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...

I love my iPad.  I use the medical applications in my work frequently and other professionals often ask what I've recently downloaded.  So here are my most frequently used medical applications:

1.  MedPage

2. NEJM

3. Medical News

4. HD brain

5. ICD 9 Consult

6. Universal DrSpeaker

7. TinnitusTrainer

8. 3D Brain

9. NeuroSuite

10. EMSG (Medical Spanish)

11. HDSystemEndocrine

12. WebMD

13. Ep...

Here are the top 10 resolutions for 2011:

1.  Spend more time with family and friends

2.  Exercise more

3.  Lose weight

4.  Stop smoking

5.  Stop drinking

6.  Get out of debt

7.  help others

8.  Get organized

9.  Enjoy life more

10.  Learn something new

If your resolutions are on this list then psychology can help with many of them.

According to the National Institute for Mental Health, antidepressant medications or cognitive behavioral therapy generally require six to eight weeks to have an effect. That's due to how long it takes to increase seratonin in the brain.  In the past five years, ketamine and scopolamine have been shown to reduce depression experimentally, including thoughts of suicide, within six hours.

This past year saw the first identification of...

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...

I'm starting to think that I should start every single clinical health psychology evaluation with a detailed examination of what someone eats and drinks and just save myself some time.

I usually ask people why they came to see me and review their current medical condition, treatments, issues with their treatment, family history, and past experience with psychology and health psychology or any therapy and any experience with alternative care and then by session 2 or 3 ...

Most people will have some form of pain in their lives.  There are a couple of types of pain.

Acute Pain

Acute pain begins suddenly and is usually sharp in quality. It serves as a warning of disease or a threat to the body.  It usually diappears when the cause of the pain has been treated or resolved.  Acute pain may be caused by many events or circumstances, including:

• Surgery
• Broken bones
• Dental work