Health and Psychology

I received a great quote in an email. 

"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."  Martin Luther King, Jr.

That's true.  It's also true about work stress.  There is often a lot of ambiguity and lack of communication at work.  There's a simple formula for fixing work stress.  First take a job you understand and can do well.  Have due diligence when you approach a job.  Make sure that you know who ...

I have a sign up at my office at the Westwood Counseling Center.  There's a flying pig over the sign that suggests both the aspirational nature of the saying and the impossibility of living up to it.  It says that "My mission is to inspire people to be their best self and to inspire others to bring out the best in the people they come in contact with and to inspire them as well.  Nothing can stand in my way.  There is always a way.  There is always time."

All over the television are ads designed to get patients to ask their physicians about whether specific medications may be "right" for them.  This type of direct marketing is influencing patient care, and is starting to creep into hard news stories where the the info-tizing (advertizing presented as information) may be confusing to some patients.

A recent news story on women's health was promoting the use of a specific lab test to evaluate heart disease.  The infor...

The new box came in the mail.  It's a treatment program for dyslexia based on neuroplasticity theories.  The day I got it, a client called telling me they wanted an assessment because they are "hopelessly dyslexic." It was the second person to use that term this month.  I don't think of anyone as "hopelessly" anything.

I didn't get the program for a specific client, although I think many of my clients would benefit from it. I got it for me, because one of the ...

A lot of students are entering into summer with the prospect of hoping that tutoring may help them perform better in school.  There is an idea that additional study will improve reading, spelling, math, attention, memory, or organization skills.  Unfortunately for the 15 to 20% of students with learning disorders, or the 10 to 15% of students with acquired neurological disorders, additional time spent studying may not result in any additional improvement in learning.

The term ...

One of my students was asking me how many hours a week I'm working.  I think the question stemmed from the fact that I'm seen at school between 8 and 12 hours a day four days a week and the students know it's not my primary job.  So I've been working about 90 hours a week.  The student asked if I was worried about burn out.  Nope, not at all.

Burn out comes from not only doing too much, but doing things that aren't replenishing.  I have some work that pays my mo...

What is the purpose of psychological testing?

If you have a question about how somene thinks, how they get along, how they can do in school or how they can improve relationships, then psychological testing may be able to provide a lot of information in a brief period of time.  Often people come to an office wanting a specific test.  This is such a disservice to them and to the practice of psychology.  So in my explanation to people I explain it's like going to...

Well it's been a busy few weeks.  I've increased my work at The Chicago School of Professional Psychology, have opened a new office location in Santa Clarita, California and have taken on a delightful psychological assistant who will be working with me to expand the range of services I can offer.  

The new office in Santa Clarita is at 28494 Westinghouse Place, Suite 214, Santa Clarita, CA 91355.  It's a lovely atrium building with plenty of parking.

Maria...

Gardening is probably genetic in my family.  Every single member of my biological family gardens.  My adoptive family hired gardeners.  I was the only person that really liked plants and wanted to grow them.  So I thought gardening was something most people didn't do. My adoptive father had studied medicine made from plants when he was in school.  Once I moved out he gave me all his old textbooks on pla...

Psychological Assessment is a complex field.  I get calls asking what I charge for an assessment.  I have a fee schedule posted on this website but it's complicated.  What I need to know to estimate a cost of an assessment is what the nature of the referral question is and where the assessment is to take place.  So if I have a simple assessment such as "My child is doing this behavior.  Can you tell me if something is wrong with him or her?"  That's something tha...