A Child’s Waking Nightmare; life

I’ve chosen perhaps one of the most emotionally draining pursuits you can choose- to provide psychiatric treatment for troubled youth. Some of them are just snotty rich kids who never learned no. But others never learned love; this is where I want to focus.
There are few things that can make me cry, perhaps even things [...]

Work at a Residential Treatment Center

I was again invited to write a post for TroubledTeensBlog, a community blog for the families facing the difficulties of placing their teenager in a residential treatment center. Working at one of the best rtcs in the nation, I felt happy to offer a few lines to explain a bit about what we do (I [...]

New Year 2009: Half-hearted resolutions, etc.

I graduated from BYU. Alumni, that’s me.
I hold a Bachelor of Science degree
(capitalization = looks more impressive)
in
Clinical and Developmental Psychology
w/ a minor in Business Management.
I sold back my books, and old textbooks I had been hoarding away, and all that’s left is to order my cap and gown and walk in April. Under [...]

Psychoanalysis of The Joker

Dark Knight was a smash hit for it’s fame, explosions, and chase scenes, but what really had me on the edge of my seat was perhaps the most riveting villain I had ever met—The Joker. The Joker is a mob-backed terrorist with suicidal tendencies and a textbook sociopath. He is not reasonable, he’s not afraid [...]

Homosexuality according to Dr. Robinson

Transcript of Homosexuality

If any of you are seasoned LDS psychology buffs, chances are you’ve heard of or seen this lecture. Dr. Robinson is an LDS psychotherapist here in Orem who specializes helping LDS men (and women) whom struggle with same-gender attraction. It’s a variation on the theme Nature v Nurture. In counseling with self-identified homosexual [...]

Life Update

Undergrad
So I’m sitting at my desk with my Gmail Calendar open with House episodes in the background. Best show ever. Anydangway, I’m making sure that I have all the assignments from my classes on my schedule. Business Management? Check. Organizational Behavior? Check. Psychology of Personality? Check. Introduction to Sociology? Check. Introduction to Social Work? Check. [...]

DSM IV: Mental Disorders

I am fascinated by the human mind. I have always built my psychological constructs on the belief that in the absence of genetic complications, and maladaptations to environmental stressors people tend to grow and develop normally. When we introduce problematic genetics and stressors the equilibrium could change depending on the individual’s reaction to the [...]

Locus of Control

The psychological locus of control has always been a pet interest of mine. I’ve written a few papers about it and so forth and so on, including one I just whipped up for my Personality Theory class. Obviously being a paper for school it was written to adhere to a critera that hinders interesting ‘blog post’ quality [...]

Troubledteenblog.com

I found this website. It’s a community for families of troubled teens and I found they were asking questions about Heritage Schools where I work. One individual asked about how we deal with difficult children at Heritage and so I wrote a long response that you may find interesting. Maybe not, but if you know [...]

Master’s of Social Work

Licensed clinical social worker: A social worker trained in psychotherapy who helps individuals deal with a variety of mental health and daily living problems to improve overall functioning. A social worker usually has a master’s degree in social work and has studied sociology, growth and development, mental health theory and practice, human behavior/social environment, psychology, [...]

Career Satisfaction

He’s thinking, “I hate my job.”

So as you can imagine I’ve been thinking a lot recently about careers. I have several paths in front of me. In fact, I can still do just about anything I want. Here’s what’s going through my head. I’m going to be doing this job for hours and hours a [...]

Why I don’t like being hit on. Nor dances.

My posts recently have been rather selfish. I write about what interests me and if it turns out to interest you is secondary. So I thought I’d write a post that might be slightly more interesting to you, my readership.

I don’t like being hit on. Don’t get me wrong, it’s flattering, but I don’t enjoy [...]

Suicide

If you are thinking of taking your own life, take a moment and visit one of these sites:

http://www.metanoia.org/suicide/
http://suicide.com/
http://www.suicide.org/

——————————————————————————————-
I had a startling epiphany tonight. It was regarding suicide.
Not mine but read on.

One of the reasons I moved from Blogspot to WordPress is because I have more administrative powers when it came to page development and access [...]

Attack on the Family: Female Body Image

I think this is one of the most tragic, widespread, and potent psychological warfare against the family. Granted I’m a guy and in a sense have no business talking about ‘how hard it is being a girl dealing with body image’. No doubt. However, my closest friends are all girls and I’m a pretty analytical [...]

Brainstorming

Sorry I haven’t blogged recently, I’ve been a bit busy and trying to think of topics to cover. There were a few ideas I thought of, but being a lazy person, when it came down to it, decided not to bother. Looking at other people’s blogs (see Links), it became apparent that people tend to [...]

Psychiatrist: Liberals are clinically insane.

Ha! So some psychiatrist somewhere said that liberals are diagnosable as crazy. I think he was dead serious. I read the article and laughed, maybe you will too.
“A social scientist who understands human nature will not dismiss the vital roles of free choice, voluntary cooperation and moral integrity – as liberals do,” he says. “A [...]

My Mental Illness: Nebuchadnezzar

To me I was a perfectly rational, caring, polite and harmless person. But I was in a psychiatric facility. Most of the time I ‘behaved’ quite well. I never caused problems, never was aggressive to any of the staff or other patients, I even said yes ma’am or no sir. But sometimes, I would [...]

Heritage Schools Residential Treatment Center

I would like to muse on one of the most satisfying things I have done with my life. I worked for a year at the above mentioned facility. To be brief, at-risk teenagers come live at this psychological treatment center: they go to school there, live there, receive basic medical attention there, food, recreation etc. [...]

Psychological Mormonism

My opinions, thoughts, and passions seem to simmer constantly under my skin. From time to time a certain book I read or conversation I have will bring this simmer to a boil, and I begin to expound upon the subject at hand. When this happens, I will blog it not as a way of altruistically [...]

Insurance: 1 Psychotherapy: 0

In the middle of writing a forthcoming blog on psychological Mormonism, I ascended my self-made cyber-soapbox. As I often do. While doing so, my tangent led me to this thought, this … bone to pick before I step off. Insurance companies are ruining psychotherapy.
I’ll try to curtail this as much as my reeling mind allows: [...]