Health and Psychology

Neuropsychological assessment involves an evaluation of the cortex of the brain through psychological and neuropsychologial tests and measures to gain an understanding of how a person is functioning in a variety of areas.  These areas include evaluation of:

• Executive functioning, including planning and organization
  
• Language and speech functioning
• Visual functioning
• Sensory awareness
  
• Motor functioning
• Concept formati...

Psychological assessment is a complex process that strives to clarify how an individual is, how they think, and how they perceive the world and things around them.  The assessment process then will compare this individual to others in known groups for similarities and differences.

I specialize in performing complex assessments.  This uses standardized psychological and neuropsychological test materials, self-report data, and clinical interviewing to generate hypoth...

I like cookbooks--for cooking.  I don't care for cookbook approaches to ethical decision making in psychology.  I literally spend hours every week talking with trusted colleagues about what the right thing is to do in various business, professional and social situations.  I consult often.  i search my own conscience and I explore what my options are and what the results of intended actions might be.

"Just tell me what I should do."  a student of mine...

Well it's a new semester and I'm back at The Chicago School of Professional Psychology in downtown Los Angeles teaching three courses this term.  I'd like to get my students involved in blogging and social networking as professionals.  I think very little time is spent academically in teaching stuents to use social media to educate other people and to share budding ideas to other professionals as well as the general public.

But if psychlogists leave the use of soci...

One of the types of mental health problems I deal with is treatment resistent depression.  Treatment resistant depression is diagnosed when someone has had psychotherapy that was not effective, or has been on several types of medication which were not effective, or had a combination of therapy and medication and the depression returned or never went away in the first place. 

In cases where a mental health issue like anxiety or depression is "treatment resistant" i...

Psychologists learn what to do in therapy as part of an educational process that includes doctoral level of study, internship, residency or post-doctoral fellowship, and passing of a licensure examination.  The Americal Psychological Association has an Ethics Code which serves to provide practitioners both an aspirational element for practice as well as enforceable rules to set the minimal standards under which practice is to take place.

Standards of care exist iin othe...

I read a lot of research articles.  Clients and colleagues send me links to articles.  I listen to television news reports on science often.  There are some common misconceptions about what people understand.  One of the big issues is looking at things that occur together.  If something happens and another thing generally happens the two things may be correlated.  If there are dark clouds in the sky and my car windshield is wet in the morning I may think it was t...

I met a delightful psychologist yesterday at a Los Angles County Psychological Association (LACPA) meeting specializing in providing services to chronic and persistent mentally ill patients.  We spent some time talking after the meeting about the similarites between chronic and persistent mental illness and chronic or undiagnosed physical illness.  We talked about the impact of anxiety, difficulties with compliance with treatment, problems with stimatization, and issues regarding in...

When I was in graduate school I sold my fine and graphic art work.  I continued to sell my work until 1985.  One evening coming home late from work I was mugged.  My glasses were broken into my face and I fell backwards onto concrete momentarily losing my vision.  At the hospital emergency room I was told I had a mild concussion.  Following that event I was not able to differentiate colors adequately.  Although I attempted to rehabilitate my art work, I was no lo...

I teach psychological and neuropsychological assessment and train other psychologists and neuropsychologists in the use of assessment techniques.

Psychological assessment involves the use of standardized psychological test instruments as well as screening measures, surveys, questionnaires, and observations to evaluate psychological functioning of an individual in a variety of areas.  The more common types of psychological assessment are for general intellectual or cogni...