long run, thus gaining added advantage on negotiating leverage. This way, consumers would tend to shift to other vendors on realization that they can always land on an equivalent product from the market. Threat of New Entrants in the Market As it would be observed, the initial concept of Whole Food Market was more innovative. However, current market trends are pushing the firm far from the scope of innovation and into mainstream. According to USDA, the overall production of organic food products has been going up since the year 1990 in all regions, making organic food products the fastest advancing segment of agriculture. Rapid growth of market, coupled with minimal barriers to entry has attracted many participants in t he industry, thus leading to stiff competition in the market. Suppliers Bargaining Power Just like any other firm, Whole Foods Market largely depends on a wide range of suppliers for its products. In most cases, some of these supplier groups have been active and powerful in determining the company’s competitive strategy in a number of ways. For instance, much attention is given to food processors in the country, which enjoy all the bargaining power. Only a very little percentage of farms are used for organic and natural food products.Advertising We will write a custom case study sample on Whole Foods Trends specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Competitive Rivalry Whole Foods Market faces great rivalry presently, from the many competitors in the food industry. In normal circumstances, some of the common ways through which the firm is affected by rivalry include introductions of new products and services, improvement of services , advertising campaigns and price discounting among other implications. The fact that competitors in the food industry are numerous and roughly equal in power is enough to increase the intensity of rivalry or competition in the market and this reduces the productivity levels of Whole Foods Market. Substitute Products The company faces a high threat of substitutes from conventional food products that are processed artificially in the country. For example, many people in the U.S. would tend to see fast foods such as snacks and drinks as more convenient, compared to other food stuffs that are made at home. Most of these fast foods are artificially processed and preserved, and they pose serious threats to the firm’s productivity. In most cases, these cheap preserved foodstuffs would tend to offer a significant price-performance trade-off to the natural and organic food products offered by the company. In such circumstances, it is easy for buyers to turn to conventional retailers, as there is no cost for doing so. In this regard, these substitutes have continued to limit the company’s profits and earnings in normal times. Competition from major rivals in the industry remains the most significant threat to the firm. This also includes the stiff competition posed by conventional stores across the states. According to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), the year 2000 would see most conventional supermarkets in the country sell more organic food products, compared to the country’s natural food stores. Even though a recognized leader in the supply of organic and natural food products, the company continues to suffer the cost of a high market competition from existing and new ventures in the market. In order to successfully combat this threat, the company should adopt an effective strategy that incorporates three significant tactics: Market, Product, and Operational. In regard with marketing and product, things such as quality product s, fair prices and effective ways of promotion would apply. On the other hand, operational strategy would incorporate the use of effective and exclusive store operations for improved outcomes.Advertising Looking for case study on business economics? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Whole Foods SWOT Analysis Strengths Huge variety items/products Marketer of nationally known food products Outstanding experience in the market Large stores Weaknesses Low advertisement budget Higher prices Location of most stores in affluent regions Lack of coupons in promotional offers Opportunities Effective advertisement and promotion to attract more customers Introduction of rewards systems for consumers Expansion of private label selection Introduction of cost-effective ways that will favor customers Threats Bad or uncertain economy Availability of local farmers Conventional stores and supermarkets regular changes in government regulations on natural and organic food products It is possible for Whole Foods to achieve a sustained competitive advantage over its competitors in the market simply by making effective use of these strengths and opportunities. For example, the company deals with a variety of products that are nationally accepted as foods, and this could be a c ertain way of attracting and retaining huge numbers of consumers in the market. More importantly, the company has great business potential considering their large stores located allover the country. These facilities can be utilized in a number of useful ways, apart from only acting as selling stores. Holding exhibitions and educational forums regarding the products on sale to potential consumers are some of the useful ways of utilizing the stores. Effective promotional strategies would help in publicizing the company’s products whereby the introduction of a reward would play a significant role in the attraction and retention of consumers in the company’s products. This case study on Whole Foods Trends was written and submitted by user Enzo O. to help you with your own studies. You are free to use it for research and reference purposes in order to write your own paper; however, you must cite it accordingly. You can donate your paper here.

The Edmund Fitzgerald essays

The Edmund Fitzgerald essays One of the greatest ships to sail the Great Lakes was the Edmund Fitzgerald. The Edmund Fitzgerald had sailed for many years until it sank in 1975. The Edmund Fitzgerald was built in 1958; it was 729 feet long and weighed 13,632 tons (Stonehouse 13). This was the largest ship to sail the Great Lakes until 1971(Stonehouse 13). The Edmund Fitzgerald had a sister ship called the Arthur B. Homer, which was the second biggest ship on the great lakes (Stonehouse 13). The Edmund Fitzgerald had a 7,000 horsepower steam turbine engine that could push the ship at around 16 miles an hour (Stonehouse 13). Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company of Milwaukee owned the ship. Aboard the ship there were 29 crew members, the captain, 3 licensed deck officers, a chief engineer, 4 licensed engineering officers, and 20 unlicensed personnel (U.S. Marine Reports). The ships captain was Ernest Mcsorley who was a master of the Great Lakes and had 44 years sailing them (Stonehouse 25). The ship had sailed the great lakes for many years until that day in 1975 when it was never seen again. The Edmund Fitzgerald had left a port in Superior, Wis. At around 2:15 pm on November 09, 1975 (Stonehouse 24). The ship was fully fueled and loaded for its trip to Detroit Michigan. The boat had traveled about two hours across lake superior when it became in sight of another boat, the Arthur M. Anderson. Around 7:00 Pm the Edmund Fitzgerald started to come across bad weather conditions and had to change its course. The Fitzgerald and the Anderson both changed course and started heading to the lakes more northern waters, which was called the fall north route (Stonehouse 25). The two ships had traveled along the same course for many hours and the storm was still very strong. The two ships were battling waves of 10-12 feet, winds of up to fifty knots, and even snow (Stonehouse 26). The Anderson was about 16 miles away from the Fitzgerald when th ...

International Business Strategy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words - 1

International Business Strategy - Essay Example mmon things like culture, similar administrative issues such as free trade which has seen a boom in economic trade across regional countries over the past decades. According to the article, even the most successful multinational companies’ history is linked to their regions of origin. There are five different approaches to this regional strategy namely: home based strategy, portfolio strategy which seeks to build a regional portfolio, the hub strategy which is concerned with building regional bases, platform strategy which is about customisation of products as well as the mandate strategy which focuses on specialisation of particular products to the other regions. If properly implemented, all these strategies can add a competitive advantage to the organisation given that they are mainly concerned with improving efficiency in manufacturing as well as trade among regions and ultimately global markets. Popular brands across the globe can be identified with their regions of origin. Thus, it can be noted that regions represent just one way of aggregating across borders to achieve greater efficiencies than would be achievable with a country-by-country approach which is one notable interesting part of this regional strategy. What is interesting in reading this article is the fact business develops from grassroots level and it develops across regions until reaching a global stage. Most developed global businesses evolved from regional levels and they can be identified with their regions of origin. Indeed, I agree with this given that different products that are sold globally have traceable origins which can be linked to their regions. However, one notable difficulty encountered from a critical reading of this article is that there is no universally agreed definition of what constitutes a region. A region can be intra-national or international and this distinction is not clearly defined in this context. It can be noted that some Japanese companies like Toyota are

CBRN Chemical Biological Radiological Nuclear weapons Essay - 4

CBRN Chemical Biological Radiological Nuclear weapons - Essay Example in the fields of nuclear science and technology, a wide range of destructive weapons have been introduced that can be used to cause massive destruction in the targeted areas. If we talk about the United States of America, we can say that the United States has been on the red list of the terrorists for a long time because of its efforts towards establishing and stabilizing democracy and peace in the world. This paper includes a discussion of nuclear weapons as the weapons of mass destruction, as well as some non-state actors that pose this threat. Along with this, the paper also includes a discussion on the ways this threat can be mitigated by the government of the United States in the event that suspected states actually make an attack. The thesis statement for this paper is that ‘there is a continuous threat of the use of nuclear weapons by Al-Qaeda (non-state actor) and Iran (state actor) against the forces of the United States; hence, a well-planned strategy should be followed to mitigate the potential threat’. The type of weapons of mass destruction to be discussed in this paper is nuclear bomb. Nuclear bombs have been the most deadly weapon of mass destruction since their development. These bombs have been used against Japan during the Second World War in the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki causing thousands of casualties. The countries that possess these weapons include the United States of America, the United Kingdom, Russia, France, China, North Korea, India, and Pakistan. Among all these states, Pakistan is considered the most risky nuclear state because of presence of Al-Qaeda terrorist group and some other extremist and terrorist groups in the country. Pakistan is also one of those states that have not signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) that ensures the peaceful use of nuclear energy. Moreover, the large-scale presence of Al-Qaeda in the region makes Pakistan the most risky and dreadful nuclear state of the world that can pose severe

Wachovia Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Wachovia - Research Paper Example All the major cause will be expansively presented in this paper. The valuable lessons learnt from the crisis will also be thrown light upon in this paper. Wachovia, Bear Stearns, AIG, Lehmann Brothers, Northern Rock, Goldman Sachs are some elite names that suffered the most because of the economic crisis also known as recession. Wachovia was once the fourth largest bank in America but it could not sustain the wrath of recession and was taken over by Wells Fargo in the year 2008. Lehmann brothers filed for bankruptcy while AIG and a few other elites just hung in there with the skin of their teeth. This economic crisis is still having repercussions on countries like Greece and Spain; the whole of Euro Zone is facing a financial turmoil. There are a few other countries that have been not so severely affected by the same. The crisis triggered off because of unchecked debt, banks kept issuing loans to people who invested heavily in buying assets, several things were taken for granted but when proved otherwise there was hardly a place in the world to hide. Overvaluation in real estate is perhaps the biggest cause of the current economic crisis, it is better known as the subprime crisis in the US. The likes of Lehmann Brothers and other financial services went bust because they kept issuing credit to the people who thought the property price would increase and they would be easily able to pay off the debt that they are borrowing. It did not turn out that way and there was a short of equity, this is exactly why the financial institutions went bankrupt. The overvaluation is the biggest factor that caused the current economic crisis. Factors like bad income tax practices have added insult to injury, bad mortgage lending also contributed heavily to this current economic crisis. â€Å"The way to address the root cause is to let house prices drop to where an average house is within the means of an average household.   (Or, alternatively, boost the income of the average h ousehold to the point that they can afford an average house.   But that's very hard.   Letting houses prices go on falling, although painful for everyone who owns a house or who has lent money to someone who owns a house, is very easy.)† (Root Cause of the Financial Crisis) The UK housing market was also greatly affected because of recession. The impact of the global economic crisis on UK property companies was dire. Previously well performing firms in terms of turnover and profits experienced drastic falls in profits and even losses. Tightened lending conditions and dips in confidence in the UK housing sector translated to inactivity in business and thus reduced turnovers, hindered growth and difficult operations. In the general pattern as the rest of the economy, property firms found it untenable to maintain workforce numbers as lack of activity and the heavy toll of remuneration on available resources. Reduced spending propensities and the lack of credit in the housing sector left most of these companies’ futures hanging in the balance. There is also the question of how the entire properties sector and the property companies have set out to recover from the economic crisis. Concerns also arise in terms of how well the instituted strategies can buffer such firms against an occurrence of another financial downturn in the future. The content analysis reveals that the property companies went through severe impacts on their management dispositions as well as on their employees. The managers were

Comparison Of Land Line And Mobile Phones

Comparison Of Land Line And Mobile Phones No one can ever forget Alexander Graham Bell, who is credited as the inventor of Telephone. With innovation and advancement in technology, the simple two way communicating device has taken a new form popularly known as mobile phone. We have reached an era where it is very common to hear words like I cant live without mobile phone. Cell phone has become a part of our daily life.. Let it be business deals, any personal work or meetings everything today can be done with the help of mobile phone. A Mobile Phone, Cell Phone or Hand Phone is an electronic device which lets the user to be mobile and make or receive telephone calls across a wide geographical area, served by many public cells. The calls could be made to and received from either a fixed line or another mobile. Mobile phone uses a wireless network for communication i.e. a network which is which is not connected by cables of any kind. Base Station (BS).Each base station is in turn is connected to a central hub and is controlled by this switching office, also known as Mobile Switching Center (MSC). MSC is nothing else but a computerized center that is responsible for connecting calls, recording call information and billing. The communication between all the base stations and the telephone central office is coordinated by MSC. PSTN connects all conventional telephone switching centers with MSCs throughout the world. Also, the cell size is not fixed and can be increased or decreased depending on the population of the area. Generally, the radius is kept 1 to 12 mi. In comparison to low density areas, high density areas require more geographically smaller cells to meet the traffic demands. Once the cell is determined, the cell size is optimized so that the adjacent cells signals are not interfered. For this purpose, the transmission power of each cell is kept low to prevent its signal from interfering with those of other cells. Block Diagram of cellular Network Difference between Fixed Line and Mobile Phone In case of public switched telephone network (PSTN), the landline trunked lines (trunks) are used for transfer of information. These trunks comprise of fiber optic cables, copper cables, microwave links and satellite links. The network configuration in the PSTN is virtually static as the changes in the network connections would be required only when the subscriber would change the residence. Wireless networks, on the other hand are highly dynamic, wherein the network configuration is to be rearranged every time the subscriber moves into the coverage region of new base station. Unlike fixed networks which are difficult to change, wireless networks must reconfigure themselves for users within small intervals of time (on the fraction of seconds) to provide roaming and imperceptible handoffs between calls as a mobiles moves about. The available channel bandwidth for fixed networks can be increased by installing high capacity cables whereas wireless networks are constrained by RF cellular bandwidth provided for each user. Frequency Reuse Principle Increasing the capacity and coverage area is the key feature of any cellular network and this can be accomplished by re-using the frequency. It is true that to avoid interference, neighboring cells should not use same frequency but as the frequencies available is limited, they can be reused. A frequency reuse pattern is nothing else but a collection of N cells arranged together where N is the reuse factor, in which each cell uses a unique set of frequencies. The frequencies can be reused whenever the pattern is repeated. F1,F2, F3,and F4 in the above diagram define the pattern with the reuse factor of 4.The cells that use the same frequencies(ones with the same frequency number) are known as reusing cells. Transmitting and Receiving Calls Whenever user makes a call from cell phone, the mobile station searches for a band with a strong signal to setup a channel and send the data to the closest base station using that channel. The base station then connects to Mobile Switching Center (MSC) and passes the data to it. MSC further passes the data to the telephone central office. A connection is established and result is sent back to MSC, if the called party is available. At this point MSC assigns an unused voice channel to the call and mobile station automatically adjusts its tuning to the new channel so that communication can take place. Whenever a call is made to a mobile phone , the central office of the telephone from where the call has been initiated sends the number to the MSC.MSC in turn sends the query signals to each cell in process to find out the location of mobile station. This process is called paging. Once the mobile station is found MSC sends the ringing signal to it and after the station answers, a voice channel is assigned to the call for the communication to begin. Handoff The process of transferring the connected or on going call from one channel to another in order to prevent the termination of call is known as Handoff or Handover. Whenever the mobile station moves from one cell to another and signal becomes weak, handover is required. MSC monitors the level of signal every few seconds and if it finds the strength of signal diminishing then it searches for a new cell wherein better communication can take place. There are two types of handoff: Hard Handoff: In this case, a mobile station communicates only with one base station. When the mobile station moves from one cell to another, the connection with the target cell is established only when the connection from the source is broken. Thus, such handovers are also known as break-before-make. Soft Handoff: In this case, a mobile station can communicate with two base stations so there is no need of breaking from the source cell to make a connection to a target cell. Instead, a mobile station may continue with a new connection while retaining the older one for a while. Thus, such handovers are known as make-before-break. Access Technologies Frequency Division Multiple Access (FDMA): FDMA is a technique in which the spectrum is divided into frequencies and is assigned to users. The channel is assigned to only one subscriber or user at a time i.e. A channel will remain blocked until the call which was initially made has completed. A full duplex FDMA requires two channels, one for sending or transmitting the data and another for receiving. FDMA technology was used in first generation systems, which were analog systems. Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA): TDMA splits each frequency into time slots thus improving spectrum capacity. In TDMA technology, each user is allowed to access the entire radio frequency channel for the short period of a call. The same frequency channel can be shared by other users as well at different time slots. The base station continually switches from user to user on the channel. The second generation mobile cellular network is dominated by TDMA. Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA): CDMA simply means communicating with different codes. It allows all the users to occupy all channels at the same time thus increasing the spectrum capacity. Each voice or data call is assigned a unique code, so that calls could be differentiated from each other while being carried over the same spectrum. In case of CDMA terminals can communicate with various base stations using the feature known as soft hand-off. Mobile Generations: Evolution from 1G to 3G With the rapid advances in technology and the greater selection of new wireless services and applications the mobile has grown through various generations fulfilling the increasing demands of its users. First Generation (1G) mobile phones were analog which had only voice facility. Additional facilities like messaging and data services, fax were introduced in digital phones known as Second Generation (2G) mobile phones. The third generation mobile phones (3G) which are being talked about a lot nowadays, includes high speed of internet browsing, picture and video messaging facilities. In short, multimedia facilities when added to the second generation mobiles (2G) gave birth to the third Generation mobile phones. First Generation Mobile System: The cellular networks were introduced in 1980s and since then it has not stopped growing. The first generation mobiles were analog systems with the capability of transmitting at the speed of 9.6 kbps max. At that time there was no worldwide coordination for the development of technical standards worldwide. AMPS (Advanced Mobile Phone System) was invented in Bell Labs and was installed in United States in 1982.When used in England and Japan it was known as TACS and MCS-L1.In 1G mobile systems roaming was not possible and efficient use of frequency spectrum was not there. Second Generation Mobile System: ETSI was created in Europe in mid 1980s to standardize the mobile communication sector. This standardization lead to the beginning of new network which was based on digital technology and popularly known as Global System for Mobile Communication (GSM).GSM was actually introduced to add more services to the actual network as well as meet the requirements of data traffic. GSM consists of the following three main components: 1. Base Station Subsystem 2.Network Subsystem 3.Network Management System Base Station Subsystem: It consists of Base Transreceiver Station (BTS), Base Station Controller (BSC) and Transcoder sub-multiplexer (TCSM).BTS is the network component that manages the interface between mobile station and the network. Mobile terminals are connected to the BTS through the air interface. BTS makes use of omnidirectional or directional antennas for transmission and reception. BSC provides major functions like handover and managing radio resources. Network Subsystem: Network subsystem is basically an interface between the public network and GSM network. All the communication between mobile users and other users (ISDN, fixed, mobile) is managed by NSS. The databases of subscriber and is also kept with NSS to manage users mobility. Various components of NSS are described below: 1) Mobile Switching Center (MSC): It is the most important component that performs switching functions necessary for interconnections between mobile users and other users (fixed or mobile). 2) GMSC: To connect the cellular network with PSTN, a gateway known as GMSC is used. 3) Home Location Register (HLR): All the information about the subscriber such as the coverage area, services provided to the user, current location and mobile equipment status etc is maintained in this register. The database remains same until the termination of subscription. 4) Visitor Location Register (VLR): The information of subscriber is uploaded in this register whenever he enters the coverage region so that necessary services could be provided to him. VLR of the new region is updated with the database whenever the subscriber moves to the new region. VLR is dynamic in nature as it keeps the data of the subscriber temporarily and interacts with HLR for recording the data. 5) Authentication Center (AUC): It takes care of the security by providing standards for encryption and authentication of users. Encryption key is kept in mobile equipment as well as AUC to protect the network from unauthorized access. 6) Equipment Identity Register (EIR): All mobiles are identified using IMEI (International Mobile Equipment Identity) number which is written on the battery of the phone. EIR keeps the list of all valid IMEI number and whenever a call is initiated, the network checks the IMEI number and call is connected if the number is valid. No calls are allowed from unauthorized terminals. 7) GSM Interworking Unit (GIWU): GIWU is an element or a unit that is a combination of hardware and software and synchronizes the information. It lets the user to choose between message and speech mode by acting as an interface to different networks. Network Management System: The third element of GSM basically monitors the different elements and functions of the network. It performs the following main tasks: 1. Network Monitoring 2. Network Development 3. Network Measurement 4. Fault Management NMS continuously monitors the performance of the network to ensure it runs smoothly. The performance can be measured by collecting the data from the individual elements for analysis and storing it in the database. The network operator can then compare the data collected in the database with the one which was actually expected. If any fault occurs, the fault alarm is generated .These faults are then required to be corrected either by NMS or manually. Interfaces in GSM Different interfaces are used in GSM. These are Air , Abis and A interface.Air interface is an interface between Mobile station and Base Transreceiver Station (BTS),Abis connects Base Transreceiver Station (BTS) to Base Station Controller (BSC), and A interface is the one which is present between TCSM and MSC. GSM Architecture Value added services such as voice mail and short message services (sms) were added to GSM along with intelligent services like Pre-paid and fraud management. Later on, GPRS (General Packet Radio Services) was introduced so that packet switched data service could be provided. SGSN (Serving GPRS) and GGSN (Gateway GPRS) were new elements which were introduced in the existing system so that packets could be sent to air interface. IP routers, firewall servers and Domain name servers were also used along with these elements. Finally, to increase the data rate better coding methods were used. Third Generation Mobile System http://it.med.miami.edu/x1645.xml

Music Therapy for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Essay -- Post-traumat

1. INTRODUCTION â€Å"A Person cannot be diagnosed with PTSD without having experienced a traumatic event.† (Hunt and McHale, 2010, p.13). The purpose of this essay is to discuss how Music Therapy can be used to help veterans suffering from PTSD to cope with their traumatic experiences and manage their symptoms. I will define PTSD, then in further detail explore and explain how music therapy can be used to treat and manage the symptoms of PTSD. Finally, I will evaluate if Music Therapy is a suitable intervention for helping veterans treat the symptoms of PTSD. This essay will explore the perspectives of music therapists including Julie Sutton and Gary Ansdell and research of Psychologists Paul Gilbert, Nigel Hunt and Sue Mchale. 2.1 DEFINITION OF PTSD Psychologists Hunt and McHale (2010, p.20) state that according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM): In order for someone to be classified as having PTSD, there must be: 1) a traumatic event 2) intrusive re-experiencing 3) avoidance and general numbing 4) hyper arousal 5) problems stemming from these symptoms at work and home 6) a minimum duration of one month This definition is helpful in providing a music therapist with a clear classification system to decide whether a veteran being referred to them, is displaying symptoms related to PTSD. 2.2 THE USE OF ACTIVE LISTENING TO PROMOTE DIAPHRAMATIC BREATHING According to Whealin, De Carvhalo and Vega (2008, pp.22-25): When we have survived extremely stressful or dangerous situations, the amygdala can start to be overactive. That is why when veterans return from war, they often feel alarmed even when they are not in danger. There are a number of skills you can ... ...a Kingsley Publishers, pp.13-75. Bunt, L. and Hoskyns, S. (2002) The Handbook of Music Therapy. London: Routledge, pp.190-195. Bunt, L. (1994) Music Therapy: An Art Beyond Words. London: Routledge, pp.171-175. Bright, G. (1997) Wholeness in Later Life. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, pp.119-123. Gilbert, P. (2010) Compassion Focused Therapy. London: Routledge, pp.135-145. Hunt, N.C. and McHale, S. (2010) Understanding Post Traumatic Stress. London: Sheldon Press, pp. 13-25. Jones, E. and Wessely, S. (2005) Shell Shock to PTSD. Hove: Psychology Press, pp.215-220. Sutton, J.P (2002) Music, Music Therapy and Trauma: International Perspectives. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, pp.231-257. Whealin, J.M., Decarvahlo, L.T. and Edward, M.V. (2008) Clinician’s Guide to Treating Stress After War. New-Jersey: John Wiley and Sons, pp.20-30.